US Government Shutdown

[JAD_333]

Voters are plural and they vote for all the parties so I assumed that was plural.

Sorry, by plural I meant 'parties' not voters,

Everyone is so quick to point out the failures of the "other guys" but those same people fail to see the damage, or do not want to see and acknowledge the damage their own party has done. That is just a part of human nature that politics preys on.

I am not sure what you're are getting at. Blame placed quickly is not necessarily blame placed wrongly, and blame placed on the other side is likewise not necessarily wrong. Best to argue the point made than the motive of the point maker.

Still The democrats were clear from the beginning that there would be no compromise on Obamacare. That was a done deal.

Yes, that's true, up to a point. But it doesn't speak to the argument that the deal made to end the shutdown and increase the debt ceiling was doable before the shutdown. Before the shutdown, Reid said to the GOP time and again, pass the resolutions with no conditions and afterwards we'll sit down with you and talk about future spending cuts. As he well knew, the GOP wouldn't do that on a mere promise. But his 'promise' seemed to suggest a last minute compromise was indeed possible, and the GOP bought it. When the shutdown was all but upon us, had he proposed the extensions that finally ended the shutdown, the GOP would probably have agreed. But he didn't, and the GOP took the fall. He played it masterfully.

I grew up thinking that politics was the art of compromise but I see that definition made a fundamental shift in the Clinton years.

Don't worry. Nothing in the definition of politics has changed. The rough political atmosphere you see today marks a major transition in the political spectrum which occurs whenever the center moves considerably toward the right or left. It's a slow and messy process, with a good deal of rancorous resistance.

Why is it happening? For years, the right has tempered the dominance of the left or 'progressives' through compromise. Without such compromise, America would be subject to more social programs than it is today. It's gotten so that there is little room for compromise due to fiscal restraints. We can barely afford the level of spending we now have and we live with uncertainty as to the burden that entitlements will place on us in the future.

If things go according to theory, the left will eventually be thrust into the position of having to compromise with the right to preserve as much as possible its 60 years of progressive gains. After a time, compromise will once again become the collegial instrument that you remember it to be.

Now it is more the art of getting away with murder and finding a way to make the other side take the blame. Party ideologies have trumped "what is best for the country" and God help any congressman who doesn't toe the line.

That in a nutshell is how American politics have looked ever since parties were first formed in 1800. Anyone who reads American history extensively learns that corruption, backstabbing, political fixing, logrolling, and vote rigging was worse in bygone eras than today. Yet politicians have always managed to rise above it all and do the right thing for the country.

If Kennedy was alive today I can see his speech changed from "...Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country...", to "Ask not what you can do for your country, but what you can do for the GOP/Democratic party because what is best for the party is best for the country. Don't question me on this...just blindly believe me."

lol...No one knew better how backroom politics work than JFK. What was he supposed to say on his inaugural day with all the world listening and seeking inspiration: "Let me be honest: I'm a politician out to get votes anyway I can. Thanks to Mayor Daley for the graveyard vote." No. JFK had high aspirations, and he like most politician out to make the world a better place was willing will crawl over other politicians to realize them.

I am positive that is not what our founding fathers had in mind and that is why the system is slowly but surely failing.

A close study of the founding fathers in action will find plenty of less than noble dickering for self interest and profit. Even their determination to protect citizens rights and restrain the power of the new government had a basis in the oppressive experiences they had doing business under the Crown and which they could best escape by forming an independent nation. Read about the Whiskey Rebellion and then ask yourselves how the founding fathers, who were still around and in control, could have permitted the way the Federal government dealt with it. Self interest and patriotism are not mutually exclusive.

The masses, i.e. voters, are too wrapped up in survival mode to bother with demanding a better government and are too greedy and lazy to do what it takes to force a real change.

BH, your first statement is much too sweeping to be true, but your second, that most voters do not take the time find out the truth about candidates for office, sadly is true. It explains why campaign ads are so effective and why so many lousy candidates are elected.