Let me preface this by saying I am not a socialist or a communist in an economic or political sense, I like capitalism and democracy. I am a conservative to the extent that conservative means leave me alone, and I am a liberal to the extent that your rights interfere with mine, and I am not a one worlder, at least not till the second coming.
What I find disturbing is that the two main political parties have acted in a manner to divide this country internally that no outside force has managed to. There is no longer an open debate or discussion of issues. Instead differences of opinion are dismissed by not by logic, based upon the ideas merits, but by label, one camp screaming liberal left wing, pinko secular humanist atheist, nut, and another screaming back conservative right wing Nazi, religious nut.
The electorate is no longer viewed as the American voter, but as a collection of small interest groups to be manipulated. Both parties do this well. They play to fears, and the basal prejudices and distrusts, manipulating and exploiting them for their own use. Every individual has issues or priorities that they feel are important, by pandering to these, the parties have corrupted the unity of the population by isolating the individual, in an ideological, sense from the general population. By pandering, I mean creating the appearance that an issue, important to an individual or group, is also important to the party and addressing it in a manner that shows concern but does nothing to meet the concerns of the individual or group, and then blaming the opposing party for the failure to address the concerns of the individual and group. They will then further isolate the individual or group by posturing that only they, the party, are fighting for this issue, and demonizing those opposed. The classic the enemy of my enemy is my friend; it is almost like watching a magician. The cute assistance prancing on the stage distracting us is the empty rhetoric, and while distracted the magician, the party, does the magic. In addition they will take an issue and change the context of it to suit the partys position or to merely foster dissention. The parties have learned controversy and demonizing, akin to talk radio, is the key to successes.
Look at one issue in a cold and unemotional way and the stated positions of the parties on them in contrast to their actions on them.
Gun Control:
The second amendment contemplates the government having the power to call up all able-bodied persons in the event of an emergency, and that those called up should arrived armed. While some may question the need for a citizen militia in this era of modern war, my experience in Viet-Nam, left me with a great deal of respect for an indigenous ill equipped forces ability to inflict casualties on the most modern military in the world. Considering the context in which the constitution and the bill of rights evolved, these were viewed as the ultimate defense against government tyranny and foreign intervention. No I do not think the second amendment is inviolable, after all there is some speech that is prohibited. However look at a history of legislation that has involved gun rights.
1791 second amendment ratified
1934 national firearms act, bans automatic weapons with out license
1938 federal firearms act, requires sellers and importers to be licensed, bars some convicted of crimes from owning
1968 gun control act, mostly outlawed mail order gun sales, increased record keeping, expanded list of those prohibited from gun ownership
1986 LEO protection act, outlawed armor piercing ammo
1986 firearms owners protection act, eased some restrictions on sellers, mandated penalties for gun use in a crime
1990 Crime control act, outlawed assembly of illegal weapons from legally imported parts, created drug free school zones where possession or firing of guns carried special penalties
1994 Brady bill, 5 day waiting period and background checks
1994 assault weapons ban
2005 assault weapons ban expires
In general the Republican Party claims to support gun ownership and asserts the Democratic Party wants to ban all guns and the Democratic Party claims that control prevents crime and that Republicans do not care about the gun violence in America. Both frame this as an all or nothing proposition, however with a framing of the debate as all or nothing, there is yet to be any legislation introduced that expands rights of ownership to any degree or reduces crime to any degree since 1968. The Brady bills background checks were reasonable, if we can agree, that known some individuals should not be able to buy or posses a gun legally; the rest was stupid, as was the assault weapons ban, if one cannot hit you with 10 shots 20 probably will not help, and neither will a pistol grip, bayonet lug or flash suppressor. But what did the party that claims to fight for our gun rights do, they did not remove the biggest impediment to gun ownership, in fact they do not mention it, ever, the 11% excise tax on firearms. Nor do you see or hear of the Solicitor General or Attorney General trotting down to the Supreme Court and arguing that being the second amendment to the constitution gives individuals the right to keep and bear, as in carry, arms; a city or state has no right to prohibit the ownership or bearing of a firearm, being this right is enumerated in the constitution the right to regulate firearms is reserved to the federal government exclusively. No their great contribution is issuing a non-binding opinion that the right, under the second amendment, is individual not collective, even though the courts took this up beginning almost 150 years ago. Conversely the party that is concerned about gun violence does not support gun safety classes or hunter safety in schools, nor trot down to the Supreme Court. Neither addresses the causes of gun related crime, just the symptoms and tools involved.
So why the all or nothing; to be sure there is the slippery slope, how you go from privacy to abortion, another fun topic of disingenuousness, by both parties. Because it makes political sense, the aim is no longer public safety, but party power. I find few gun owners that think it is a good idea to allow felons the right to purchase and posses guns, or that unrestricted ownership of machine guns is an idea whose time has come again, or that think buying guns by mail order does not present risks. These seem reasonable, but if I tell you any gun legislations ultimate goal is to disarm you or that eliminating guns will lower crime I can polarize the context in which a discussion takes place, then the goal of public safety is no longer the issue, but the issue becomes one where any gun law is bad or any gun law is good, regardless of its effect or intent. Both parties have done this without offering anything that has enhanced public safety since 1968. As long as the parties can galvanize an individual or group, by empty rhetoric, words no action, and rally them to support with an us against them attitude concerning a narrowly defined issue, the parties can continue to exploit the interests of the group, and curry their support without worry that some of the individuals or groups might find the parties main objection distasteful, and insist that there be action in the interest of all, not just us.
To be sure there is always a small minority of people on both sides of a debate that are absolute. However the vast majority of people can find a common ground, after all we live in the first country to have a written constitution, made from scratch, this was no mean feat in itself. There are decent sincere people on both sides of any issue, but allowing political parties to exploit these honest points of view, and frame the context of debate makes it unlikely that we can achieve a consensus.
The parties will continue divide the collectiveness of the America people as it creates the distraction needed to allow them to enrich themselves, at the expense of the populace. Allowing ourselves to be manipulated into simplistic positions like all liberals are bad, or all conservatives are bad, and thus any liberal idea or conservative idea is bad, does nothing but insure that constructive ideas, intended for the good of the country are never measured, against the standard, is this good for the people, but are simply opposed by one side or the other.
A useful analogy is religion; there are over 33,000 Christian denominations, if a Methodist and a Baptist disagree over tenets of their churches do they automatically reject, out of hand, ideas for spreading the Gospel, because of it? America has over 370,000,000 people, instead of denominations, and we disagree on matters of ideology, instead of articles of faith, and in lieu of spreading the Gospel, we come together under the Constitution. So why is it constructive to allow ideas offered with the intent, to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, as stated in the Constitution, to be dismissed on the basis that they were put forth by someone who disagrees with us on some article of ideology? Maybe liberal ideas suck, or maybe conservative ideas suck, but we are all Americans and thus to paraphrase Lincoln, with a great deal of poetic license; All conservative or liberal ideas suck some of the time, and some conservative or liberal ideas suck all of the time, but all conservative or liberal ideas do not suck all of the time.
Life is no joke but funny things happen
jon
