40) Intelligent Politics

I got a wild hair up my ass earlier this week and wrote a long letter to one of my Republican friends. I will post excerpts here so you can see what sort of letter it was:

Ok, since you are a republican I need to talk to you a little about what has been going on politically. I know you do not like getting in these discussions, but I need some clarification from a republican about some of the things other republicans are doing. If you are not familiar with many of the things I am about to reference, call your dad and talk to him about it, as I am sure he is aligned with some of this stuff.

The Baby Killer comment: I am all for people disagreeing about politics, but the Texas senator screaming out Baby Killer while referring to either Stupak (another senator) or the healthcare plan in general (depending on who you believe), I think is pretty childish. I know there are many issues like this going on in politics and people vehemently disagreeing with other people, and I am sure for every 1 comment like this we hear about 100 comments like this fly around both sides of the room. However, with
facebook and news footage I have seen recently, seems like this sort of behavior has reached a new tier and I think it is bordering on completely disrespectful and counter productive. No matter what someone’s stance on abortion (one of the most heated and controversial topics ever) healthcare is not working the way it is and something needs to happen. Calling someone a baby killer during a debate makes no sense.

2. Texas Seceding: I have seen many comments on facebook about Texas proudly seceding from the union. Thought it was just trash from ignorant Texans living in rural communities like Tyler. I was wrong. Our governor brings it up at speeches and rallies, and though there is an heir of humor in his tone, there is also some seriousness to his demeanor. I do not understand Republican figureheads (people holding high levels of office) talking about seceding when they disagree with projects the president is working on. When Bush sent us to war so that his companies would become ridiculously rich many people disagreed (including myself) but I never once considered or talked about secession from the Union. That sort of behavior gets nothing positive done and gets people fired up for the wrong reasons. I would be willing to bet that many people in Tyler hear the governor say things like that, yehaw, shoot their pistol in the air and get fired up when what we need to be doing is figuring out solutions for some of the problems we have. Again, I expect this behavior from rednecks in East Texas, not our governor. Seceding from the union is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard. Do you remember what happened the last time states seceded in favor of slavery? A civil war happened that cost the lives of more Americans than all other wars combined. Seceding is not a sensible solution and talking about it or threatening it is a waste of energy.

3. The tea party movement: Below is the mission statement for the Tea Party Movement. By reading the definitions stated on the Tea Party website, the main focus of the organization is to limit government involvement in America’s economy. Fiscal responsibility refers to the national deficit and the government spending too much. The constitutionally limited government is pretty clear. Free market refers to business being unrestricted by government. To me, this is completely see through, but there are people on board with this philosophy and I want to know what a republican thinks of this. By see through, I mean these are the actions and organizations of big business trying to protect the large amounts of money they already control. For instance: if you own the electric company, you do not want the government having any control over how you do business, because everyone needs electricity, there is a monopoly, so when changes happen it costs millions for this company. However, the electric company sees such high profits every quarter. What is better for the people? If the garbage were handled by a private company, what would stop them from charging $2000 a month for them to take your garbage? I would venture to say this problem happened in earlier America until the government recognized how ridiculous their rates were and took control. Yet we do not complain about garbage being handled by our government. How does the Tea Party movement help a local small business owner?

Mission Statement For Tea Party Movement (sourced from Tea Party Website)
The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets

4. Healthcare reform: The ins and outs of the healthcare reform being debated right now are somewhat confusing. However, from what I can tell, some of the main initiatives are getting healthcare for everyone and making it mandatory, lowering healthcare costs, and figuring out ways to make healthcare affordable for families who make less than$88,000 per year. I do not see what is wrong with these initiatives. It does not change much for the vast majority, except that it intends to lower healthcare costs. And Republicans are so against this they would rather secede from the union and perhaps embark on another civil war instead of tweak the bill and work with Obama to get something better figured out. I can see how forcing people to get healthcare can seem unconstitutional, but no more so than forcing people to get Auto Insurance. The idea is if everyone has insurance, there is more money in the pool, which means everyone pays less, instead of having people show up at the hospital with no insurance, get billed for $100,000 worth of hospital care, not pay and then the hospital charge more to people who do have insurance. How does this cause problems for Joe Schmo Republican? I do not understand. Can you explain to me your perspective on this?

C., I am not trying to start an argument and I am not trying to send this out to bash republicans. I really am trying to understand the rationale behind some of the things going on right now so that I can know if there are components to the democratic philosophy that I am missing or have blinders to.

And by excerpts, I guess I meant pretty much the entire thing. After sending this letter to him and a few others, I learned the answer to one of my questions. I learned that politicians will say ridiculous things (baby-killer, liar, Texas needs to secede) because when the fanatic followers hear this stuff they become inspired and will donate more money to the campaign. The people who have said the things I mentioned in this letter saw spikes in contributions aligned with the comments they made. This completely makes sense to me. Now I understand. It may make me feel less for the politician taking advantage of these people and for firing up constituents for the wrong reasons, but at least now I have some sort of understanding.

I say all this because I am considering formatting a blog that will accomplish the same sort of revelation for me writing that email did. The format would be as follows: 4 contributors (2 republicans, 2 democrats- all reasonable) will take turns posting 1 question. The question would be posted at the beginning of a 2 week cycle. For example, the question could be: Why does the Governor talk about seceding from the union when he addresses the public. After posing the question that person can write their perspective, their interpretation of possible answers. Throughout the next 2 weeks the other 3 contributors post their answers/perspectives on the question. The question and 4 answers would constitute 1 post or issue. The next contributor would begin the next post by asking his/her question. Does this make sense?

The idea behind the blog would be for sensible, middle of the road individuals to attain knowledge on an issue from both sides of the issue in a sensible environment. It would be an education blog. My question for you is: Is there any sensible people who would want to put forth effort in the name of education? Or are all the sensible people so fed up with politics that we should simply sit back and make the best of what we can?

I ask these questions because I think this blog idea, while good in theory, will take a lot of effort from me and I am not sure I want to put forth this sort of effort if there is no chance for participation. Perhaps this is at the root of the American dilemma...Laziness.