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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (125631)	11/26/2009 12:46:09 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542911

I think we get paralyzed because our system is too much the same. Politicians are afraid of not getting reelected, and thus refuse to do anything bold, even when boldness might be called for. But elections are part of the system. And they--the Congress that gets elected--are a reflection of the underlying culture. The politicians wouldn't be reelected if they did too much of what their electorate didn't want them to do. The paralysis of Congress is a symptom of the divided electorate. The way Congress is set up makes it virtually certain that it will not be able to do "bold" things without a broad consensus that there is a crisis, and what to do about it. We could mobilize and sacrifice in WWII precisely because there was broad agreement on both counts. That isn't the case today.

To: epicure who wrote (125631)	11/26/2009 1:23:54 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542911

If our healthcare system desperately needs fixing and there are 4-5 competing views on what should be done, each of which believes all the other alternatives will mean our doom and destruction, and no one is willing to take half a loaf to get something done anyway, then we are fractured and paralyzed. Your definition of bold action is a conservative's idea of hell on earth and eternal damnation, and vice versa. We are utterly lacking a solid majority in the middle that rejects absolutist positions and forces the two wings to come together to make something happen. Instead, the wingers on the right and the left get to beat their drums and pound the table and feel very rah-rah as we gridlock ourselves back into oblivion again. And the centrists in Congress take a low profile to keep from getting their heads taken off by the wingers and the voters. And what needs fixin' don't get fixed.