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A singer called Utah Phillips (Bruce Phillips) stated the situation as:
"The Republicans and Democrats are the Right and Left wings of the American Property Party".
As a country and society we worship property and wealth and bow to those that have it and disparage those that do not. Somehow having a fortune makes someone automatically worthy of our trust and confidence. Wealth, no matter how obtained, makes you a better person than the rest of us.
This is the basic error in our political thought. We worship the worst people.
We need a Party that values an individual's basic freedoms and responsibilities regardless of their wealth or lack thereof. The Republicans, the Tea Party and the Democrats are not it.
Well the parties at the moment are a bit lost. I figure that these things happen in large organizations. I believe that we all need to reflect on our cooperative contributions to our system. I definitely think that everything should be up for discussion.
I think the foundation for good policy is inherent with our political system, we are a young nation and we have alot of things right.
I used to be idealistic, but now I see the parties as follows:
Dems: no longer for the working people/lower/middle class; all for those who want to be handed everything. Would like most to be dependent on the government and ruled by an elite (them) who know best (as they sit in their barricaded ivory towers). Want more illegal immigrants brought it/given 'amnesty' because it increases their base (uneducated people with no skills who need handouts).
Repubs: want what is best for the multinationals, period. Would love to get rid of (privatize) social security. Wouldn't care if poor houses, debtors prisons etc. made a comeback. Wouldn't care if everyone was homeless, because they 'just didn't plan well enough' Want more illegal immigrants brought in because the corporations want cheap labour.
Grim, but that's how I see it.
So offer solutions. Critical analysis is important but easy to do if you do not have an alternative.
I often see people get stuck in analysis that has them criticizing everything, and poo pooing everything. It becomes the root of a problem when it infects the minds of everyone. Solutions to problems are everywhere if you care to look for them.
If you look for the bad you will find it, but if you look for the good you will find that also.
Regarding the OP, I think you got it backward. Republicans are about the masses. They want to leave everything to self-regulation, and as long as macro-level metrics are favorable, they won't care how that happens. Democrats, on the other hand, tend to care for the individuals. They want more regulation to ensure equality and welfare for the underprivileged. They pay more attention to micro-level issues. This explains why democrats raise taxes for the rich to redistribute wealth to the poor, and why republicans cut taxes to encourage business.
I see that you are favorably Republican by your responses. I am not arguing what the current parties are doing or what is right for us all and what is right for individuals like yourself. I just know that we need to cooperate with each other to live peacefully and have opportunities, and grow as a civilization. We are on a planet full of energy and resources, and in a Universe full of the same. We need to think big and grow, and stop thinking about the pettiness of our personal prejudices. Our "Pale Blue Dot" self importance doesn't matter if we cannot hold onto and pass on information and implement processes that will favor our existence.
If Republican are for Self-regulation, then why do most Republicans favor "Pro-Life" agendas? Why do they make policy that is always against women's rights to their own bodies? Why are women not fairly represented in the Republican party and why do they make policy that affects women without women being present in committee when the legislation is being made?
Wealth is having information available and being able to use it.
Honestly, it's very hard to not be cynical about politics. This is nothing new, just viewing reality as clearly as possible.
In politics, as often the case in any human interaction, the one thing you can absolutely count on is that people will act in their own best interests (or what they perceive their own best interests to be).
This is much of the reason politicians say one thing and do another - they are trying to sway voters' perceptions of their best interests without having to actually foot the bill for their promises.
In large part I find that the trend for the Democrats is to push popularism tailored to whichever group they are speaking to - free stuff for the masses, regulatory exemptions for favored businesses, handouts for all with the promises of higher taxes for a few to pay for them. The challenge for the voter or business is to get into and stay in a category that receives rather than pays.
For Republicans the trend is similar but less open about it because they are not trying to tell different groups different things and blur the record when caught out, they are trying to tell no one anything that is specific enough that it cannot be spun whichever direction circumstances require. By way of example, they would love to tell people that if you choose not to pay for health insurance you should suffer the consequences of that decision - but they will not say so because it is political suicide.
The few honest people with whom I have had political discussions are people who I can respect in spite of their political leanings. Honesty is unfortunately a very rare trait in professional politics because it is very hard to speak truthfully and still get elected.
The truth should get you elected, So in essence the voter is the problem. I thought this all along. Our society is reflective of our individual contribution to our social consciousness.
We should value what makes us all successful because as you and I know you cannot live in modern America without the help of others. This is the consequence of "Specialization".
Both parties have a single master, that would be the interests of the upper class who rules this government. When we begin to think that either party's agenda can be summed up by pointing to those they "serve" we forget that this notion of them serving anyone but the moneyed interests is what accounts for all of the "politics" we here on media outlets.
It'll never happen of course, these low life's are too reliant on the American people's stupidity and divisiveness to ever get a hint.
Humanity is humanity. I see it in all cultures, all organizations, all families. I see evidence everyday that people are smarter than before, they are using the information available to them.
I spoke to a retired federal judge, and he said that the 60's were "Armageddon" in the eyes of all generations at that time, it was the hardest period of social change because of the unprecedented speed of information and the social issues that people did not want to deal with.
We got through the sixties and succeeded, grew and grow still. What makes people think we will not get through these modern yet very human issues. The issues of governing and making decisions for our republic. A republic of over 300 million people.
Unfortunately, I don't believe either party, at least on the national level, cares to represent most or all Americans. And there isn't a third party that I've been able to find at least, that has a platform that would do just that.
A lot of frustrated citizens out here that know neither party is properly representing them in Washington D.C. If a viable third party is created in the near future that truly does stand for the greater good, it'll be interesting to see who is left standing in regards to the two ruling parties now.
I understand your position, but to me a third party would be confusing at best because of human logic. A decision should always be proposed as the better of two choices.
Why doesn't the better of three choices work? I think it is because our whole information construct is binary, a ying and a yang, a positive and negative, a good and evil, black and white, etc.
George Washington nailed it (a two party system) in his farewell address:
“It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration.... agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one.... against another.... it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption... thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
Neither of the modern day political parties cares about the party, other than keeping the donors happy and donating so they can keep their power.
The caricatures that the parties (with the help of the media) have created are that Democrats are all about the middle class and are pro-woman and pro-minority, etc. But when you look at the reality of what their policies have brought, you see more poverty, more single mother households, less upper mobility among minorities and generally a backwards trend for the demographics that democrats claim to want to help.
Republicans are made out to want to kill off old people, keep women barefoot and pregnant and hate all children that are born because they weren't aborted, and of course, they are all racist...even the minorities within the Republican party. These are all ridiculous assumptions. BUT, the Republicans also claim to be about the free market and that is a lie. There has not been a free market system in this country since the early 1700's! Republicans are all about crony capitalism. Keeping big business happy by regulating small companies out of competition, so they can get huge donations to get re-elected.
There is not solution. There is no "savior" that will rise from either party and turn this debacle around. We did this to ourselves. We are living George Washington's prescient prediction. We no longer exist in the vision of our founders. We have become nothing more than a European style democracy (ironically) and there is no "civil" prescription to heal this nation. IMO
When you look at the immigration policy this country has had for the last couple of generations how can you not be cynical about the political parties in this country?
The policy has been completely irrational as far as looking out for the overall economic and cultural interests of the country and has been tailored to narrow political interests in both political parties.
When you look at the immigration policy this country has had for the last couple of generations how can you not be cynical about the political parties in this country?
The policy has been completely irrational as far as looking out for the overall economic and cultural interests of the country and has been tailored to narrow political interests in both political parties.
The only reason for economic growth in this country is immigration. Second and third generation Americans have less children, and sometimes have a negative population (where the population is decreasing). Less tax revenue, less construction, less new housing....... less economy!
The truth should get you elected, So in essence the voter is the problem. I thought this all along. Our society is reflective of our individual contribution to our social consciousness.
We should value what makes us all successful because as you and I know you cannot live in modern America without the help of others. This is the consequence of "Specialization".
I agree with you completely on truth in politics, I prefer an honest politician with a different idea of how to solve problems over a dishonest one who agrees with me on issues. I don't think I understand our individual contribution to social consciousness however.
I do think it is unfortunate, but probably inevitable, that politics rewards those who tell voters what they wish to hear right now and gloss over the long term hard work necessary to make their promises work out. In many cases they are promising the impossible, knowing it is impossible, and counting on their ability to convince voters that their promise is only impossible because the other guy is a selfish jerk.
We agree on the outcome of specialization (Matt Ridley talks about it a lot in the Rational Optimist). Where we are going to disagree is in understanding the motivation to specialize. What you call "the help of others" I call mutually beneficial cooperation.
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