Morally Treasonous

"To announce there must be no criticism of the President, and to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, it is morally treasonous to the American public."
– President Theodore Roosevelt

The same could be said for blindly following any political leader.

Annoying the International Community

The following is an interesting look at the international community and the reasons America's Foreign Policy is resented:

From Moderate Voters.org: Why They Hate Us.

First, I would add this reason to the list of reasons for American Antipathy (which I left as a comment on their post): As long as the majority of eligible voters refuse to vote, we will probably never see an end to the global antipathy towards America. (Even the record 64% turnout in 2004 isn't inspiring and is hardly the norm...) When a large percentage of the population decides not to partake in democracy, not only does their collective voice go unheard, but to outsiders it seems as if we would rather allow our country to be run for us rather than by us.

If we don't care about America, why should anyone else? Hypocrisy is never looked on in favor. Additionally, continued voter apathy also allows extremists on the right and left to do as they please (further explained), which only maddens the world at large more.

The other source of antipathy, as I see it is this: wildly vacillating foreign policy. Many countries are still used to one sovereign ruler (dictator, etc.) ruling for many years, especially those in the Middle East. I am not saying that I dislike changing presidents every 4 or 8 years, but this does cause a problem when going between liberal and conservative parties (or even between two presidents of the same party). As I have pointed out, each has made themselves increasingly extremist and so our foreign policy gets whipped between two extremes. With the abolishment of partisan politics and the two-party system, any and all foreign policy would, by necessity, be a more tempered moderate view with smaller changes between presidents. I imagine that a more long-term foreign policy would have other benefits, too.

Ultimately, the United States of America must be a model for democracy from its citizenry to its leaders, showing a true belief in the power of common rule. As said by Edward R. Murrow, "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

Civics Lessons from Video Games

While playing Civilization IV, I came across a quote from one of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin (for those interested, for each new technology researched an appropriately matched quote is read by Leonard Nimoy) :

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

I do not think that this quote needs much explanation as to why I chose it. It is as wise now as it was then and eerily apropos to current events in our country. All I will add is this: Living in fear is no way to live. (I'm sure someone has already said that, too.)

Interestingly enough, this was misquoted in Civ IV and I only found that out today (8/9/06). For more quotes from the wise statesman, founding father, patriot, and womanizer, take a look here: BrainyQuote.com

Let's Start from the Very Beginning

To begin with, I think I should say what it is that brought me here in the first place:

A little over a year ago, a friend and I were having a long political discussion about the true state of the union. The first thing we agreed on was that America, politically speaking, stands at a cross-roads. What choices lay ahead for America? Either something happens to take America into a new wave of true democracy or we simply let the country slowly slip into a totalitarian state. In short, we will soon see whether the "Great Experiment" lives or dies.

I cannot nor will not lay the blame entirely on President Bush. The problem has existed far before his presidency; he is merely the latest and perhaps the most skilled thus far at manipulating the failings of the system. The problem I speak of is commented on at the top of this blog: partisan politics. Why do I choose to view this as the worst problem facing America? Because such a system does NOT represent the American public.

The root cause of partisan politics is the desire and the need to "win" the election. If you don't "win" the election (as if it were some sort of prize rather than a public trust), you are obviously a loser and, under our system, losers get nothing. As a rather logical response, people wishing to run for office have banded together to assist getting each other elected. The black and white win/loss system has fairly well guaranteed that only two parties can truly be in power at any time in history. (History reminder: parties that have been in power have included Federalists, Whigs, Republicans, and Democrats.) By itself this would probably not have caused major problems for our country. However, each party has decided that it will only support members who agree with the ideals put forth by the party leaders. This has, of course, caused the traditional "party lines" to form with the Democrats on the left and the Republicans on the right.

Warning, statistical reasoning ahead.

Even without any party leaders pushing the party further left or further right, a party generated in a two party system that aligns itself based on political dogma cannot accurately represent the general populous. The reasoning is that of simple statistical distributions: if one were to survey the general population to gauge their views as left or right, it could be reasonably expected that the results would be a bell curve centered on the center of the political spectrum (i.e. the majority of the population hold moderate viewpoints, just a little left or right of center). Were a second survey conducted asking respondents whether they identified more with the republicans or democrats, the results would logically show distributions with the average no longer in the center but skewed towards either the left or the right.

So what? How is that a problem? Well, the leaders of the party (left or right) are elected by the majority of that party alone, resulting in leftward leaning and rightward leaning leaders, neither of which support the majority viewpoint of the American Public. This problem has been compounded by the fact that voters tend to be galvanized into action (i.e. voting) by a leader seen as truly radical and thus, even further from the center. Both parties have learned that people towards the center of the political spectrum have become disenfranchised by a system that never produces a candidate with centrist views and, as such, has resulted in a very low voter turnout indeed.

The solution, then, is a simple one: Get rid of political parties forever. Practically speaking, however, this is nearly impossible since neither party in power right now has any incentive to see such a thing happen. So how could this be done? By the creation of a new kind of party, one that does not align itself based on political leanings, but rather one that welcomes anyone who honestly wants to see positive change in our government. Left, right, center - as long as one is willing to listen to others, debate, and compromise, then he or she would be welcome in this new party.