March 29, 2007
Politics: Not a Team Sport
Politics is NOT a team sport. In a team sport, one team wins, many others lose, but, the slate is wiped clean the following season and everyone has another chance. The future of the sport is not at risk.
That is not the case with politics. When one party wins, and the others lose, the nation’s future can be jeopardized and the majority of the people lose representation.
About 1/3 of registered voters are Democrat, 1/3 Republican, and the other third are independents or third party voters. When one party wins, the majority of Americans lose representation.
We have just witnessed the enormous damage and cost of one party winning with all others losing. The Republicans, as a virtual one party government until Nov. of last year, in just a few short years brought enormous harm and cost to our nation and her people. Let's list some of these:
- A near doubling of our national debt
- Enormous trade deficits over 3/4 of a trillion dollars on an annual basis
- Large increases in the size of government and waste, fraud, and abuse
- Erosion of our Constitutional system, Bill of Rights, respect for law and justice.
- Serious undermining of international respect, cooperation, and public opinion about the U.S.
- Failure to support and increase educational quality and achieve competitive advantage
- Complete failure to address enormous crises coming our way like Soc. Sec, Medicare, and global climate change
This list is much longer, but these are the largest. I list these not to indict the Republican Party as the only party capable of such incompetence and lack of responsibility in leadership. If we had seen a Democrat one party government during the same period, a whole other set of debilitating problems would have ensued. One party government is not healthy for America, especially in these times when the more extreme elements of the parties control many of the items for the party's agendas.
And there is the rub. Political parties have but one overarching motive, to attain one party dominance in government. This has to be their overarching goal, because without dominance in the form of one party rule, they are forced into compromise and away from their philosophical agenda. Where does this leave the goal of resolving the nation's problems and protecting the nation, and enhancing her future? Where does that leave as many as 2/3 of the voters who don't share in the one party's philosophy? In the back seat without a driver's license.
In a democracy, even a democratic republic, the people are supposed to set the long term agenda and values, and the government is supposed to devise the best way to fulfill that agenda. But, in America today, politics has become a team sport, where the goal of the main party voters and leaders alike, is to insure their team wins, regardless of the damage done to the nation or the whole of her population.
Political parties are useful in setting out philosophical value systems from which the voters may choose as the times warrant. But, the self-serving nature of our political parties today, and their consumption of vast financial and governmental resources for the purpose of allowing their team to win, are wasting away America's future through neglect and inability of the teams to work together to solve the nation's problems.
Barring unforeseen events, we are on the path toward another one party government; this time controlled by the Democrats. Like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, power swings back and forth in a partial arc. And this is very, very bad for America. The reason is our future stretches out before us, like a road demanding that we travel down it; not endlessly crossing it back and forth like the chicken which can't make up its mind which side of the road to be on.
We the voters can change all this. We can, and are, in larger numbers, becoming independent voters who choose to cast our votes for the individual candidate and their reflection of our priorities, and not for a party which seeks to serve only itself and power. Still, approximately 2/3 of the voters are still playing championship season with politics and ignoring the dark clouds on the horizon.
Vote Out Incumbents Democracy (VOID) and other similar organizations, assisted voters in amassing their resolve to vote out irresponsible, incompetent, and unethical incumbents in November of 2006 who serve party over the people. But, these organizations must continue to reach ever larger numbers of voters and assist them in understanding that politics is not a team sport, but, an immensely important responsibility toward our nation's and her people's present and future.
Those of you who are already sold, must do more than just vote out bad incumbents. For your vote to turn things around for the better, your vote must be joined by millions of other voters who have acquired the wisdom and knowledge you have. We must change the NFL mentality of politics in America.
America's future depends on us who, see what's wrong with our political system, and how to improve it, stepping forward to shoulder the cost of sharing our understanding with 10's of millions of other voters. That takes money, and volunteers, and grass root organization. Where are these to come from, if not from you? Find an organization like Common Cause or Independent Voting and donate or volunteer, and end NFL politics in America.
Posted by David R. Remer at March 29, 2007 08:21 AMVERY good post David!
IMO, the “fear factor” is what causes this team mentality when voting.
Each side votes for their “side” because, in their eyes, they fear the other side will bring more socialism or facism and voting for their side will help guarantee its the one they like and not the one they fear.
So, when its their party that is in control of the one party govt, they dismiss, defend and excuse what is going on because there is no way its as bad as it would be if the other side was in control.
The dark clouds are indeed on the horizon and they are only getting darker.
The storms a comin my friend, the storms a comin.
kctim, you pegged it. The current state of the two party system is politics by the lesser of two evils. That is politics that can do no good in the long run.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 29, 2007 01:28 PMGood article David.
Good observation kctim (i.e. the fear factor; fueled by politicians to pit voters against each other).
Yes, sovling the nation’s pressing problems now takes a back seat to retaining seats for incumbents and wallowing in the circular, divisive, distracting partisan warfare.
Too many politicians love to fuel it, and too many voters love to wallow in it, abdicating their responsibility to think for themselves, and lazily pulling the party lever (i.e. voting straight ticket); often without even knowing who they are voting for … just that they are in THEIR party. Nevermind that most (if not all) politicians are irresponsible and unaccountable.
Government will not become responsible until the voters do too!
When will it end?
When it becomes too painful.
It is unfortunate that we must wait (as history shows us is usually the case) until painful consequences motivate us to wake up and take action.
Education is the key.
We can get that education the smart, peaceful, responsible way, or the hard, painful way (again).
But one thing is for certain.
We will get our education one way or another.
Already, some painful consequences are already in the pipeline.
While a one party government isn’t good for the country the main problem is that neither of the two major parties are interested in anything but lining their pockets with PAC money and getting and/or keeping control of both Congress and the White House. And to this end they are willing to do anything but seriously addressing the real problems facing this country.
While they cater to special interest to achieve power they ignore the folks that put them in office. They also ignore or only pay lip service the growing national debt, trade deficit, deficit spending, the inevitable collapse of social security and medicare, education, and illegal immigration.
And while these problems are going wanting the Democrats are only interest is to insure that they keep Congress and get the White House. And the Republicans only interest is keeping the White House and regaining Congress.
What neither party seems to realize is if they at least force serious debate on the problems facing this country. And maybe manage to get something done on just one of them. They could easily sweep the next elections.
Ron, it is a lot like a stalemated chess game isn’t it? But, at least in chess, the rules call for a max. of 3 repetitive moves, and the game ends. Not so with the Republocrats.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 29, 2007 06:16 PM… This list is much longer, but these are the largest.Yes, it is much longer.
The danger that most voters are oblivious to is that these many factors have an increasing potential to cause significant economic instability.
The problem with our form of government is that too many voters mostly ignore or tolerate increasingly irresponsible and corrupt government until the painful consequences finally arrive.
And then there are even those that really believe things are in very good shape. Nevermind the illusion of a luke-warm economy is because it really because it is being propped up by massive debt, borrowing, wasteful spending, and excessive money-printing.
Unfortunately, too many voters don’t even know how much federal debt really exists. Many don’t even know how many zeros are in a $1 trillion.
Ignorance breeds corruption.
That’s why education is so important.
Too bad the media is more interested in Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
When will we change course?
When this course becomes too painful.
But that won’t happen until there is a crises.
And why should anyone think we are immune to a crisis, since history is strewn with crises after crises?
I fear we will have to learn the hard way again, and again, and again.
Posted by: d.a.n at March 29, 2007 06:36 PMDavid
Haven’t thought of it that way. Reckon that’s because I’m not much of a chess player. But your right.
To bad the 3 repetitive move rule doesn’t apply to politics. Maybe we’d have more responsible folks in office.
d.a.n
Many don’t even know how many zeros are in a $1 trillion.
Let’s see.
1,000,000,000,000. Looks like twelve. Either way it’s on hell of a lot of money.
To put things in a little prospective. According to an e-mail I received a while ago that was trying to give an idea of what a billion is. One billion seconds ago it was 1959. One billion minutes ago Christ was on earth.
That’s mind blowing enough without trying to figure a trillion seconds or days.
How many times can we keep learning the hard way before we reach the point of no return?
Posted by: Ron Brown at March 29, 2007 08:54 PMDavid:
Nice commercial for VOID!
Craig
Posted by: Craig Holmes at March 29, 2007 09:53 PMRon Brown wrote: How many times can we keep learning the hard way before we reach the point of no return?Ron, While I keep trying to be hopeful (because giving up won’t accomplish anything), I believe there is a high probability (70% ore more) chance that we WILL have to learn the hard way (again). It’s 2.000 steps forward, and 1.999 steps backward. Did you know the world population is increasing (that’s all births - deaths) by 249,000 per day! (yes; that’s per day). That’s 91 million per year. It could possibly grow to 10 to 13 billion in only 32 years. And, I don’t think importing the less educated and impoverished by the tens or hundreds of millions is going to help but put a strain on everything else. Yet, politicians act as if we’re in some sort of population race, while they despicably pit American citizens and illegal aliens against each other. Check out these Congress Persons voting to give Social Security benefits to illegal aliens. What kind of lunacy is this?
Our elected politicians and government are failing us, but we keep rewarding them for it by repeatedly re-electing them; rewarding them with a cu$hy 90% re-election rate.
The debt, deficits, borrowing, spending, and excessive money-printing is out-of-control, but it could (or will probably) get much worse.
There will be eventually be painful consequences for:
- $8.9 trillion National Debt
- $12.8 trillion Social Security debt
- 77 million baby boomers soon becoming eligible for benefits at a rate of 13,175 person per day
- hundreds of unfunded billions for Medicare
- hundreds of unfunded billions for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, excessive money-printing
- world population growing by a quarter per million per day
- record level trade deficts
- Congress pitting American citizens and illegal aliens against each other; costing U.S. tax payers over $70 billion annually in net losses
- severely over-bloated government growing larger and larger to nightmare proporation
- over $20 trillion personal debt (nation-wide)
- increasing cost and declining quality of education
- skyrocketing cost and decreasing quality of healthcare
- corpocrisy, corporatism, corporate welfare, while corporations sell out their fellow Americans; it’s not a global village; it’s global pillage
- government is FOR-SALE; 83% of all campaign donations (of $200 or more) come from only 0.15% of the 200 million eligible voters
- foreclosures have been rising for two years (846,000 in 2005, 1.2 million in 2006 nation-wide)
- violations of the Constitution (e.g. ignoring an Article V Convention despite 568 applicaitons by all 50 states, spying on citizens without civil oversight, ignoring habeas corpus, starting wars based on flawed intelligence, eminent domain abuse, abused presidential pardons putting politicians above the law, ignoring the nation’s problems, Gerrymandering, election fraud, ignoring illegal immigration and failing to secure the borders which should be one of the most fundamental duties of the federal government, corruption, graft, plundering Social Security surpluses, the two party duopoly is blocking access to ballots for other parties and independents ,etc., etc., etc.
- the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is $450 billion in the hole
Still, there are those that will say everything is good (or very good). While I really wish that were true, I don’t think it is. At the very least, I believe it will all result in a continued economic decline. Or worse, it could result in significant economic instability. Or even worse, it could result in something like the Great Depression of 1929. It’s not far fetched. There will eventually be painful consequences for all of that. Why? Because the only way to avoid it is to start making course corrections immediately (if not years ago). However, that looks increasingly unlikely. One of the main reasons is because Congress and government are irresponsible, and very unlikely to become more responsible as long as the voters keep rewarding incumbent politicians for being irresponsible by repeatedly re-electing them.
Posted by: d.a.n at March 29, 2007 10:12 PMWhen one party wins, the majority of Americans lose representation.
That’s not always true. Clinton is a great example of a President who could shed liberal ideology when the good of the entire country — not just Democrats — demanded it. He set aside a lot of liberal ideals like universal healthcare and other social programs in order to balance the budget.
Liberals hated him for it (still do) and conservatives hated him for “stealing” their agenda. Yet, he managed to maintain the support of more than 60% of Americans through the end of his term despite the bimbo eruptions.
In any case, I saw John Bolton on the Daily Show last night arguing that when a President is elected, he has a duty to tell the majority of Americans that it’s “my way or the highway” and pursue an ideology.
I think that’s a pretty good compare and contrast of Republican and Democratic thought on the subject.
Posted by: American Pundit at April 3, 2007 02:08 PMAP, you are arguing the wrong point. The point was one party government, not an individual in the White House regardless of party. Parties don’t make great presidents, or even responsible ones.
At best, the people glean during campaign season integrity and responsibility if it is in the offing, and then only upon occasion. Great Presidents largely make themselves, with the help of a wisely chosen cabinet, and “interesting times”.
Posted by: David R. Remer at April 3, 2007 09:36 PMHTML Formatting Tips:
<strong>bold text</strong>
<em>italicize text</em>
<u>underline text</u>
<strike>strike text</strike>
<a href="http://domain.com/link">link text</a>
<blockquote>quote text</blockquote>
By clicking the "Post" button you agree to abide by the Rules For Participation.
