Blog Thomas G. Jones PhD
5-3-08
Once, there was a distinct difference between the philosophies of the Republican and Democratic parties. The republicans believed in the Jeffersonian ideal that “the government that governs least, governs best.” The greatest democratic president was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who counseled that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” That philosophy translated to the belief that society was “our brother’s keeper” and that many needs, such as care for the elderly, were best handled by centralized, big government. For the past 100 years those philosophies have battled and found traction in the alternating Republican and Democratic administrations.
Since Ronald Reagan it has looked more like Big Business-v-Big Government. In truth, I believe it has been the tax and spend democrats versus the borrow and spend republicans. Now what?
As the republicans debate among themselves and advance their candidate, they seem to seek nuanced differentiation while ignoring the war that has claimed, at least, the lives of 200,000 Iraqi citizens and more than 4,000 U.S.service men and women. Too, they are charging $3 million an hour on the national credit card.
Anyone familiar with the 1918 Paris Peace Treaty that ended WWI knows that Great Britain fought in newly created Iraq for eight years before throwing up their hands in frustration and going home. Our Iraq war was five years old in March. I wonder if we have three more years of horror ahead before we learn the lessons of history.
The democrats, meanwhile, are preaching change: change everything the Republicans have done since coming to power in 2000. While ignoring their complicity in the Iraq war debate, they finger point and promise business not as usual.
For me, I must fight the “none of the above” feeling and wonder how it all got so wrong. But if I have learned anything in my life’s journey, it is that “crisis precedes discovery” and that “the darkest hour is just before dawn.” Our system is broken, our choices too limited. The political process has become just one more media product packaged to play in short sound bites and digital quality images, just one more complex international system presented between commercial breaks. Thus, I am sure, we are in the last days of a time when capitalism has overwhelmed democracy and playing to the camera outweighs thoughtful discourse.
I will make the most informed choice possible, vote for the candidate, and urge you to do the same. If we are to believe the comment that “people get the government they deserve” then it is up to each of us to be deserving of intelligent, moral leadership. That would be a change. And that’s the change we should be seeking from our national leadership.
Be
joyous! Let now be beautiful.
Blessings, Thomas
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