This most recent healthcare debate is ground zero for what has gone horrible wrong in politics. What should be rightfully characterized as a progressive reform act (in this case, healthcare reform), has been twisted, contorted, reframed and abstracted into the inaccurate depiction of being socialist. This stems from the devastating mutation that politics has undergone over the past three decades. The current political landscape is an aberration of what it used to be. And while I do my best to not pretend that I know what the Founding Fathers of this country intended for us outside of their own writings, I do not think it would be too far from the truth to think some of them would've tried to incite some kind of revolution. (Read the Federalist Papers. According to those, it is our duty to overthrow the government when it no longer functions for the greater good of its citizens. See right now.)
This is the case because, rather than work for the greater good of the people, career politicians (in and of itself a term that should be an oxymoron) do what is necessary to keep their jobs. They shy away from controversy and spout empty rhetoric while doing whatever they can to make the other guy look bad. No one wins an election anymore. Other people lose and their opponents take over by default. It is sickening. American Politics has become a system of failure. Instead of true compromise and authentic bipartisanship, we have the party out of power doing whatever they can to sabotage and undermine the party in power in the hopes that come election-time, the party out of power can sweep the party in power, out of power. And then the cycle repeats. This most recent health bill is a prime example. I will concede that there is plenty more the Democrats could have done to include the Republicans and work out many a compromise to make everyone happy. But the simple fact of the matter is that the Republicans complaining the most about this bill had one idea: Tort Reform. Outside of that, they had nothing. No reasonable, actionable plans that would have made any sort of significant effect on the cost of healthcare to the individual citizen or the government. They made no serious effort to reconcile their differences with the Democrats. Instead, they have done their absolute best to sabotage, mislead, confuse and distort the process and the message so that the Democrats are forced to beat the issue to death in the media, then continue to beat it after its dead to the point where the general public is just plain sick of hearing it. And they still might end up with no bill, no reform; just a lot of resentful voters eager to get rid of the "failures" in office. I sincerely hope this does not happen this time.
On the topic of the current state of American Politics, elected officials from both parties should be mindful of what is taking place. Despite the drone-like behavior of the tea-partyers and birthers and other sects of ultra/mega/uber conservatives, their message of cleaning out all of the career politicians and starting from scratch is not falling on deaf ears. There are many an American voter who are cynical, resentful and all in all fed up with what they have seen transpire over the last three decades and how little of what they believe in actually makes it into bills. Separated, these various groups are inconsequential. Given time, money, motivation, and most importantly, numbers, these seemingly disparate partners could find a common cause in cleaning house (no pun intended) and electing "regular joe/jane" types who are not extremely wealthy and who actually WANT to do things that benefit their constituents (not constituent corporations). Do I think this will happen? Probably not. Most of the factions can't find enough common ground. But I am not ruling it out. Nor do I rule out the possibility of an armed uprising. With the strict laws regarding personal ownership and use of firearms being reviewed by the Supreme Court, the concept that a group of "wronged" citizens taking matters to the next level is not entirely far-fetched. I don't condone it, but I would understand if it happened.
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