07 March 2006

GRIDLOCK UBER ALLES !!!

Before the age of Nuclear ICBM's, War Powers Acts, and even before established political parties, the Founding Fathers had the foresight to know that it was the nature of public office holders to seek power, hence the many checks and balances purposefully included in the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin knew the delicate balance of 1789 would not last long, as did Thomas Jefferson, who put forth the idea of holding subsequent Constitutional Conventions every twenty years or so because, "a little Revolution every now and then" is a good thing, especially if it is done without bloodshed.

But factions coalesced into parties, who took sides, traded sides, and metamorphasized into the power cartel we know today. Their shared fundamental principle is first and foremost, that no 3rd party is allowed to become a permanent player in the power game. George Wallace was right when he said "there's not a dimes worth of difference between the Republican and Democratic parties". As was the anonymous quipster who stated that "the reason academic squabbles are so bitter is because the differences are so slight".

Partisanship, fueled by sophists in the media and in office, has become a disease that blinds the electorate and sickens the rest into apathy. A simple test on any political partisan reveals the virus of hypocrisy. Ask them if they defended any particular policy, action, or utterance by a President or Congress, whom they supported, and then at another time and another place, attacked the same policy, action, or utterance of an official from the opposite party? The tell-tale sign of the truly demented partisan will soon be revealed by the words "but, but this is different".

Today's news is but a small case in point, but it could easily apply to so many of President Bush's actions. (Executive Orders on Secrecy, Wiretapping, Torture, Detention, etc...) For today is Primary Election Day in Texas, and through either bureaucratic bungling or planned grandstanding, the President will force the taxpayers to spend scores of thousands of dollars to have Air Force One fly him to his ranch in Crawford Tx, so that he may vote.

Many times during the Clinton administration, such fiscal extravagances brought howls of protest from right wing conservatives, and rightfully so. But today only a few brave souls on the right will speak out against it. As was the case with Clinton supporters when the roles were reversed.

What changed? Only the party affiliation of the occupant of the Oval Office, along with the thousands of patronage jobholders in the Administration, and the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars now at their discretion to spend. That's what.

No issue is too large or too small for the partisan. War, Cronyism, Deceit, Intimidation, or just a plane ride, it is all the same to that small percentage of the populace that seeks to rule over their countrymen, especially those in opposition, who seek to rule over them.

Thus, having watched this spectacle unfold for over thirty years, and having abandoned all hope of any real good coming from the political process, I have concluded that the best that can be hoped for and done, is GRIDLOCK.

That 9 cents worth of difference there may be between the parties should be put to use. It is easily arguable that when one party controls Congress and the other occupies the White House, the greater welfare of the people of the United States (and the World) is diminished far more slowly than when one party controls the legislative and executive branches simultaneously. Such a division of power also keeps the Judicial branch in rough balance.

GRIDLOCK. It is the best we can do until that day when we are blessed with the coming of another Franklin or Jefferson.

stephenhsmith 7Mar2006