I agree that the "system" as it stands is inoperable, but I think that that is because it was never intended and is ill suited to the purposes to which it is being put. The US federal government was carefully designed to be little more than an arbiter of inter-state disputes, with the states themselves setting 90% of the policy decisions that are the big news items of the day. This was done because it was clear to the founders that there would be disagreements in the populace, and they were trying to make a place where everyone's values could be upheld, so they created all these separate states and a very limited fed. This should have allowed California to legalize gay marriage and virginia to keep it illegal, so, the homosexuals would gravitate toward California and the Christian right would move to Virginia. Federalizing these issues is what has created such a huge partisan divide, because now both sides see the other side as attempting to ram their worldview down their throats. Furthermore, allowing individual states to do things differently to the whole gives room for test-cases. If california legalizes gay marriage and does not get blasted by angels, then Washington might well follow suit, and eventually, in a stairway-like progression, you may find the whole nation to now allow it. Without rancor or issue.
In short, gridlock at the federal level is inevitable because both sides are trying to use a hammer to cut steak. The approach you are looking to take up sounds good to me, if you see something that needs to be done, go forth and do it!
Gotta say though that I haven't seen any conservatives make Nazi comparisons to gay marriage. Or for that matter to any other social issue, although there have been some on economic issues.
Basically, yeah - a return to the sanity of fixing it yourself if you think it's broken. Like what you were doing with the rent-to-own thing, honestly - fixing the societal stupidity of fixable houses falling apart while families are denied the ability to buy homes.
I didn't mean Nazism per se - just, if you read that comic strip all the way down, she used Hitler's rise to power and genocide as the example of a slippery slope where gradual acceptance of "I can live with this one small thing, even though it's not what I'd prefer" after another can lead a society to wonder how the hell such a thing ever came to pass one day.
I agree that the "system" as it stands is inoperable, but I think that that is because it was never intended and is ill suited to the purposes to which it is being put. The US federal government was carefully designed to be little more than an arbiter of inter-state disputes, with the states themselves setting 90% of the policy decisions that are the big news items of the day. This was done because it was clear to the founders that there would be disagreements in the populace, and they were trying to make a place where everyone's values could be upheld, so they created all these separate states and a very limited fed. This should have allowed California to legalize gay marriage and virginia to keep it illegal, so, the homosexuals would gravitate toward California and the Christian right would move to Virginia. Federalizing these issues is what has created such a huge partisan divide, because now both sides see the other side as attempting to ram their worldview down their throats. Furthermore, allowing individual states to do things differently to the whole gives room for test-cases. If california legalizes gay marriage and does not get blasted by angels, then Washington might well follow suit, and eventually, in a stairway-like progression, you may find the whole nation to now allow it. Without rancor or issue.
In short, gridlock at the federal level is inevitable because both sides are trying to use a hammer to cut steak. The approach you are looking to take up sounds good to me, if you see something that needs to be done, go forth and do it!
Gotta say though that I haven't seen any conservatives make Nazi comparisons to gay marriage. Or for that matter to any other social issue, although there have been some on economic issues.
Reply
I didn't mean Nazism per se - just, if you read that comic strip all the way down, she used Hitler's rise to power and genocide as the example of a slippery slope where gradual acceptance of "I can live with this one small thing, even though it's not what I'd prefer" after another can lead a society to wonder how the hell such a thing ever came to pass one day.
Reply
Leave a comment