The System
The System at Work
WASHINGTON -- (typical WaPo moron apologist)
We have become political hypochondriacs. We seem eager to declare that “the system” has come down with some dread disease, to proclaim that an ideological “center” blessed by the heavens no longer exists, and woe unto us. An imperfect immigration bill is pulled from the Senate floor and you’d think the Capitol dome had caved in.
It sort-a-kind-a did there, skippy.
It’s all nonsense, but it is not harmless nonsense. The tendency to blame the system is a convenient way of leaving no one accountable. Those who offer this argument can sound sage without having to grapple with the specifics of any piece of legislation. There is the unspoken assumption that wisdom always lies in the political middle, no matter how unsavory the recipe served up by a given group of self-proclaimed centrists might be.
The wisdom lies with “We The People” which haven’t been represented in decades.
And when Republicans and Democrats are battling each other with particular ferocity, there is always a call for the appearance of an above-the-battle savior who will seize the presidency as an independent. This messiah, it is said, will transcend such “petty” concerns as philosophy or ideology.
It is said? By whom? Specifics, if you will?
Finally, those who attack the system don’t actually want to change it much. For example, there’s a very good case for abolishing the United States Senate. It often distorts the popular will since senators representing 18 percent of the population can cast a majority of the Senate’s votes. And as Sen. John McCain said over the weekend, “The Senate works in a way that relatively small numbers can block legislation.”
Especially when they are shoving something down the throats of the MAJORITY that don’t want said trash shoved down their throats…like the non-amnesty amnesty bill.
But many of the system-blamers in fact love Senate rules that, in principle, push senators “toward the middle” in seeking solutions. So they actually like the system more than they let on.
Says who? Your opinion? Where is your substantiation? Have milk?
As it happens, I wish the immigration bill’s supporters had gotten it through — not because I think this is great legislation but because some bill has to get out of the Senate so real discussions on a final proposal can begin.
Wrong. The bill needs to die a hideous death and those that support need to leave public office because they do NOT represent the public. They represent each other’s tenure in a life-time venture to suck the public dry.
Notice how tepid that paragraph is. The truth is that most supporters of this bill find a lot of things in it they don’t like. The guest-worker program, in particular, strikes me as terribly flawed. The bill’s opponents, on the other hand, absolutely hate it because they see it as an effective amnesty for 12 million illegal immigrants. And boy, did those opponents mobilize. In well-functioning democracies, mobilized minorities often defeat unenthusiastic majorities.
Minorities? Hardly so.
And some “centrist” compromises are more coherent and politically salable than others. Neither side on the immigration issue has the popular support to get exactly what it wants. So a bill aimed at creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is full of grudging concessions to the anti-immigration side. These have the effect of demobilizing the very groups that support the underlying principles of this bill. That’s not a system problem. It just happens that immigration is a hard issue that arouses real passion.
The fact is this…we have LAWS ON THE BOOKS THAT ARE NOT BEING ENFORCED so why should we have MORE laws on the books that WON’T BE ENFORCED?
Typically, advocates of the system breakdown theory move quickly from immigration to the failure of President Bush’s Social Security proposals. Why, they ask, can’t the system “fix” entitlements?
Because the socialists want entitlements and keep the populace lazy and dependent on government as to when to wipe their own asses.
The simple truth is that a majority of Americans (I’m one of them) came to oppose President Bush’s privatization ideas. That reflected both a principled stand and a practical judgment. From our point of view, a proposal to cut benefits and create private accounts was radical, not centrist.
Middle of the Roaders are cowards there skippy. Privatization is a proven SUCCESS. Then again, the socialists don’t like individuality or success…unless, naturally, one agrees with the socialists. Then, all is well.
An authentically “centrist” solution to this problem would involve some modest benefit cuts and some modest tax increases. It will happen some day. But for now, conservatives don’t want to support any tax increases. I think the conservatives are wrong, and they’d argue that they’re principled. What we have here is a political disagreement, not a system problem. We have these things called elections to settle political disagreements.
Tax increases squelch productivity and is bad for the nation. Currently our economy is doing very well thanks to the TAX CUTS. “Centrists” are horrible for ANY country and Centrists are non-committal weaklings.
Is Washington a mess? In many ways it is. The simplest explanation has to do with some bad choices made by President Bush. He started a misguided war that is now sapping his influence, he has treated Democrats as if they were infected with tuberculosis, and Republicans in Congress as if they were his valets. No wonder he’s having trouble pushing through a bill whose main opponents are his own ideological allies.
Bush started it? Where ya been? Head in the sand? The Jihad has been going on for decades and during the Clinton Administration, war was declared on the United States and “we” did what? Nothing. That’s what, moron. As for the mistreating the democrats, they deserve every bit of it. They are socialists. As for the “immigration” bill, Kennedy was all for it and so is GWB. How does that fit into your retarded article?
Maybe you would place blame elsewhere. But please identify some real people or real political forces and not just some faceless entity that you call the system. Please be specific, bearing in mind that when hypochondriacs misdiagnose vague ailments they don’t have, they often miss the real ones.
When CONgress and the Executive don’t do the bidding of We The People, there is definitely a problem and sugar-coating it as in your retarded article doesn’t cut the mustard.
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