Republicans block the “auto bailout?” The Democrats are all for it? So one is bad and one is good? This strict demarcation is false and misleads the undereducated American who just reads headlines.
The fact remains, both the GOP and the Dems are to blame for their bad ideas. Neither party, though, is inherently bad (or inherently good for that matter). The GOP tries to block the Detroit bailout largely because of adherence to an economic model (which is just that, a model), yet they backed down–folded, really–when panic-mode struck in late October, and that was for a much larger sum of money. The Democrats want to give away treasure a la Robin of Locksley, and though idealistic, it is monumentally stupid.
The problem is that when these two parties were in cahoots with each other in late October, $700 billion came rushing out of the Treasury. What is $14 billion now that the floodgates are open? Yes, a pittance.
While it is admirable to cling to principles–ostensibly what the GOP lawmakers say they are doing–the Republicans on the Hill mostly lack them. One cannot be complicit in one of the largest financial boondoggles on one end and come back a month later and hide behind “principle” and “restraint.” This is simply hypocrisy in practice.
The Democrats, while generally considered as having a better idea about what ails Americans, tend to have the most ridiculous solutions to problems. As most of the Dems in D.C. fancy themselves as reformers, Chesterton’s words come to mind, “The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.” When one removes himself from (”the shackles” of) tradition and enters a world where the undefined and reasoned are glorified, therein lies the problem.
While I cannot advocate a complete upheaval of the system we have, for it would foment chaos, we do need to proceed in a manner where issues are, at the very least, addressed and not just barked down upon. We are getting to a point in this society where soon sacred cows shall matter not.
Is getting rid of the Republican Party and/or Democratic Party going to make things much better? I can’t say, but Lincoln’s Republicans essentially took the place of the Whigs in his day. The parties are not the problem. The people we elect and their blind ideologies are the problem.
Our republic was founded upon revolutionary and high-minded principles and sought for election people who would adhere to–at least–the idea of America. As this idea disappears, so does the country around it.
When a woman in Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin as the Constitutional Convention was dying down, “Well, Doctor, what have we got?” The good doctor responded, “A republic, if you can keep it!” This long-lasting republic is now slipping into despair and may even rightly be called a democracy. Summoning Chesterton once more, the Prince of Paradox says “[t]hough we praise democracy, it turns out that there is nothing that so terrifies men as the decree that they are all kings.” Mrs. Powell from Philadelphia wanted to know if the long summer’s work had ultimately produced a monarchy or a republic, for the American Revolution had just removed our people from the tyranny of King George. I am afraid that today’s Americans are having trouble getting out from under the tyranny of themselves.
[Ed.-This is just something for the readers to consider and the author to polish. A "Thought of the Day" if you will, but much longer than the pithy standard the author would like to see out of himself.]
