tech37 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 20, 2019 7:57 am
Yep, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there my liberal and negative friend, always has been, always will be...
When our dysfunctional govt actually does something in a bi-partisan manner, that's worth mentioning.
Glad to agree with you on this one, tech.
Yes, it's "dog-eat-dog world out there"...in fact that's exactly why conservatives believe that government is actually necessary... to constrain man's worst impulses.
Conservatives, small c, do not believe in a utopia in which people will simply do good to one another.
So, we create structures and institutions that encourage moral behavior and constrain immoral acts. That ranges from religious institutions to government institutions.
In our choice of governmental structures, a constitutional democratic republic, we depend upon the consent of the governed derived through frequent elections, with a brake on the power of the 'mob' through a whole array of essential checks and balances. People need not agree with one another, nor feel that the system optimizes to their personal benefit ,however they do need to maintain a belief that the system is fundamentally fair in the overall distribution of such benefits and privileges. Else the consent of the governed is lost. Various forms of authoritarianism are history's response when consent no longer is preeminent.
I also agree with your sense of dysfunction as well as the importance of bipartisan action.
This hyper partisanship drives dysfunction. Definitely.
In our current iteration, for instance, more than 200 bills passed with bi-partisan support in the House (sounds huge, but true) are frozen at the Senate because McConnell refuses to allow them to even be considered, debated, re-worked...why? Because he says the President won't tell him what he'd sign, so he doesn't want to 'waste time' considering them. Not while he can focus all attention on confirming judges as fast as possible. Why that priority? Because that's what the GOP base wants prioritized. Hyper-partisan.
Where we may disagree is whether government is somehow uniquely dysfunctional relative to other institutions because of 'bureaucracy'. I would disagree, rather the issues of large bureaucracies run across private and public sectors. This is not the source of the sorts of dysfunction that threaten destroying the consent of the governed.
To answer youth's question, at least in part, I'd start (post ignominious defeat of Trumpism at the polls) with a Constitutional amendment to eliminate gerrymandering. Gerrymandering encourages hyper-partisanship on both sides of the aisle.
Eliminate gerrymandering and I think we see a tilt back toward bi-partisanship being rewarded politically instead of penalized.
I think that's more important than eliminating private financing of elections (I think that's a much tougher constitutional challenge). However, I'd focus on making election financing far more transparent. Sunlight.
I'd also consider some form of term limits, though I do think that it's important for these folks to be able to serve multiple terms, competing to do so, as I think that necessity does keep the voter's interests higher in their mind set. I also believe there is expertise built over time that should not be 100% delegated to perpetual staff as would most likely happen otherwise.
Tilt the field back to bi-partisanship and I believe that our decision processes become more functional and more responsive to the needs of the governed. This is not 'conservative' or 'liberal' but rather to finding solutions to difficult challenges.
But note that what I'm describing is the opposite of what Putin (and other authoritarians) want to see happen in the US. They want us tied up in knots, divided. That provides open lanes for their ascendance.