Halfback wrote: 1) Congress generally deadlocked, particularly when it comes to Dems vs Reps agenda. Nothing new.
It wasnt for the past six years, when the Republicans had a majority in the House as well as the Presidency, and for five of the six years a majority in the Senate as well.
With a President who wouldnt wield a single veto, a Congress that nodded and smiled while the President accorded himself the right of "signing statements", and a largely toothless Democratic opposition, the Republicans enjoyed across-the-board power to push through any legislation they damn well pleased.
The results were far-reaching, from a foolhardy rush into war in Iraq to large tax cuts overwhelmingly biased towards the richest to an escalation in pork spending.
In light of such radical policies, passed with such little resistance, "steamrolling" seems a perfectly reasonable word. It's not got to do with partisan preference. I'd say it'd be perfectly reasonable to say that FDR steamrolled his New Deal reforms through as well, and I still think those were the best thing that happened to the US in the last century. But they, too, amounted to a radical and large-scale transformation of politics, with a deep impact on society. Bush's rule has had the same kind of deep impact, even if hopefully it will be more temporary. "Steamroller" is merely descriptive here.
Halfback wrote: 5) Why is it the "Republican" media when they say something that the Dems don't like and the "Democratic" media when the reverse is true. Pure hype, either way.
Instinctually I empathise with your "pox on both their houses" shtick. It's pleasing to the temperament: it allows one to paper over any of the divisions between ordinary citizens, and to then collectively feel indignant/superior to those good for nothing politicians. But I think its naive. Sometimes there
is a real difference. Sometimes there is no equivalence. There is no equivalence between CNN and Fox News. There is no equivalence between the New York Times and Rush Limbaugh-type talk radio. All the media may say things you dont like, but there is a qualitative difference between the rabid partisan agression of Fox and Rush and the superficial he said, she said journalism of CNN and the like.
I have not commented on your posts before, but this is where I have a real issue with them. You seem to pretend that anyone who comes out clearly on one side of the debate must just be following partisan talking points, and that if we would just all cut the partisan crap, things would be so much better. But what that ignores, IMO, there
are real, substantive and drastic choices of principle before us here.
When you're talking of questions like whether there should be universal access to health insurance or whether it should be wholly left up to the market, whether privatising social security is an irresponsible sell-out to the stock market or a return of power to the individual, whether any use of torture violates the very principles of American society or "enhanced interrogation techniques" are not just necessary but only justified, whether the government should set and control strict environmental protection regulations or staff the EPA with industry-friendly officials who all but abandon the policing effort, whether you have enforcement and expansion of the right of employees to unionise or try to cut down any such opportunity -- these are real, substantive, and fundamentally ideological questions of principle.
Questions like that, you dont solve them with a nebulous "lets all of us tax payers just get together and do something about this" stance. You dont settle them with a call for bipartisan spirit. They are real choices, and where we as individuals stand on them says something significant about how we see the world, and how we see ourselves. There's not some kind of popular consensus outside the Beltway either, where ordinary people like you or your neighbour would all agree - on immigration, for example, you'll find that a lot of people you're now telling, "Waddaya say, gang? You gonna be part of the potential solution?", would propose the opposite of what you would want.
What the Bush administrations have done, much like the Reagan, FDR, and arguably LBJ administrations did before, is raise fundamental questions of principle about what kind of country you want to live in. Thats very much not "business as usual". It's not all the same, like, Reps, Dems, libs and cons, they'll all screw you over anyway -- there are real choices at hand here, and there will be real disagreements. And when people here say, I think the Republicans have been disastrous and I want the Dems to get the power to do the opposite, it mustnt just be that they're partisan foils - it's more likely a question of real, sincere passionate conviction, based on deeply held personal principles.
Halfback wrote: Lastly, in a point of pure irony: We sit here and gripe about Congress. "It's the lowest ratings ever" we are told. Then, would somebody PLEASE tell me why, oh why, would a party offer, as leading contenders for the job of President, members of this same low performing august body?
Because they're not all the same. You can hardly blame Senator Obama, for example, who's been in the Senate for just one term and who's always voiced clear opposition against all those policies Bush and the Republicans were pushing through before, for the state of the nation today. He and other Dems like him hardly represent the status quo.
The Dems have not had the chance to push through their own policies, and when they will have one, those will look a whole lot different from what you've seen in 2000-2006. And people know it too - just look at my last post here about the polls - voters have a low impression of Congress, but also a pretty good idea of how different the two parties in it are, and whose politics it is
specifically that mark the status quo.
Meanwhile, I'm not just griping - to all of the below I say, right on!, and spread the word.
Halfback wrote: If enough of us do it, and pass that on to Congresspersons, I submit that it is NOT useless. [..]
I have e-mailed, written, got editorials published in the local papers. You might contend that it is useless, but I contend that if enough of us poor, dumb taxpayers/voters out here do the same, then it might just happen that [they] listen to us. [..]
OK. One further, if you can't bring yourself to do anything else, VOTE! We, the supposed leader of the Democracy Loving Countries of the world have had, for years now, one of the lowest turn out rates for elections amongst countries that even allow voting.
It has been said that sometimes a people get exactly the type of Government it deserves. I hold that adage as proven true in our case. WE are at fault here, no one else. It's OUR Government, not the President's, or the Congress', OURS.
[..] Crap. We don't need a leader, we need a direction. Take one..... you don't have to lead, just push, hard.
More power to ya! :-)
