Trends and Patterns
I don’t follow politics as a day-to-day matter. Straw polls and the like are background noise to me. I don’t watch TV news, nor read newspapers (Well I do read the funnies?). I am an ignorant hillbilly by many standards. And, BTW, I’m a registered Independent.
I HAVE voted in every election held for the last 40 years or so.
What follows is NOT NEW or NEWS... Mores the pity!
Sadly, the problems currently besetting our country have little to do with Democrats or Republicans. Maybe it’s been caused by the fact that one can get a degree in something called Political Science? Perhaps it’s because one can even have a career in politics? What is clear is that The Pampered Princes (and Princesses) on the Potomac have an elitist bent that has developed over time. Party generally plays little actual role.
J. D. talks about one aspect over at his place:
Rovian: Hydrocephalic ruling class political propagandists; some with pointy heads
Michelle Bachman won the Iowa straw poll. The Rovians tell us it does not mean anything. Their reasoning is that the solid candidates with any prayer of winning, meaning the ruling class establishment picks, did not play in Iowa. My take is that the establishment picks did not participate because they did not want to start their campaigns with a king sized butt whoopin’ right out of the gate. But, I could be wrong as my head is not quite as large as Karl’s. Actually no one’s is.
I’ll posit that the issue has little to do with specific candidates, but that doesn’t dismiss his broader point; so take the time to read his piece.
Still, while the first step in problem solving is to correctly define said problem. WE, as citizens, have raised the ‘Elite Ruling Class’. WE, as citizens, have abdicated our responsibilities.
An apparent exception is, of course, The TEA Party. I’ll submit that the risk is not so much that that group will be further marginalized, but that it will be subsumed in The System.
So… what can WE do? We might use The TEA Party as a tool to prioritize the notion of term limits for congress. After all it seems reasonable to suspect that taxes would be dealt with quite differently by someone who wasn’t planning his re-election campaign from day one?
That’s one idea from this seat. And I’ve also proposed that congress critters be treated EXACTLY like our military. Similar pay and pay structure. Live in barracks, eat in mess halls, see military medical folks, etc. I’d also select candidates from the Jury Pool, but… I’m not The King.
Closing question (and the real point of this post):
What are YOUR ideas? We’ve had enough ‘pie in the sky’ and fancy programs so what, short of armed rebellion, can WE do? Are WE willing to except even the minimal inconvenience of going to the polls and voting?
ETA: Didn’t mean to appear to dis Political Science as a major. I can see statistics, physics, etc as a science, but POLITICS? YMMV.
Category: Geezer Alert!, Politics
Zero, that voting is such a “minimal inconvenience” as you put it might be part of the problem itself. Allow me to explain:
Because of such GOTV ideas as Motor Voter, early voting, and making absentee voting almost pathetically easy, we abdicate any responsibility for the voter to actually KNOW and UNDERSTAND the issues and where the candidates stand. We’ve turned elections from a referendum on the issues and who best will represent our views into American Idol writ large.
I personally would like to see the elimination of early voting, curtailing absentee voting to all but those who cannot absolutely make it to the polling places on Election Day, etc. Does this mean I’m “disenfranchising” voters? Not at all–their right to vote hasn’t been infringed upon at all. But what it DOES do it ensure that only those who actually care enough to cast a ballot rather than an afterthought do so.
Now, on to the straw polls:
Yes, Rove is (partially) correct when he says the straw polls aren’t meaningful in that it doesn’t get a representative view of the population–these straw poll voters are PAYING to vote, or having the cost of their votes covered by the candidate. This is why Bachman and Paul spent upwards of $1.2-1.5 million in Iowa, and even in the Florida vote, the delegates who cast ballots were paying attendees.
However, he is wrong when he says that candidates don’t take the results seriously–witness Pawlenty in Iowa for one, and we may well see Newt, Bachman, and Huntsman drop out before long if their showings don’t markedly improve.
Just as a note, few people who get advanced degrees in Political Science are in politics. Most are professors, think tankers or civil servants not politicians. I’m still on the fence about what actually needs to be done because , honestly, I just don’t know. What I do know is that something has to change if we are to put this country back on track. Some problems that I see are as follows: Ethnocentrism is on the rise and will continue to rise as our economy goes down the shitter and the BRIC countries keep rising higher. You think that we hate outsiders now? Just wait until our fragile economy takes another dump. Lack of immigration reform. Let’s face it, shits getting expensive and the more illegals that we have to take care of and coddle, the less money that we will have in the pot to take care of our own citizens that have pitched in to the system all their lives. What I would do with illegals that want to come to this country is to give them a selected term as denizens where they pay a certain amount in taxes, have certain rights and after a certain amount of time in this country as denizens give them an option of applying for citizenship. This will lessen the image that illegal immigrants have garnered as “leeches” on our economic system. Political Voice: I recently heard someone say that our political voice is bell shaped. You have moderates in the middle that think rationally and are able to compromise on decisions so that our country can actually get something done. It’s when you get to each end of the bell where shit starts to get weird. Recently an article was printed in the LA Times where one person stated that homework was racist because it didn’t take into account that some people have to work at night and have no time for homework, those people tend to be ethnic minorities, WTF. Creationism, need I say more? There is plenty more that can be said on infinite issues but I… Read more »
The main use I see for the Tea Party is to punish wayward Republicans. If they can keep doing that they will have my support. Forcing Republicans to act like Republicans will win this war of ideas.
>Forcing Republicans to act like Republicans will win this war of ideas.
I agree! It is funny that over the years Liberal candidates got more liberal, and our “Republicans” followed them left as well. Sometimes the two candidates are just Dem & Demlite.
The funny thing about this is we are a center right country. It was funny at the time of the 2008 elections to listen to Barack Obama-at times he sounded more right than McCain.
The main difference between Dems and Repubs? When a Repub is a Dem lite- he votes like it. When a Dem acts like a moderate-99% of the time they still vote party line.
I’ll note that Political Science also looks good if you want to become a translator or work in an intelligence field. Slightly more abstract is using it as an animator/designer to better design games… different matter though. That said, I’m already hating the professor and the book to the point of switching my minor in Animation to my Major.
Fixing the issues at hand though? Aside from term limits, gutting a lot of power would be a good start. I agree with the above, giving them living conditions and pay similar to the military might not be bad either, maybe it would help cut out some of the career sycophants and leeches.
So Pons,are you trying to tell us that the “Nuke’m till they glow and shoot them in the dark” option is off the table? Just curious…
@Marine 83 – “Forcing Republicans to act like Republicans will win this war of ideas.”
I would amend that to say forcing Republicans to act like Conservatives…..
Unfortunately, not only has the GOP forgotten fiscal discipline, they’ve forgotten individual liberty. The tea party can help, but they’re a one trick pony. With them I’ve seen economic reason countered by fundamentalism.
“and after a certain amount of time in this country as denizens give them an option of applying for citizenship”. Sorry, John, if they began their stay in the U.S. as an illegal, they deserve no path to citizenship. Unless that path returns them to their country of origin, and then back with a valid passport, and a visa from a US consulate.
Other than that disagreement, I like the points you made.
The cornerstone of our republican democracy is the integrity of our votes. One citizen, lawfully authorized to vote, gets one and only one vote, in secret. That’s it. Recommend the death penalty for actions such as conspiring to undermine the integrity of the vote (i.e. destroying voter rolls), or bullying voters, or finding the magical number of votes in the back of someone’s car.
Change election finance law so that only registered US voters can contribute. And let them contribute as much or as little as the want. No more legions of contributors from Gaza and the West Bank – just Americans.
Social conservatism is fiscal conservatism.
@DaveO – “Social conservatism is fiscal conservatism.”
In theory perhaps.
CI: no, there’s a money component to it. All of our government programs that deal with people are social, and cost money. There’s enormous amounts of common ground: both social and fiscal conservatives can agree to defund an agency or program, and justify the action in their own way.
@DaveO – OK, I see where you’re coming from. I think I define things a little differently, especially social conservatism. I consider myself socially liberal, but oppose every unearned entitlement I’ve seen come to pass.
I still don’t think the two are synonymous, but your statement makes a little more sense now.
@#8 Sorry, that point was meant to intertwine with the visa process. You can come here either with a visa or as a denizen. I don’t agree with giving chances to people who survive a desert march or come here for vacation and decide to stay.
TOO #6: Not “off the table”, simply not for discussion here. Jonn has enough problems with legal threats. I’m having tooo much fun here to see TAH go dark because some Official Poster said X.
I agree with George Carlin: “You may have noticed that there’s one thing I don’t complain about: Politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says, “They suck”. But where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. No, they come from American homes, American families, American schools, American churches, American businesses, and they’re elected by American voters. This is the best we can do, folks. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out.”
It’s hard to understand political science as a science if you haven’t taken any upper division courses where you use quantitative analysis (and most of the time you don’t use quantitative analysis until graduate school). Political Science is the science of studying the political landscape. Yeah it sounds hokey and to add even more to the confusing aspect of PoliSci, it’s the only science where it’s ok to be wrong.
Piffle.
Zero, I absolutely agree with the premise of treating Congress similar to the military, especially in regards to pay and the relinquishment of a pension unless one serves faithfully in a career status.
What I would not endorse, however, is the quartering and messing of these representatives. It’s still a drain on the tax payers.