July 24, 2010
It’s Really Time For Everybody On Both Sides…
…of the political equation to take a step back and a deep breath, and try and consider what the ongoing snowballing polarization is doing. In essence, it’s shaking our great nation apart.
Seth here.
I’ve had almost no time to spend, of late, on-line and even now I’m making a quick stop because I believe that this has to be said.
The battle between the left and the right has gotten so extreme on both sides that the only losers are the American people. That’s right, We, the People.
It’s true that the current recession can be laid mostly at the feet of our left-dominated House and Senate, the “groundwork” for disaster having begun when they took over the majorities in January, 2007, and our “esteemed” president, B. Hussein Obama. Where the first two are concerned, however, whose fault is it that the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were able to become the leaders of the houses on the Hill?
Answer: A fat, complacent, self serving collection of Republican senators and representatives whose only priorities revolved around keeping themselves in office, career politicians who couldn’t give a good goddamn about the American people or their own conservative voter base, only about their own benefits, perks and continued jobs in a field that was never even meant to be a career path.
What we have now is a no-holds-barred street fight, totally devoid of even an iota of honor or human decency, between the Democrats and the Republicans, all politics, all the time.
We, the People are nothing to any of them but collateral damage, at apparently “acceptable” numbers, as the fight for political victory rages on.
The American people have already begun to demonstrate dissatisfaction with this state of affairs, in the sheer volume of Tea Party support, the moves to block incumbent Hill critters from running for reelection on both sides of the aisle and enough browbeating of same to move numerous Democrats to oppose the “sunsetting” of the Bush tax cuts.
Unfortunately, the elected combatants are still going full steam ahead. The American People? Who are they?
This country was founded (see the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution) on the principle of the people controlling the government, not the government controlling the people. Our founding fathers spilled a lot of blood to evict the concept of royalty from our shores…
…yet here we are, once again under the control of royalty, people we’ve elected who have somehow seen their election and/or reelection as mandates to decide for us what the Constitution says is ours to decide, to enact laws that are blatantly contrary to the letter of the Constitution, to go to war with each other, for self serving political purposes, at the public’s expense.
Case in point: Obama’s destructive economic policies, preceded by a whole passel of stealthy and not so stealthy bills pushed on us by Pelosi/Reid Enterprises have been responsible, in major share, for what? Not only a national debt now topping thirteen trillion, two hundred forty billion smackers, but around twenty five million unemployed.
The Democrats want to extend unemployment benefits, the Republicans do not.
“Where are we going to get the money!?” They demand.
Well, this is that case in point.
The people did not spend us into that thirteen trillion dollar debt, the government did, a government that, as I said earlier, has not been doing its job and listening to the people.
Millions of those who have become unemployed are undoubtedly people who didn’t even vote for Democrats.
I read all the time about Republicans and conservatives (there is a difference) protesting the extension of these benefits. Somehow, I doubt that those who do are unemployed and struggling to survive in the recession our government hath wrought.
Which is where I’m coming from with this.
The government interfered in the private sector, and caused this mess.
To the man on the street who’s trying to keep his roof over his head, eat and pay his bills to the best of his ability while he busts his touchas trying to find a new job, it’s not the Democrats or the Republicans who caused this recession, it’s The Government.
Period.
The Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, filibuster against the extension. Why?
Not because “we can’t afford it”, which we can’t, but we couldn’t afford the “stimulus” and, as we’ll soon find, we won’t be able to afford Obamacare, either, but because the more suffering Americans go through under the Democrats now, the better chances the Republicans will have to win back more seats in the next election.
Pure and simple.
Screw the people, win the politics.
The government, party responsibility aside, caused the problems these people now face, the government can’t simply leave them in the lurch.
The United States Government is supposed to be one government, not a shopping mall of political special interests. If the people serving in elected office can’t understand that and start governing like responsible adults, perhaps it’s time we got rid of the whole bunch of them, good, bad or indifferent, and started from scratch.
For the first 200 years, while there was a lot of opposition between the two parties, our government managed to conduct itself in a mature, adult manner and get things done pretty much proactively. Of course, this was when politicians placed America and Americans first.
Now, we no longer have a government, we have a political Tower of Babel.
If we don’t step back from the partisan firing line very soon and start remembering that both parties are still supposed to be part of the same government, serving the same electorate, the United States will fast become a part of history.
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July 24th, 2010 at 10:03 am
Hi Seth, this is precisley why so many in the UK have given up on politics and simply don’t even bother to vote. Why bother after all if those elected don’t listen, don’t care and will screw you anyway?
As for the manner in which highly complex “Bills” can be railroaded through your Congress by being “introduced” hours before a vote is called on them, this is something no other Western Democracy would or does tolerate. In the Uk such a “Bill” would take a minimum of eighteen months of debate, revision, consultation and further revision before it got to the all important Third Reading and received the Royal Assent, and likewise here in Germany, the Bundestag would refuse to even consider a Bill bounced on them in this way. Nothing can become law here until it has passed the critical review of several committees, the full Bundestag debating it in full and then voting on it after all voices have been heard and amendments made.
Hitting them with a 1200 page Bill to become law without debate and just twelve hours to read it would result in the ejection of the Bill and its supporters without even the opportunity to introduce it. Plus, when it did finally get aired you can be sure it would be scrutinised line by line and anything contentious would be rejected, unlike the Bill your President’s people rammed through Congress recently on just eight hours notice!
July 25th, 2010 at 3:49 am
Sounds like something I wrote back in 2005:
…a typical politician’s primary job is not to serve the people who elected him. His primary job is to get himself (or herself) elected or re-elected. Second is to reward all those contributors that gave $$ to help him get elected. Third is to get as many perks & benefits as he can while he is in office. Last on the list is the common person like you & I.
Which is precisely why we are in the situation we find ourselves in.
July 25th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Gray Monk –
This really sucks, doesn’t it?
Here in the United States, until not very long ago, this sort of thing couldn’t have happened, either. That was, of course, when it was customary to elect patriots to public office rather than unctuous toilet cakes whose sole interests revolve around their own skins.
Sad to say, even those long term politicians who once placed America first are now so thoroughly jaded and steeped in the “get it for myself and my party now, screw the people!” craze that I fear the only way America will again be the land it once was will be for every last one of those blackguards to be evicted from office and a whole new crop of genuine Americans who are well schooled in the Constitution and truly love their country elected to replace them.
And make sure the replacements know they can be subject to the same thing as their predecessors.
That, of course, will only happen when enough voters realize just how badly, and by whom, we’re being screwed.
****
Tom –
I remember reading that.
Amen!!!!
The only recourse we, as Americans, have is to vote out every last one of those people and make it plain to their replacements that we will now be doing as Jefferson long ago suggested, looking over their %^&**$#%&* shoulders!
Another thing that the last few years of politics have instilled in me is the belief, which I didn’t previously entertain, that term limits might be just the ticket, say 6 years per senator or representative, eliminating the “need” to concentrate on being reelected while providing a full time calendar for seeing to the affairs of government.
July 26th, 2010 at 11:46 am
I firmly believe that there must be limits to serving in any legislature. Your “Two Term” Rule for Presidents is a good one and should apply to all elected positions. I think there should be a time limit for Civil Servants as well, no more than, say, twelve years in any senior position or role and then out of any government post.
Should be long enough for even the most incompetent to sort out some lucrative directorships and income streams.
July 26th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Gray Monk –
Twelve years might even be too long in the House or the Senate, the way they seem to have evolved, unless, of course, they first weed out the long-timers and the bad influence they would promote. A fine example, brought out via comedy, would be the “briefing” Eddie Murphy’s character gets from his senior member in The Distinguished Gentleman. It’s so on point you wonder if someone in Congress wrote it (actually, I’ve heard the story was stolen from Art Buchwald, and he later sued over it).
Should be long enough for even the most incompetent to sort out some lucrative directorships and income streams. LOL!
Actually, the incompetence is only about 1/3 of the problem, the other 2/3 being a) a priority of party over country and b) a seeming total lack of knowledge about the Constitution, or the pretense thereof.
You’d think someone getting into government would at least take the trouble to memorize the rules of same.
July 27th, 2010 at 4:45 am
Not necessarily, if they are like the UK’s Labour Party, they don’t like Rules they can’t rewrite and re-invent to suit themselves. The MP’s seem to confuse the “Sovereignty of Parliament” and their own status, think being an MP puts them above the Law…
That seems to be the problem in every government.
July 27th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Gray Monk –
That is definitely the problem on Capital Hill, then.
That’s why the vast majority need to get the boot (at least a size 14, U.S.).
As I said, voters in both parties in a number of states have already, in primaries, denied their incumbents on the Hill the opportunity to run for reelection in their parties this November by nominating new candidates.
This practice needs to be repeated many more times, if for no other reason than to remind those in office of their own “mortality”, so to speak, and of the fact that they work for the voters and can be fired by the voters.