Tell Them What to Think

It was last Tuesday on MSNBC political commentary show, Hardball, left leaning host, Chris Matthews, opined that leaders should tell people what to think.

Politics on the Left (and Right is not without guilt) has this aversion to individual thought because it is not conducive for reelection.  This says it all about liberal dialogue, there is none.  Take what we tell you or face the consequence.  Leaders like Kim Jung Un tell their people what to think.  In America our politicians are not our leaders because we are self-governing.  In America political thought is developed not dictated.

We cannot let dialogue be ordered to conformity.  The Left is increasingly frustrated that too many American’s are not abiding by “their” ways.  It is not a matter for debate, it is a matter of obedience.  They believe they are uniquely qualified to judge what the moral right is and have the intellectual honesty to know what is best.  Therefore, without further discussion, it is time for the rest of us to listen, learn, and fall in line….OR become vigilant, think independently, have reasoned debate, and actively engage in self-governance.

Be Vigilant. Be Free.

Demanding Better Discourse

We are a country obsessed with drama and can't seem to stand for a slow news day. If it is not what President Donald Trump has said, it is what he didn’t say. If it is not what the current administration did, it is what they didn’t do. And the same patterns run through each political party, each decision made, each action taken.

Politics is about power.  For one side to “win” the other must “lose”.  It is all about scoring political points as tallied by the media.  Speaker Paul Ryan said his first job is the reelection of his members and the control of the House.  That is his first job?  Not good public policy within good constitutional order?

We demand that our political bodies come together to agree on some compromise to better the country, yet we stand outside the walls of Congress and partake in the same argumentative manner which is then inflated and furthered by the overly dramatic and terribly partisan media coverage.

How can we demand better from our government if we are acting no better ourselves? We should strive to embody the character and manner that we ask for in our government representatives.  And they should strive to do better for the public good.

Republicans with One Foot in the Grave

For the past eight years Republicans have howled that if they only could control the House, Senate, and Executive branches, they could repeal Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, overhaul the tax code, reduce the regulatory state, restore order to the Middle East, confront China and North Korea, and get the budget deficits under control.  Well that “dog caught the car” and for the first six months Republican are far afield from their promises.

Differences of policy thought within the party are healthy but, in the end, policy has to be enacted and promises kept.  Obamacare repeal/replace has been a disaster, Dodd-Frank some tooling at the edges, regulatory reform some, tax reform not started, Middle East and China good start then stalled, North Korea no start, and budget control a non-starter.

The Republican Party has no appearance of a single party, rather it seems to be filled with representatives that are (now called) moderates who seem to embrace some Democrat policies and conservatives who refuse to make incremental gains in policy.

With the second failure to repeal and replace Obamacare and incessant inability to agree on legislation, the Republican base will be demotivated to turn-out in 2018, regardless of the state of the economy.  However, the Democrat voting base is highly motivated.  What will be left is one, if not both, houses of Congress in the hands of the Democrats and a Republican President with no allies in either.  If the second half of this year proves no better legislatively for Republicans than the first half, Republicans will have found themselves with one foot in the political grave come 2018 election time.