Rational Politicking | To Replace Acrimony With Civility

Tuesday

02Mar2010

The Great Divide

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 12:45PM

Republicans and Democrats are so ideologically opposite today—citizens and career politicians alike—that efforts to bring the country together on such key issues as healthcare, environmental protection, or gay rights seem downright pointless. Furthermore, pundits on television say that the American people want to see bipartisanship in Congress. Is that so? Do Americans want to see political give-and-take, or are they simply waiting for a complete change of heart that causes one side to cross over to the other?

Bipartisanship is simply not practical for issues on which tremendous division exists, especially not when those issues are critical to their proponents and would reform the fabric of American life. Imagine a group of people that believes part of government’s role is to provide universal healthcare to its citizens. If this belief is central to their idea of America, they are not likely to compromise on the issue. In such a case, bipartisanship could only lead to an outcome with which no one is entirely satisfied.

Beyond mere practicality, there is an issue of fairness involved. For example, is it right to force proponents of laissez-faire government and survival of the fittest social policy to accept increasing federal regulation and social support programs when such regulation and programs are imposed from the other side? On the other hand, why should people wanting more social freedom and economic protection be forced to carry on in a hands-off Darwinian world? It is not reasonable to believe that two sides so distant from one another could live together in harmony. In fact, looking back on history the American people have not been living harmoniously—think of the protests, the marches, and the bitter political contests. At best, we have coexisted. We have survived for over two-hundred years by accepting the will of the majority—or super-majority as the case may be today—and by living in something less than the country we envision.

Thus, conservative and liberal Americans have been living in alternating periods of illusion, with each election offering the opportunity to reverse the trick. Whenever the opposite party takes a branch of government—even including the Supreme Court—they set out to undo or “fix” the efforts of the other side—granted, often with limited success. Why is this? We have two Americas fighting for power. The least our representatives should give us is their honest understanding of that fact.

At the recent healthcare summit held in the Blair House, both sides took turns stating what “The American People” want. To the Democrats “The American People” want major reforms to healthcare. To the Republicans “The American People” want to avoid a “government takeover” of healthcare. There are people in this nation that want each of these, and some who want a little of both. There is no “The American People.” The concept is merely an illusion, a generalization. Please Mr. Representative, stop calling me “The American People.” I am one, individual person.

During his campaign, President Obama spoke of one America. There have long been at least two. It is preposterous to ask Republicans and Democrats to find middle ground on many issues because we would all be unsatiated at best. Each side will continue to look for a way to bring to life their complete, ideal America. At the healthcare summit, I also heard that we all have more in common than not. I am no longer convinced.

What then, does our future hold? Perhaps one side will win in the end. As Lincoln foretold on the divisive issue of slavery in 1858: "A house divided against itself cannot stand…I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

Let us hope that it does not take a war to find out.

Reasoned Voice |

$1.1 Billion And Counting

Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 5:54PM

The financing of U.S. campaigns is a perpetually fascinating topic for anybody folowing politics. As we are approaching the 2010 midterm election cycle, I thought it would be a good time to begin looking at the numbers. It seems that I am a little late to the party however as this election cycle began in earnest quite a while ago, as you can see from the ticker above.

To add some context to the figure you see above:

The 2008 Presidential election cost $2.24 billion
The total cost of the 2008 elections was $5.29 billion
We are eight months away from the 2010 election

The Rationalist |

The Reclamation of the Lecturn

Monday, February 8, 2010 at 11:40AM

The seemingly omnipresent political personality known as Sarah Palin has once again graced us with her critique of the current political environment in Washington. During her speech at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville, she commented on various issues facing our nation. I would like to spend some time analyzing her speaking points.

The first substantive point she brings up is the attempted bombing by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day. She is correct in her assessment that security failed on an impressive scale. I would be remiss however if I failed to point out that security is a direct function of personnel, personnel who are fallible and not under Obama’s direct control. In fact, the personnel who are responsible to Obama for such matters, the chiefs of the Transportation Security Administration and Customs and Borders, have yet to be appointed due to Republican procedural holds.

On her point of the questioning and mirandizing of Abdulmutallab, I am curious as to what questions she would have liked him to answer. The fact remains that information collected during criminal investigations is not public information. We therefore have no idea what he has or has not said. Her perspective on his being mirandized is a blatant disregard of American criminal procedure. Any person charged criminally in the U.S. has a constitutional guarantee of those rights. As Abdulmutallab is facing criminal charges in the U.S., he has those rights.

Her attack on Obama’s foreign policy is another point which I fail to grasp. While I agree that mistakes were made, she assails his approach en masse to reach contrived conclusions. She supports American intervention in Iran, continued support for “key allies”, and a vast amount of military spending to implement an untested missile defense system.

The U.S. should be scaling back its interventions. We are currently occupying two nations and are running military operations in at least two others. The coveted missile defense system has not been proven effective, does nothing for U.S. homeland security, and is part of the reason for tensions between the U.S. and Russia. We cannot police the world and our “key allies” should not take precedent over domestic issues.

The domestic issues are where Palin’s ineptness and ignorance are fully visible. Mistakes were made and not enough accountability was built into the bailout funds, but what would she have done differently? It should be noted that the bail outs were initiated under the Bush administration and averted a complete national financial collapse born, in part, from the Reagan economic policy. Lax regulation of financial and lending operations planted the seeds for the manipulations that sent our economy into a tailspin. This along with a shift of the tax burden to the middle class from the wealthy left the working class financing both the public and private sectors while seeing little benefit or protection.

Health care, for instance, is guaranteed in most western societies. In the U.S. though, we spend more, get less, and Palin’s proposed fix is tort reform and allowing purchases across state lines. To use her analogy, she wants to put a band-aid on a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Unfortunately a band-aid will not end the hemorrhaging.

Palin is a skilled, emotionally charged speaker. As she noted however, it takes a lot more than talk to run this nation. We have a system that has ceased to function properly after 234 years. I hope that changes but put no faith in an individual who believes that could change after one year of new leadership, regardless of how eloquent that leader is.

The Rationalist |