Some of us are not.
Clearly, though, there is one machine that very few of us seem to be able to use effectively.
If there were ever a Republican for President Obama to work with, it was Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. She was one of just three Republicans in the entire Congress to vote for his economic stimulus plan in 2009 and even tried to work with him on health care, but in an interview with ABC's Senior Political Correspondent Jonathan Karl, Snowe makes a remarkable revelation: She hasn't spoken to President Obama in nearly two years.
Snowe said that if she had to grade the President on his willingness to work with Republicans, he would "be close to failing on that point." In fact, Snowe, who was first elected to Congress in 1976, claims that her meetings with President Obama have been less frequent than with any other President.
When she announced suddenly in February that she was not going to run for reelection - after three terms in the US Senate and a previous 14 years in the House of Representatives - colleagues and commentators alike were stunned.
"I think a lot of the frustration frankly in our party, in the Tea Party challenges or even Occupy Wall Street is really a reflection of our failure to solve the major problems in our country," said Snowe. "It's become all about the politics, and not the policy. It's not about governing, it's about the next election."
So has this Congress failed the country on those critical questions?
"Absolutely," Snowe asserted. "You have to sit down and talk to people with whom you disagree," said Snowe. " And that is not what is transpiring at a time when we desperately need that type of leadership."
Sen. Snowe admitted that her party has changed since she entered politics, and that she is a rare moderate in the Republican caucus. That said, she is adamant that her core beliefs are as Republican now as they ever were.
"I haven't changed," she said. "I represent what I think is a traditional Republican… a limited government, fiscal responsibility, strong national defense, individual freedom and liberty."
Snowe's primarly lament, that the process has become all politics and no governing, is, unfortunately, nothing new.
At any given time in our history, the political process, by its nature, has usurped the effort to serve the common good.
What is particularly ominous about Snowe's spin is the undeniable conclusion of its premise. That the collateral damage of the bickering and bitching is now causing genuinely dedicated and committed public servants, regardless of party or platform, to shake heads, roll eyes, throw up hands and walk away.
As one does, at some point, when the machine they are laboring to work with, or around, simply resists any attempt to be fixed and becomes much more hindrance than help.
Common sense, a commodity rarely found on either extreme side of any issue but, most often, more likely found near the center line, practically screams out that what is needed here is the realization that the political/governing machine is beyond repair, beyond a major overhaul, in need of, put bluntly, replacement.
That's obviously the what.
The how, of course, is the Rubik's Cube.
A machine, in the most literal sense, of exquisiste simplicity.
But one that vexes all but the most gifted of users.
The irony, bordering on tragedy, in all of this, of course, is that the founders provided us, a long, long time ago, with a another device that would and could, if used properly, very possibly get the trains running on time once again.
The machine that, in a sense, could control all the others.
The machine that the founders put not in the hands of politicians, but, in fact, in our own.
But, clearly, from the looks of things, we haven't yet mastered it.
The voting machine.
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