A Debate Would Have Been Nice…

I don’t think or talk politics a lot, and I was becoming borderline neurotic that my frustration with the current political situation was turning my blog political. Not that I don’t think about governance, as an INTJ/System Builder I think about it frquently. Politics (which is wholly distinct from governance) in America, however, are fundamentally broken.

Before the first presidential debate in this campaign “season” I decided that I was not going to watch the debates, but I would instead read the transcripts afterwards. This allows a more objective analysis of the statements and claims of the candidates. Not that it matters so much. If you want to disappointed in your ticket of choice, browse factcheck.org or any of the other fact-checking sites. And I mean fact checking sites, not partisan flame sites.

I only had to skim the transcript of the first debate to realize that it had nothing meaningful to offer.

American Politics are not about a logical discussion of issues and solutions. The dominant political parties fight a war of collusion founded on give and take of power funded by Big American Business at the expense of the voter. Big Business has money which buys access to political power, and in turn favor. With that money, politicos buy votes. To keep getting money politicos must get elected, which it turns out is much easier in a dyad.

So the messages, “plans,” and proposals that politicos front are plays for votes to get elected at any cost, even if they are lies, stunts, gimmicks or empty promises.

For example, you may or may not remember GW Bush claiming in his presidential campaign that we (the country) needed to “change the tone of Washington” by reaching “across the aisle” and leaving partisan politics behind. That worked out, didn’t it?

A political system with two entrenched political parties is, by definition, divisive, because in a Winner-Take-All system most citizens will necessarily view the opposing party as “The Enemy.”

That attitude is not sustainable. To quote the Bible, and Abraham Lincoln, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

This entry was posted on October 08th, 2008 and is filed under Brain Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.