Demoralization??

It’s  time to tell the truth: I have been writing and blogging less because I am so thoroughly disgusted with, even demoralized by, our political process and the people and the people who are operating it. Both parties are controlled by their fringes. We have no functioning Center, in short.
I like to poke fun at the obvious errors our politicians and their governmental minions make, which after all are numerous. I usually look for human nature "at work," and it is not hard to find. But, current trends are ominous, it seems to me.
Lately the whole process is faulty. We have a president who is delivering the opposite of what he promised in his soaring and eloquent rhetoric. Example: Obamacare. Dozens, if not hundreds of broken promises. Greater red-tape than promised. Greater expense than promised. Probably greater restriction to parameters of care actually delivered than promised. Massive misrepresentation by the advocates.
We will look back on market-driven health care with yearning, I imagine.
And this president promised he would "heal" the alienation among our elected representatives by reaching across the aisle with new, sustained – and by implication, fair and equitable – offers to the "other party." Remember all that Founder-ish rhetoric? Buy the trouble with rhetoric is that it is ephemeral. It becomes reality only in the hands of a leader with true integrity.
This guy can’t even spell "integrity!" Did we smell the rat in his rhetorical pottage?
Nope, the majority of voters swallowed it down whole. But look at what we got: Obama’s idea of compromise with the "other party" is to "line 'em up and march 'em" to his tune, usually to cliff’s edge – and then push ‘em over. He expects them to commit political suicide; he does not compromise. And the Republicans won’t march! Why would they? His mandates are narrow, and every knowledgeable politician inside the Beltway knows how thin they are. He does not have the political base to make demands.
But why are we surprised that he thinks he does?
This is the professor who never went to the Faculty Lounge and hung around with the guys and drank coffee; that should have told us he doesn’t mix well or listen well. This is the state senator who usually voted "present," who perhaps belonged to some committees but never attend meetings, and who NEVER chaired a committee or introduced any legislation of consequence. Never did he author a piece of Illinois state law while serving the voters of his district!!
In short, he’s no politician. He doesn’t know what the word truly means, in spite of his sparkling Harvard college and law degrees.
This is a man who is a walking, talking charismatic doll: He is wound up, walks and talks, but does nothing of consequence except push the agenda of the Democratic left – but can’t even do that with any finesse. In short, he is a quarterback who can’t run or pass! (If you doubt this statement, check the work and results of LBJ, for instance; he could run AND pass.)
Other than Obamacare – when the Democratic leadership of Congress all but literally whipped their membership – he can get nothing through Congress. But he can and is using appointive power and executive orders heavily to generate changes in our Republic.
So I have virtually NO respect for leadership in the executive branch. And that is demoralizing to me. I have great respect for Harry Truman; I even can find things that LBJ did that I think were good solutions! And while Bill Clinton is a man of reprehensible morals to me, he WAS a skillful politician.
But not this guy.
Congressionally, we are in a classic "do-nothing" mode – in spite of the hordes of problems at the gates of our city! Both sides of the aisle are so ideologically polarized that there is no longer any "center" – and neither side can prevail. Nor will the voters trust either party with a sufficient degree of political power that they CAN prevail by themselves (smart voters!)
Anyone who knows history or actually does politics at the state or community level will tell you the work is done in the Center of the spectrum. And it is done more by listening than talking; more by creative thinking than ideological ranting; more by working to solve the problem presented than by quoting party lines and talking points.
That is the basic pre-supposition of our political process: There has to be a Center.
The Center is where ideas from both sides are presented, argued, modified, molded and shaped, and ultimately a piece of work is presented to the body at large which incorporates that best of BOTH sides – and actually solves the problems faced. The ideological fringes – both Left and Right – are left out of the process, which is WHY the problems get solved!
Again, our history is full of such episodes. But not in this Congress! And that is a tragedy for the American Republic.

Then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again

Those of you who have read my columns over the last 15 years in the Daily Legal News and the News & Eagle blogs know that I am a student of history. Happily there are lots of thoughtful and insightful historians through the centuries, from the Greek Herodotus to our present day.
One of the best historians of Western Civilization’s Classical period was Edward Gibbon, author of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Gibbon was writing in the 18th century but is still frequently studied three centuries later. His research and narratives have stood the test of many generations.
The Greek city-states invented the modern political concepts of republics, democracies, tyrannies, etc., especially the city-state of Athens. They introduced us t o the ideas of liberty and freedom of civic service to our cities and nation, and experienced all the variations of self-rule, despotic rule and imperial domination. None of the basic meanings of any of these things has changed over the last 25 to 26 centuries!
Gibbons spent a great deal of energy studying the Greeks, as one would hope that any politically-ambitious person would today – thus perhaps avoiding making the same mistakes that the Greeks endured and recorded for us.
Listen to him for a minute on the topic of the Greek city-states:
“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life and they lost it all – security, comfort and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted NOT to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free – and was never free again.”
The Athenians had developed a unique and substantially self-ruling form of government for their dynamic city that worked pretty well, but then abandoned it because it required some self-discipline along with the freedom of action and thought that their government allowed them to enjoy.
The lesson that Gibbon highlights, that history teaches, is: freedom and responsibility are different – but always linked together. One requires the other for its very existence in our lives.
The Apostle Paul – a profound student of human nature – thought along similar lines when he wrote to his disciple Timothy to explain why people act the way they do, even when it is apparent it will end badly! “For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wonder away to myths.”
In short they chase after whomever is making promises that have "sex appeal" or promise easy – though absurd – solutions.
We currently have one of these myth-tellers in the White House, it seems to me, but I continue to hope that the brains under the "itching ears" of the American electorate will conclude, "fool me once, its your fault. But fool me twice, and its mine."
Our electorate needs to toss the socialistic junk that Mr. Obama advocates out on its ear, or we – like the ancient Greeks – will trade our freedom and our study Republic for a miserable mess of his socialist pottage!