Can Washington Pols see more then 5 minutes ahead?

Yesterday the US senate voted to remove the 60 vote barrier required on Presidential nominees. Essentially saying they did not want or need any support from the other party. 

This is pretty much the same thing they did with ACA (Obamacare).  Toss the rules out so the simple majority can get their way.  

For more almost 225 years, the Senate has been the moderating force in our government ensuring that everyone pretty much has a say in how things got done and further ensuring that we did not have majority mob rule. 

What is striking is that this is not the first time the Senate has considered this action in the face of a small few who felt the need to hold up a nomination.  The irony is that there is a plethora of video out there with nearly every single democrat senator objecting the Republicans doing this same thing only about 10 years ago.  

To say the legislative environment is "bitter" is a gross understatement.  What is at stake is power because we citizens have seen fit to hand it over.  We let Washington dictate to our schools what to teach, what to serve at lunch, how much districts can spend... We let them dictate all sort of things to our states on the environment, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, employment rules. In short, we have a new nanny and it is the Federal Government.  And that role for politicians is a powerful and addictive intoxicant; unfortunately one that is not regulated.  The nature of the intoxicant causes a complete lack of ability to consider consequences beyond a few minutes.

When democrats voted to make simple majority the rule of the day, did they consider the political landscape with the crash and burn of the ACA?  They will almost certainly allow Republicans to keep the house and have put enough seats in play in the Senate that Republicans could very well have both houses in a little over a year?  Does that precedent mean nothing?  How can democrats defend their certain objection when Republican invoke the "nuclear option" once they are back in power?

If the ACA continues on the path of utter decimation of the average persons healthcare, the presidency will also very likely move to the right.  How will the precedent work then?  If Republicans have the house, senate and the presidency, and no filibuster protection for the left in the senate, it is a fair bet that everything the left has fought for over the last 50 years could disappear in a matter of weeks or months.  I am in favor of this - so don be confused.  My point is that it could never happen except that senate democrats have knocked down the trees and started paving the road in this direction.  Their myopic vision will empower the right and have the exact opposite effect on the countries direction that they want.  The right could not have mapped out and executed a better plan.

A Proposition unfulfilled

150 years ago words spoken by President Lincoln, still haunt us.  Not because of their insight, not because of their brevity, not because of the poetic cadence, but because they remain largely unfulfilled.

"...dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..."

This remains an unfulfilled proposition.  The proposition, as I understand it, was that the law should be blind.  All of us start at the same point, and what we do with our lives is a product of our own industry, insight, intelligence, perseverance and intellect.  Yet we continue to not see each other as equals.  We are a selfish and competitive lot.  We use the law and taxes to try to force equality upon us, but those efforts make the proposition of equality yet more difficult to attain.

We recognized that race was making winners and losers in society so we wrote laws requiring a balanced workforce regarding race.  We wrote laws to balance college admissions by race.  We wrote laws that moved money around based on race.   We reasoned that since race was the root of the problem, race could be used to solve it.   But when you dig deep, those laws are doing exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.  Someone is being denied a job or a promotion, or entrance into a college because of the color of his skin.  The person on the losing end of that proposition is not likely to take a position that this is ok because its payback for past wrongs.  It only perpetuates, at a minimum, hard feelings and at worst racism.

How do we define ourselves racially speaking?  What makes us black or white or Asian or Hispanic? We have a president who we call "black," yet his mother is, by most definitions 100% white.  How do we reconcile that?  Can anyone really define race anyway?  It seems to me it is entirely a fabrication of our society designed to push white people to the top of the social standing - affording them better opportunity for power and wealth.

I believe that until the day comes when the law can not tell the difference between a man and a woman, a black man and a white man and an Asian and an Indian and a Hispanic, between gay and straight, the rich and the poor ... until that day comes, much of our law is just an exercise in optics. When in our own minds we can look at each other at a level deeper than color, when we can take a measure of each others character, we will be stuck in an unequal world.

Perhaps in another 150 years, after more homogenization of our DNA, we can see those words as the "realization that all of us are created equal"

Silence... for now

I've been absent from my blog this summer, not from a lack of interest, but because my need to vent has been taken up by Facebook, Twitter and responding to articles and comments on articles directly.

While that's been satisfying, it is defense.  And defense only wins if it's complimented by an effective offense.  In the world of politics, offense is probably best done with effective and original ideas that provoke discussion and challenge conventional thinking.  So I'll make a more dedicated effort to keep my thoughts here original rather than responding to what I hear and read.

Responding to what I hear and read though, is pretty much what I will do here today.  And that is not a contradiction at all.

As summer drew to a close, the buzz in the political world was what would happen at the beginning of October when Obamacare rolled out.  The focus was on the web site.  The first wind I got about cancelled policies was shortly after that.  Then, as media types began to penetrate the layers of the web site, and actually saw their own Obamacare rates, their collective jaws dropped and, slowly, the stories emerged from even the most left leaning outlets like MSMBC that this was not what was promised - that the process was not easy and the RATES were not lower.

Pardon my snicker for the past 3 months.  I probably posted 100 links to stories on my facebook backing up my belief that this healthcare law was going to be a disaster. Imploring my liberal friends to acknowledge this was naive - I admit that.  In the past, they would post comebacks and we would have a sometimes very long thread of back and forth.  They never really ended, we just got tired, until another post came up that threw more gasoline on the dying embers.

But since early October, there has been a notable change.  No long threads.  No arguments.  No nothing. No one will engage.  A few of the weaker souls unfreinded me, but most have stopped posting altogether on politics and have reverted to pictures of their supper or their cat. Silence.  I don't struggle to understand that.  I get it completely.  I am not the type that wants to throw salt in the wound either.

The build-up to a big game is filled with bravado and claims of superiority. Doesn't matter if it's a high school rivalry or the Super Bowl.  Everyone is confident. Everyone feels confident in victory and confident that if they brag enough, the team will not let them down.  Then the big game comes and one team and its fans celebrate.  The other team's fans slip into a sort of sulking hangover.   Every word seems painful and its' just easier to lay quietly - in silence.  I felt that way in November 1976, 1992, 1996, 2008 and again in 2012.  In all of those cases I was not convinced I was on the wrong side, I was angered that my side picked the wrong team.  Seriously, Ford, Dole, McCain, Romney?  

Losing is painful to the spirit.  It causes us to challenge our most internally held beliefs. How could I have supported those guys?  What was I thinking?  Why am I invested in them?  How could anyone support the other team? What do they see? How can they not see what I see?

In Cleveland, where some of the worlds most loyal sports fans reside, we understand loosing better than most.  Our teams perennially show promise and with equal frequency, let us down.  Sure some call the sports talk shows, but the next day at work after a big game is very quiet. Wounds take time to heal.  Politics works the same way.  The talk shows and pundits still talk and write because they have to. The individuals are looking for answers.

The political right said the healthcare.gov web site would be a disaster, they challenged the President every time he said they could keep their coverage, they argued that Obamacare's entire purpose was to ensure that everyone would give up their private insurance, they swore that it would raise costs, not lower them, they pointed out that the young would not buy expensive insurance and they said the whole thing would be a train wreck. The debate was passionate! The left was comfortable standing up for the president - arguing his points, adding their passion to the debate. Then, over the last 6 weeks the bottom fell out.  Like the longest sports competition ever played... and while not over yet. the score is so lopsided, the contest seems all but lost to the left.

Conservatives were right on most points.  It has been a train wreck in every sense.  The hard part, if you are a supporter of the President, is coming to grips with why it happened this way.  Were your beliefs misplaced? Why did you not see this coming?  Can it be fixed? Can it be fixed by this team (administration and congress)?

Conservatives are rejoicing in a victory which in the scheme of the war is a relatively small, but consequential battle.  They are also rejoicing in the silence of their opponents.  That Silence will not last.  The Administration will herald every little improvement in the website and parade the handful of buyers that actually saved money before throngs of adoring supporters in an attempt to win back some political inertia.   But November 2014 is too soon and the problems are too great.  There is nothing that can happen good for Obamacare that will help the left.  The only thing they can hope for, or work for, is a major change of subject.

The silent ones out there want to talk about something, anything, else.