Musings of a Patriot

Established Patterns

After a week on vacation it is nice to have a bit of a fresh perspective on life. We are entering a month where we have to close on our old house in Lehi and our new house in Bountiful so there will be plenty to do. Having taken some time off I am ready to dive deeper into my job and be more productive now that I have basically adjusted to the routine of going to work every day and the new dynamics of working for a large organization (Intermountain has 30,000 employees where the largest company I had worked for before had a little over 300).

My time off also re-focused my efforts here as I consider what I am trying to accomplish. (No, this whole site is not simply a personal brain-dump where I can ramble on about anything that I happen to think.) I am going to pick up with the federalist papers and other founding documents that have disappeared from my postings in the last couple of months and I am also going to be more consistent about sharing the vision and efforts of the Downsize D.C. organization.

The more I have read about Downsize D.C. the more I believe that it fits with my vision of what needs to be done to brighten the future prospects of our nation. Downsize D.C. is dedicated to shrinking the federal government – which I think is necessary – but even for those people who disagree with many of their campaigns (and they campaign for legislation – not for legislators) I would submit that their method of providing information and tools to encourage and support individuals in taking action and being involved and informed is precisely the course to creating a healthier political process and a more empowered electorate.

Maybe I am biased, but I honestly believe that an informed, involved, and empowered electorate will naturally lead us back to a system of limited government rather than the system of unlimited governing bureaucracies that we have created over the last century.

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David

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Comments

4 responses to “Established Patterns”

  1. Jim Babka Avatar
    Jim Babka

    Thanks for the mention and your support. You’ve touched on something important, and I’ll put it another way. We want to divert the focus and power away from the media, political parties, and incumbents, and place it instead into the hands of the people and under the limits of the Constitution. We think that in order to do this we need to divert our attention from partisan politics (legislators, as you put it) and over to transpartisan action (legislation) — from politicians to principles, and from votes to values. If we can change that focus, then the rest will follow. In other words, build a large army in the process of lobbying, then the right politicians will show up to capture our base and make it his or her constituency!

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  2. David Avatar
    David

    Well said Jim. I think that shift in focus is exactly what I have been looking for in my efforts to define what it takes to improve American politics.

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  3. Reach Upward Avatar
    Reach Upward

    It’s a nice sentiment, but pretty much all well-meaning lobbying efforts end up creating corruption. DownsizeDC is right about too much power being in the hands of centralized government. It goes hand-in-glove with my May 13 post on the Cult of the Presidency (see http://reachupward.blogspot.com/2008/05/idol-worship.html ). But trying to solve the problem with more of the same tactics that brought us the problem is likely not the answer.

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  4. David Avatar
    David

    I don’t believe this is more of the same tactics. For one thing the lobbying is done by individuals – each time an individual writes to their congressional leaders Downsize DC simply automates the process of sending it to your entire delegation rather than having you do it three times – and for another, the pieces of legislation that Downsize DC pushes for are pieces that cut back the intrusion of government, such as the Enumerated Powers Act asking Congress to cite the constitutional authority for each law they pass.

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