Ornoth

I wrote this two years ago, but never posted it, due to the high emotions surrounding the Presidential election. Now, with John McCain dead and Lord Trump’s midterm popularity contest upon us, I think it’s a fair time to share.

For virtually my entire life, the political world has been divided between Republicans and Democrats.

Americans favor compromise

The Republicans see themselves as the champions of small government, low taxes, strong defense, and individual initiative. Their opponents are quick to point out the shortcomings of Republican policies, which include corporate rapacity, military adventurism, blind nationalism, and selfishness and greed that run counter to the common good.

The Democrats espouse high-minded ideals like fairness, compassion, equality, inclusivity, and a social safety net. However, their government handout programs are expensive, and their idealism can get in the way of real-world pragmatism.

Republicans accuse Democrats of diluting the Christian values of America, while the Democrats point out the hypocrisy of vocally Christian Republicans whose behavior is anything but charitable.

All this posturing obscures the values that we as Americans have in common: freedom, fairness, individualism, a strong economy, and an overall greatness that lends us a justifiable position of world leadership.

This year has brought to light fundamental challenges for the American two-party system. The Republican party has fractured into moderate and radical factions with no viable leadership and no apparent path to reconciliation. The Democratic party faces a similar split between centrists and socialists, although the two factions appear to be able to play together, at least for now.

This is all symptomatic of the fact that the two-party system no longer serves the best interest of Americans. For the first time in decades, the American people have abandoned traditional political parties and the mediocre candidates they typically nominate. The mainstream Republican candidates were all weak and easily toppled by an outspoken, brash, demagogue who gleefully spews the most un-American and shameful vitriol. While the Democrats could only offer us another untrustworthy business-as-usual chameleon.

Meanwhile, the Republican Congress is doing its damnedest to avoid its Constitutional duty to ratify a new Supreme Court justice. The radical faction is the tail that is wagging the Republican party, leaving the Republicans I know in a quandary. There is no longer any space in the Republican party for intelligent people who are fiscally conservative (low taxes and small government) but socially liberal (reproductive rights, LGBT rights, equality, immigration reform). Meanwhile, Democrats don’t exactly welcome members who are fiscally conservative. Where are those voters—and there are plenty of them—supposed to go?

Lost amidst all this shortsighted partisan tantrum-throwing is the old-fashioned notion of hearing one another out and finding mutually-acceptable legislative solutions. Political theory suggests that the majority party honor and address the concerns of the minority party, to produce a stronger piece of legislation that earns bilateral support.

In the past, this has worked well. Democratic social programs can only succeed with assertive watchdoggery. Corporate profit-seeking enhances our standard of living only if its excesses are regulated for the benefit of all. A huge military must be tempered with strong diplomacy and compassionate leadership.

Everyone acts as if the winner gets to mandate how the country is run, but it has always been—and always will be—a political process of communication, negotiation, and compromise. The wisest political solutions only come about when civil people with diverse views work together, which our current political parties have forgotten.

It amazes me that I need to point this out to my fellow Americans, but even radical views don’t need to lead to radical conflict. This is America, for chrissake! Our whole 240-year experiment in democracy is built upon a foundation of political tolerance and respect.

A high-minded but political realist named Lincoln, when asked why he didn’t call Confederate rebels his irreconcilable enemies, once replied, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

Today is election day in many jurisdictions across the US. Please go vote.

I find it serendipitous that this comes just a couple hours after the release of this Associated Press article, which I’ll cite momentarily. I’ve had a political rant coming, and that article was definitely the last straw.

Now, I’m not particularly radical politically. Sure, I have liberal views, but I’ve had occasion to praise certain administrations, even when their policies have been right of center. Nixon, although Vietnam was his downfall, was an absolute foreign relations master. I think Reagan, for all his problems, did a good job bringing the country together after the wandering Ford and Carter years. The wiser Bush, despite the Iraqi war, also was competent in the area of international relations. I can live with Republicans, when they’re intelligent, competent, and rational.

So the current administration of Baby Bush comes as a very rude shock to me. It seems that every time I listen to the news, there’s more and more evidence that George Bush is not merely thoroughly inept and stupid; not merely hateful and criminal; but singlemindedly intent on doing the most evil things conceivable.

Consider the following facts.

1. The United States, under GWB, invaded another sovereign nation and deposed its legal government, in direct violation of international law.
    
2. He did so with full knowledge that Iraq did not, in fact, possess any weapons of mass destruction.
    
3. He did so against the counsel of the United Nations, the entire free world, and significant domestic protest
    
4. The administration allowed, encouraged, defended, and continues to defend the unabashed torture of prisoners at Abu Graib, in violation of international law.
    
5. The administration has imprisoned hundreds of noncombatants at Guantanamo Bay, without charges, withheld due process of law, and tortured them, in violation of both international law and the U.S. Constitution. Independent international inspection of the facility has been prohibited by the US government. Bush has allowed, encouraged, defended, and continues to defend these actions.
    
6. There have been several stories recently that detailed how the government set up dummy front companies which leased private jet aircraft to the government for the exclusive purpose of extraordinary rendition, i.e. moving prisoners, held illegally, to jails outside the US so that they could be held and tortured without being subject to US laws forbidding such actions.
    
7. The US has admitted the existence of several covert CIA-run prisons across Europe after the International Red Cross discovered their existence.
    
8. Even after all this attention, the administration is still publicly trying to retain the ability to torture anyone they want, without due process. While Congress is trying to pass a bill to further specify what kind of treatment constitutes torture, the Vice President of the United States (and this is a quote from the AP article) “is seeking to persuade Congress to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from the proposed torture ban”. According to GWB, torture should definitely be illegal… for everyone but our secret police.
    
9. None of those items above are disputable; they are publicly-known facts. But here’s the kicker. This quote from the AP story shows the true measure of this administration’s evil intent. When asked about the secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe and Asia, this is what the President of the United States said: “Anything we do … in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law.”

Come on, people! “Anything I do is, by definition, within the law”. That is not representative democracy. That isn’t even limited monarchy. That is outright, unabashed dictatorship. He couldn’t have said it plainer if he’d claimed to be Holy Emperor Bush!

That isn’t America. It’s not Abraham Lincoln or John Kennedy. It’s not FDR, and it sure as hell isn’t Thomas Jefferson. That’s Louis XIV and “l’etat c’est moi”. That’s Napoleon Bonaparte and Julius Caesar’s “vini, vidi, vici”. That’s Genghis Khan and, yes, that’s Adolph Hitler.

The Pledge of Allegiance says “with liberty and justice for all”, not just for legal American citizens. The Declaration of Independence says that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”. George Bush would change all that, and have us treat any man who differs from us with hatred and fear. That’s the world he lives in, and he would have us all live in. But it’s not America the brave or America the beautiful.

Torture, illegal imprisonment, invading other nations under false pretenses, and brushing it all under the carpet with the excuse that anything the government does is, by definition, legal. These things are all being done in your name, people.

Where is the fucking outrage?

This administration has openly resorted to illegal invasions, illegal imprisonment, and illegal torture camps. Think what a comparatively small infraction it would be to rig an election.

Go vote, while you still can.

Did you vote in your last elections?

Yes, for what little good it did.
 

Do you know who your elected representatives are?

In general, yes, but for some reason the Mass press never identifies the difference between state and federal legislators, so it's a little confusing. That's exacerbated by recent redistrictings and the fact that there are so many legislative districts within such a small area.
 

Have you ever contacted an elected representative? If so, what was it about?

Geez, several times, on bicycle, pedestrian, and noise issues mostly.
 

Have you ever participated in a demonstration?

Hmmm. Nothing too major, that I recall. I did Critical Mass once, just to see what it was like, and decided that it wasn't for me because of how poorly the participants behaved. I went to a rally to keep Boston's public transit open later at night. I would have gone to the recent anti-war rally on Boston Common, but I was out of town at the time.
 

Have you ever volunteered in an election? What was the result?

When I was in my teens I volunteered on the pro-nuke side of a referendum to ban nuclear power generation in Maine. I was a good little reactionary conservative at the time. I worked a booth at the Windsor Fair, had several letters printed in local newspapers, and was invited to the electric company's headquarters to watch the election results. We won.