"The GOP may have put a gun to the head of the Democratic majority in the house, but it’s the Democrats who said, “dude, you’re holding it wrong,” jammed the gun into their own temple, and then pulled the trigger. The most accurate word I have for my feelings about the Democrats right now is disgust; disgust that they could get elected on a platform of substantial change, execute on many of the changes they campaigned on, and then allow the GOP and its allies to turn those actions in liabilities — well, again, disgust is not too strong a word." - John Scalzi
This quote struck me this morning and said all that needs to be said about the results of the midterm elections. It's a shame that the timid Democrats have no idea how to use the power when they are given it. As hateful as Republicans are, they at least have the balls to match their convictions. Bush may have been a terrible president but he got his agenda through the Congress - he got shit done. I don't want to hear one Democrat bitch about the way Republicans do things because they let this situation happen to themselves. How the Republicans can turn an attitude of 'doing nothing to help the President' into electoral wins is beyond me. And I have little faith that the Democrats will see it this way. Nothing will change.
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3 comments:
Disappointing, ain't it Cal? I've felt the same way before too. That was, until I understood the situation.
What you are seeing happen is a collision involving two separate mistakes in thinking. One mistake is on the part of voters, and one is on the part of the politicians you spoke of "with the power".
Individual citizens look at the massive, fumbling federal government and think, "Oh waily, waily, waily... this current batch of politicians are awful! They aren't doing a good job at all! Lets throw them out and get a new batch! If we can just get the right people into 'power', everything will be grand."
What they fail to realize is:
This is what large governments do. Every.single.time. People mistakenly think that if they can find just the right people to give all the power to - all will be well. That is never, ever going to be correct. I don't care if the Democrats are in charge or the Republicans - the more government is involved in something, the more they will fuck it up.
Period.
From the point of view of the newly elected "chosen ones", they think they are the bee's knees. They are the chosen ones, after all. They were hand picked to run the country because they are clearly the smartest and most capable in the land.
Those dopes make the mistake of looking at the vastly diverse areas of responsibility they have been given, and its daunting in its scope. How on earth are they supposed to make things better for the people when there are so many variables?... People are like cats, and its hard to enact the master plan for a better world when the game pieces are constantly shifting around. There are hundreds of billions of transactions and interactions that occur each day in this nation - all of which affect many of the others.
So... the obvious solution they come up with time, after time, after time, is to control the game pieces as much as possible. They try to narrow the options available to people, restrict their activities, homogenize them so that they can be more predictable. That's the only way that a relatively small group of people way off in Washington can even hope to try and manage a country the size of the US.
Problem being, of course, is that this leads to a rapidly escalating irritation on the part of the people being squeezed by the Federal Government, dissatisfaction on the part of voters, and the process starts all over again.
I expect very little from the people that I send to Washington now, Cal. There are a narrow set of areas where the Federal Government should involve itself. For their convenience, these areas are clearly and simply defined in the Constitution of the United States (see enumerated powers).
For everything else, no matter how tempted you are to twiddle with it to make it "better": Stay the fuck away from it and leave us alone.
I hate to say that you make a lot of sense. I just hope that in some small way at some time in history that what is good for everyone will be the motivating factor behind governance. I am not even an American but I feel invested in your destiny. As goes America, so goes the rest of the world. You magnifacent bastards never make it boring, do you?
Anarchism is the way to go Cal. Though Bank's anarchism not Macleod's.
If you treat people like shit they can just leave.
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