For the better part of the last 25 years, and even more specifically during the first 13 years of the new millennium, we have complained about how our politicians have been do-nothings because they can agree upon nothing. Of course there were exceptions such as Desert Storm and the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11. But these respites never last long. In the 1980’s we had the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal which the right used to run up a tab of almost $100 million in an attempt to oust a sitting president from office. In the early 2000’s we had charges from the left that the Bush administration sent troops into Iraq based on bad intelligence. God forbid that politicians use poor judgment or make mistakes. Tempers flare and we all rage at these so-called injustices when they happen. But I think that we, the citizens, may fail to look at a deeper root of the discontent in Washington. We need to look at how WE react when even discussing these topics of national importance amongst ourselves. Neither those that support the left or the right care to listen to the thoughts and opinions of the other side. So many have simply closed their minds to anything but what they choose to believe. Rational discussion never seems to be an option. It’s not simply a matter of feeling that one side has a better plan to reach a similar result. We watch FOX or MSNBC, but never both. The option of negotiation rarely seems to exist. Now it’s simply, “I hate Obama or I hate Bush.” Ludicrous talk of impeachment begins. Is that how it’s supposed to work? If we don’t agree with the ideas of a sitting president, the next move is having him removed from office in disgrace? Is that how our founding fathers designed the system to work? Some choose to use that argument to defend their hatred of the President. Because we react so strongly to the opposition, does that cause us to elect politicians that hold the same extreme views that we do? The nation has grown in two distinct directions; extreme left and extreme right. This has become a cancer to the art of debate and negotiation. The Founding Fathers were a group of extremely intelligent men who converged on history at just the right time. They wanted the debate. Our system was designed for compromise in order to find a medium of thought. We have elections in order to give us each a voice in which direction our nation is moving. If you don’t like the positions held by sitting officials, you vote them out of office and bring in new people who hopefully have fresher ideas. You don’t humiliate them on what is now an instantaneous world stage. The goal is no longer about how to get things done, it’s about how can we block them from doing anything. Bill Clinton and George Bush are not the first presidents to make poor choices either personally or professionally, and they certainly won’t be the last. But we need to redevelop some national pride and become more cognizant of how we appear to the world. We also need to look within ourselves and take some responsibility for what is happening in Washington. We, both Democratic and Republicans are putting these people in office. Do we truly feel that these are the people who are representing our best interests, or are we simply electing people who act as childish as we do?
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 23:12:30 +0000
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