Skip to main content

Legislation Is Messy

.
The Democrats are in trouble. Obama's ultra radical agenda has been soundly rejected. The party is losing seats in Congress and soon the Democrat majority will be gone. I was thinking that perhaps government would be more effective if Congress and the Presidency were held by different political parties. That led to my thinking about the process we use in government to control what we have, and to forge ahead. The process is what we call legislation . . .  and it involves compromises, corruption, and re-elections. Whoa! Could it be that the reason it is so difficult to get things done by the governement is that it is a faulty, inefficient, and cumbersome way to steer America's progress?

Think about the nuts and bolts of how our government's business is conducted. You couldn't run a local Kiwanis Club the way our legislators run the nation's business. Let's discuss an exagerated example:

Each political party has a set of established traditional principles and values. They each have representatives in government service, and they each are expected to vote for or against [whatever issue]. Before the vote they are bombarded by lobbiests who advocate for their bosses [perhaps selfish] interest. Then they set themselves up to count the pro and con reactions of their constituents. Then the party bosses step in and demand they follow the party line. Then when they disagree the party bosses offer to trade [something] to influence their vote. Somewhere along this convoluted methodology . . . principles and values are compromised by those who vote on [whatever Issue]. For one side to [win], the other must [lose].

When one side [loses], we can be sure that a political party principle or value has been trashed in order to get consensus.

Is this really the best way to resolve a conflict of interests and govern a nation?


.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Intellectual / Incompetent / Liberal

We all know that there are serious problems with ou American political system. The federal government and national media have been telling us that we continue to lead the world in just about everything. Unfortunately, we do not. Measuring our status against other nations is difficult as it entails comparison of different attributes and characteristics. Comparisons are, at best, crude.  Surely, if we look, it's clear that America is no longer dominant among the world's communities. 


For decades following the 1929 economic depression, America has enriched foreign industries at the expense of our own. We have subsidized foreign military powers while allowing the depletion of our own. We've defended other nations borders while, at the same time, not defended our own. We've spent trillions of dollars to subsidize unworthy governments, and let our own infrastructure to fall into disrepair. 

The use of our economic power as a diplomatic tool may have been the correct thing to d…
Post a Comment
Read more

Cruel and Thoughtless . . .

A disheartening situation has hit our family. A cousin, one that we don't know very well, has reached 93 years of age. Most of the Chapman family made it to the mid 80's, but Mary Lou Chapman has managed a few years more. And, she's not gone yet. Mary was unmarried her entire life. She grew up in a good home, was well educated, has always hd a good job, and has enjoyed pretty good health - until just a few years ago. While she is still very much alive, I sometimes speak in the past tense as if she had already died. Mary is either confused or in her own little world now. She began losing some of her sparkle a few years ago. At first it was mild memory loss, and then mild hearing loss, and then drifting in her speech as she lost track of what she wanted to say. Her Doctor said it was a mild dementia coming on with old age, and nothing to worry about yet. A few month's passed by before she began to have problems driving herself to the market and appointments and so forth,…
Post a Comment
Read more

The Reluctant Liberal

I've a grandson that has been exposed to political liberalism all his life. In it's modern version the words "left wing" means the liberal side of politics, and "right wing" describes the more conservative side. In our two party system each term may be used to describe a member of either party. Believe it or not, there are a few conservative Democrats.
Today, the Democratic Party has become  overwhelmingly "liberal" and the Republican Party more conservative.  At times it has been difficult to find enough reasonable cooperation between parties and that is, unfortunately, how it is today. With President Trump now in the saddle, the Democratic Party has refused any level of cooperation -  and our government has slowed to a walk.

The simple explanation is probably the correct one. The hard left wing, usually members of the Democratic Party, allows no other point of view. They each consider moderate and conservative opposing ideas to have no merit. This…
Post a Comment
Read more