Is it just me or are there others in
the United States who get tired of hearing, “never has an election
been more important for our country”? It was said in 2004 when
John Kerry threatened to pull us prematurely out of Iraq and to start
treating terrorists as criminals instead of enemies. It was said in
2010 when the Tea Party started to clean house in the Republican
Party and went onto be the force behind one of the biggest
turn-arounds in the history of legislative elections. And now it's
being said again in this election as the nation teeters on the edge
of financial and ideological oblivion.
The problem with these statements
aren't that they're being over-used, it's that they've been too often
true over such a short time. Too many elections are mattering too
much, and why? Because government has gotten too big and plays too
important a role in our every day lives. It just shouldn't matter
that much but it does.
And, because it does matter as much as
it does it is tearing this country apart. People on both sides of
this election are threatening to do very serious things if things
don't go their way. Many progressives are threatening to riot and
some are also threatening Romney's life. Many conservatives are
threatening to leave the country (in order to preserve their private
property rights), and some governors have hinted at creating a
constitutional crisis by simply refusing to cooperate with a federal
government that, in their legal opinions, has over-stepped its
constitutional authority.
Even if much of this are just frustrated
words, the prospects of future elections being less divisive are not
looking good. More likely, if something significant doesn't change,
elections are bound to become even more and more divisive until we
reach a point where some future election can end in no other way but
civil war.
“Whoa wait!”, you say? Someone
thinks I'm leaping to and really reaching out for that conclusion?
Why do I believe it? Here.
Our nation is ideologically divided
between big government progressives and small government Tea Party
constitutionalists. These two groups between them are the plurality
of American politics. The Democrats can't be successful without the
progressives and the Republicans can't be successful without the Tea
Party (constitutionalists or whatever else you prefer). Sure there
are “third way” liberals, big government conservatives, and those
smug moderates and independents, but even if they hold a majority
between them there are generally no workable compromises to be
reached. The progressives will block anything that reduces the size
and scope of government and the Tea Party will block anything that
increases it. Thus the only way to get anything done is to satisfy
one group while essentially excluding the other.
This means whichever group is excluded
is going to insist some great injustice is being perpetrated, and
from whichever groups' perspective that is, it will be more than just
rhetoric. It will be sincerely felt. If it's the progressives they
will insist that the poor, the under-privileged, the general welfare
of the planet are all being criminally assaulted. If it's the Tea
Party they will insist individual liberty and dignity is being
trounced and the world's precious resources are being mismanaged to
such a degree that needy people are being starved and/or in some
other way criminally deprived. Worst of all, they can't both be
wrong. One of them will be right and we must choose correctly this
election and every subsequent election or millions will suffer dearly
for our bad decisions.
As intelligent and well educated as we
may be, we the people are not up to this task. It's no slight
against us I am making. It's just way too much pressure for a
general population to endure, and more importantly it's far too much
for any political architect to expect a nation to endure again and
again without eventually reaching a point where too many of the
people are unwilling to accept defeat at the polls.
Some pundits who are inclined to
conspiracy theories suggest that elements amongst the progressives
are intentionally driving the nation to this point because they
believe only their side will ultimately be unwilling to accept defeat
and the other will acquiesce in the interest of preserving the union.
I don't buy that necessarily, but even if is true those conspirators
have got to be alarmed at what they presently see. The
constitutionalist Tea Party movement is here to stay and has thus far
proven itself to be far more willing to risk all they have for their
ideals than have the OWS roused mobs the progressives hoped to
counter them with.
Whether one believes in such
conspiracies or not doesn't matter. The unavoidable reality we find
ourselves in is one where one of these two ideologies must win in the
area of public policy or we will get nothing done. Most should agree
this circumstance is unacceptable, whether you be inclined toward
either ideology or to thinking productive compromise is the stuff of
good governance.
Solutions?
So what are our available solutions, if
any? Here are the ones I see.
[a] Dissolve the union. Unacceptable
as I see it because it would only be a temporary solution at best.
Both ideologies would still be around and we can't just keep breaking
into smaller and smaller pieces every time governance in a nation
becomes impossible because of the balance between them.
[b] Marginalize one or both
ideologies, effectively making them non-factors. The only ways I see
to do this are either unrealistic or inhuman. These ideologies
aren't going away, either of them. There are even scientific studies
suggesting the people who follow them do so for genetic reasons. We
have to figure out a way to live in a world with both of them.
[c] Reduce the size and scope of
government to such a low level that it is no longer an effective
tool with which to advance the cause of an ideology. This of course
would be total victory for the constitutionalists and near total
defeat for the the progressives. I say 'near' total because the
progressives could always go about building the government back up.
It does, after all, seem to be the natural tendency of government to
grow.
Solution [c] is the closest thing to a
workable compromise and, I think, a workable solution to the problem
that threatens to tear our nation apart.
But We Need To Do More
Further, I think that we
constitutionalists should look for every opportunity we can to amend
the constitution in ways that further clarify the limits on
government we believe are already there, and wherever we believe
government can further be limited without crippling it, we should
amend toward such an end.
In other words, we constitutionalists,
the champions of individual liberty and dignity, we are the solution.
We must triumph in enough elections to essentially reset the
government into a smaller and more limited one. That way we can
afford to lose a few elections going forward and we can stop having
to constantly say, “never has an election been more important for
our country”. Just for once I'd like to hear pundits speak of
voter apathy and have it be because what the next government will do
just doesn't matter.
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