Tag: power

Missing the Boat

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In a comment over at KVNU’s For The People blog Craig concluded that if I was right in my position about health care it would mean that basically everyone had been missing the boat on this issue. My response to Craig was that I honestly believe that this current reform debate is missing the boat on what reforms we need.

Meanwhile, over at Fire Dog Lake (again) I find another insightful post from a staunch liberal, this time it’s from Jane Hamsher (yesterday it was Jon Walker) who is talking about what she calls the left/right populist wrap around.

There is an enormous, rising tide of populism that crosses party lines in objection to the Senate bill. We opposed the bank bailouts, the AIG bonuses, the lack of transparency about the Federal Reserve, “bailout” Ben Bernanke, and the way the Democrats have used their power to sell the country’s resources to secure their own personal advantage, just as the libertarians have. In fact, we’ve worked together with them to oppose these things. What we agree on: both parties are working against the interests of the public, the only difference is in the messaging. (emphasis added)

This is another example of the media missing the boat. They play everything as Left vs Right. They promote the notion that anything which angers both the radical right and the radical left must be pretty good policy – that’s their definition of centrist. In contrast, Ms. Hamsher pits the left/right populist wrap around against the beltway insiders – or as some of my commenters have called them, the corporatists.

Being able to unite the left wing and the right wing in opposition to a policy does not make that a good policy. After all, the German Fascists were able to unite the American Capitalists and the Soviet Communists in opposition against them, but you won’t here anyone (except neo-nazis) arguing that the German Fascists were good because of that.

We’ve had a perfect example of that here recently. I consider myself to be more conservative than the “conservatives” in Congress. Charles considers himself to be more liberal than the “liberals” in Congress. We disagree on many issues, but we’d both like to see a government that represented the people of the United States. I don’t see how it can be argued that Congress is getting it right when I want to see my Republican senator defeated and have him replaced with a real Conservative and Charles want to see his Democratic senator defeated and have her replaced with a real Liberal. (Excuse me for putting words into your mouth Charles.)

There is a disconnect between the roots of representative government and the tree of elected officers. Anyone who thinks that is a positive sign or healthy in any way is definitely missing the boat.

P.S. Having two hits in two days means I will now be following Fire Dog Lake rather than waiting for others to point out their latest articles.

Tags 2010, connections, discourse, power, thoughts

culture

Political Cultures

photo credit: www.charlietphoto.com

There are two political cultures that we need to change in order to have a healthy “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” in this country. The first is the culture among the voters as defined by how thy perceive those who hold political office. The second is the culture among lawmakers as defined by how they perceive the purpose and role of government.

Our Pit of Dysfunction

I got thinking about these culture issues during a brief discussion with my brother in which he mentioned an ex-politician that now works for the same company as he does whom he described like so:

He’s the kind of guy who leaves you with a sense that not all politicians are scum sucking bottom dwellers. He’s a really great guy.

That is a great example of the voter culture that leaves voters not wanting to participate in politics because the whole process feels dirty. That perception makes you feel that anything more than voting might contaminate you by association and has the added effect of making your vote feel useless anyway.

Among politicians the dysfunctional culture is one that views government as a powerful multi-tool which is adaptable to help deal with whatever problem the nation is facing at the time. The perception that government can be so adaptable is dangerous because it causes an excessive reliance on government (a hammer) so that we use it for tasks it was not meant to address (like cutting aboard and wondering why the edge is all jagged) while overlooking other available tools (any number of saws) that are better suited to many of the challenges we face.

The reality is that neither of those cultural perceptions is correct. Many politicians (possibly even the vast majority although my own experience is too limited to prove that conclusively) on both sides of basically every issue are good people who really do want what they think is best for their constituents and the nation as a whole. That fact may explain why, when confronted with their individual elected leader at whatever level, voters find it easy to send the incumbent back even while holding a very low opinion of the elected body they are sending them to participate in. Because government is not a multi-purpose tool to address a wide variety of problems, even well-meaning people (politicians, lobbyists, voters) trying to use it as such will create at least as many problems as they solve and they will be dissatisfied with the results of all their hard work.

Continue reading “Political Cultures”

Tags change congress, civic participation, discourse, Elevated, legislation, power

National

Power as an End

Cal Thomas sums up America’s current political situation quite succinctly:

Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. Duncan complains that conservative, pro-life, pro-gun Democrats won three special elections by stealing GOP issues.

“We can’t let the Democrats take our issues,” Duncan told the New York Times. “We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives and co-opt the middle and win these elections. We have to get the attention of our incumbents and candidates and make sure they understand this.”

Democrats didn’t steal your issues, sir. You abandoned them. Your party discarded them.

The current situation is that Democrats as a party have been enough out of power for long enough that the party is more tolerant of a wider range of viewpoints under its banner. Conversely, the Republican party has been in power for so long that being in power has become their primary goal and they have consequently abandoned their principles whenever they felt it was necessary to achieve that goal.

Having two strong parties that espouse different principles so that the people can choose which principles they believe in is not entirely a bad thing. Having two parties that use principles merely as tools to gain and retain power in the government is an entirely different story.

Tags government, parties, power