<<The one really depressing thing that was evident during the last election is that neither party or any of our governmental institutions is able to put the good of the country above partisan concerns.>>
That's not their job. The idea that there is a body of policies that we all accept as best for the country is patently absurd. EVERYTHING decided in Washington is the result of one side winning and one side losing. Compromise is when there are elements of both. The conflict between increasing and decreasing public power is central to all human government, and only "settled" temporarily when dictatorship is imposed. When that "point-of-the-gun" power structure finally falls, under the weight of its own corruption and incompetence, the permanent conflict returns.
"Doing away with partisanship" is a theme popular with Americans, as well as many in other countries, who are simply too lazy or stupid to attempt to understand the nature of how human beings are governed, and what opportunities and dangers exist in the choices.
A perfect example of the theme's potential for creating harm can be found in the rhetoric of the Clinton Administration, when every voice raised in opposition to either their proposed liberal policies or Clintons's own criminal activities was condemned as "partisan". The lazy American public was receptive to that idea, because it was easier to understand that than to ponder weighty matters, or consider that a sitting president was a felon.
This same theme of "partisanship as inhibitor to reaching our common goals" was also abused by another, equally harmful charlatan, Ross Perot, who constantly maintained that America simply needed a good engineer in the White House who would "look under the hood and fix what's wrong" in the decision making process. The most infamous dictators in the twentieth century did just exactly that in their countries, with disastrous results for their people. The first step after "looking under the hood" is to stifle that irritating debate that keeps you from reaching for the tools. Nations that made wholesale (and very bloody) efforts to "get everybody on the same page" include Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union. They all stifled debate, centralized power in the public sector, and proceeded to meet the "common national goals".
May God save America from a non-partisan government... |
