Federalist Paper #10

I’ll have more on the “Church of the Holy Marathon” later.

But first, more politcs.

 

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed10.htm

 

“Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true.”

 

Nation first, party second = good.

Party first, nation second = bad.

 

“We need to get a good crop of (A. republicans / B. democrats / C. representatives) in Congress to set this nation straight!”

Answer:  C

 

Keep our liberties.  Keep our parties.  Force our parties to be responsive and REPRESENTATIVE of our wishes, rather than the parties forcing us to represent their wishes.  We are in a climate where the representative votes for the wishes of the party because he is beholden to the party, not the populace, because the party placed him in office and the populace has no rights or recourse.

Right now the system is working as the system should.  The parties are interested in putting Rs and Ds in seats without regard to policy, representation, or good governance.  We are in a “yellow dog party” political atmosphere, as in “Vote for this yellow dog because he’s a republicrat/demolican”.

 

Bullocks.

 

Ideally, to save the current state of affairs, we’ll see congress turned over to the opposition and we’ll have a split government for the next 2 years.  Unfortunately that may have the residual effect of a unified government in 2008, which would be further counterproductive.

My current political heroes:  John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, and to a much, much, much lesser extent Kinky Friedman.  The first two have given their party the finger and are running without their support.  The last one gave both parties the finger and is running on his own, but has about as much chance of winning his election as I do, and if he does win he has about as much chance of being effective as I do, especially since the Texas Governor’s post is about as weak as it gets and he has as much experience being governor as I do. 

I actually enjoy political speeches where the speaker says “this is what I will do and what I believe” rather than informing me of what he thinks his opponent believes without offering any direction and leadership.

Ah, there’s the word…  leadership.  That’s something sorely missing in politics today.  Today’s message is “I’m not that guy!”  The Dems have run every campaign since 2000 on that platform, and it comes up short every time.  If only, if only, someone would stand up and say “I’m the guy!  Follow me!”  If only…

Alas, we do not live in the nation our fathers founded, so I’m not going to hold my breath.