Filed under: Culture, Politics | Tags: Crisis, Division, Professional Politicians
I am old enough to remember when Democrats and Republicans actually worked together to solve issues, and coming from New York, I remember when there were 5 or 6 different political parties on the ballot in most elections. Around the time of Jimmy Carter, we saw a change in how politicians worked. It became a very Partisan race to get elected, no longer did we hear argument regarding issues, we started to hear muckraking, and sometimes even hatred between sides.
In High School we had partisanship, we went to baseball, football and basketball games and rooted our hearts out for our team. After the game we all went to the hamburger place for dinner, and had a great time with both our team and the opposing team members and fans. Today, after the game might see a riot break out and people actually get injured in the melee. It is even worse in professional sports, fans go to the opposing team stadium to root for their team, and might get beat up during or after the game, because of the hatred they each have for the other team.
I have been in jury trials, where the two lawyers worked hard for their client, and argued for their positions whatever the trial might be about, both lawyers argued and fought for their respective client, sometimes with real passion in their voice and manner. The reality is, lawyers, fight for the person paying them. You might see the two lawyers fight one time on one side of an issue and a month later on the other side and just as passionate on both sides of the issue. Money talks, and they have billable hours to fill with that money.
Notice that most of the denizens of the Washington D. C. House and Senate are lawyers, remember that money talks and lawyers listen and do what the money is telling them to do. Someone on one of the News shows once said that a good politician never lets a crisis go to waste. This is true, not only for the politicians but also for their partisans on the talk shows, news shows, and newspapers as well. If you want to know what is the latest crisis just watch the news, listen to talk, and read the papers. For Republicans it is the Washington Times, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh. For the Democrats it is Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Huffington Post and others. Each hypes the crisis du jour, with of course their side of the story.
It has been said that there are 3 sides to every story, your side, my side and the truth. We tend to listen only to what we want to hear, and ignore the rest. I know that I have become tired of shows that have opposing sides on at the same time, and whichever side you are on then the show that you are watching will invariabley shut down the opposing view. This is true on left and right leaning shows. From Shaun Hannity to Bill Maher, the opposing side is to be made to look foolish.
Congress is the pinacle of this problem, we have gone from compromise to solve issues to hatred and inability to get much of anything accomplished. Listen to the rhetoric, especially in the House of Representatives. You have people writing bills of impeachment against the President, not for any crimes but for tweets that they found offensive to their side. Rhetoric from this or that politician talking about the President as if he was the biggest criminal in the world, meanwhile ignoring real issues, just trying to score political points so they can get re-elected. I was really struck by this hatred when Gen. Kelly White House Cheif of Staff, came to the press breifing this past week and talked about the attacks on the President and his phone call to parents or spouses of the 4 soldiers who were killed in Nigeria. One Congressperson claimed to have heard the President say something that she felt was insenstive to the parents of one of the soldiers.
Let me pause for a moment, she was not in the oval office, how did she hear this conversation? That has not been brought up in the ensuing CRISIS that has ensued for the statements she made in regard to this conversation. How did she hear this conversation? Anyway, this whole thing served to sweep away all the other news of this week, this should not have gotten in the way of honest reporting on what is happening in Congress, that is the passing of the budget in the House and Senate, which allows now for other bills to come up, such as tax reform. However, as long as these Professional Politicians can keep the crisis going, we the people will continue with hyper-partisanship and will attack our opponents. This hatred that has been brewing for many years now, has finally reached a point where we no longer talk to one another but rather we attack one another, not hearing what each has to say.
This hyper-partisanship is destroying our nation, we no longer speak with one another civilly, we rather attack one another. Look at the Governor of Florida, declaring a state of emergency because a man was coming to speak to people who wanted to hear him. The Governor was afraid that there would be rioting and mayhem because this man was what has been described as a white nationalist or white supremacist. The problem is simply that because people today do not want to listen to the opposition, we have riots in the streets. Now I don’t agree with what the man espouses, but in our nation he has a right to speak, and his supporters have the right to listen to him. If you don’t agree and don’t want to hear him, don’t go to that venue.
I have to admit watching the last couple of years when a conservative was going to speak at a university, people would show up in masks so you could not see who they were, and would set fires and beat up anyone who came to hear that person, breaking windows and just generally acting like the brownshirts in the 1930’s in Germany. We have the group Antifa, which claims to be anti-facists, yet they act like facists, wearing black, masked faces and showing up with baseball bats, balloons filled with urine, mace and other terrible things. They beat people with these weapons, hit them with their balloons and mace both civilians and Police officers. Those are definite facist tactics.
So what is to happen here in the USA? Do we continue down this road, with Professional Politicians manufacturing crisis after crisis just to keep us riled up, or do we work to change what we see happening? I believe it is time for us to work to change the system, electing people who are constitutionalists, who believe in our Constitution and are willing to work within its confines. We need people to stand for the rule of law, and to stand for the right of the people to live their lives peacefully. We need to rid our State Houses and our Federal Houses of these career politicians and put in place Term Limits for all politicians. This will also rid us of the monetary corruption, it doesn’t pay to buy a politician who will only be there a short time and then a new face will take his or her place. It is I believe time for Term Limits after all, Congress limited the President to 2 terms, because the knew it was not good for the executive to continue longer in office. FDR served too long and had begun to take more and more power to himself and the Federal Government.
What do you think, do we really need this partisanship to continue until we are so isolated from one another that our country will not be able to defend itself from enemies without or within. If we continue down this path, I do believe that Civil War will again spring forth and our country will be torn asunder, it will end in a blood bath the like of which we have never seen, because it will be between factions, black, hispanic, asian, white and whatever other faction these politicians can break us into, just so they can stay in office.
Comments are welcome! What do you think? I personally believe in the Constitution Party, I invite you to check them out, in Texas it is cptexas.us come and see what they are about.