We Get the Government we Deserve

A friend of mine from my libertarian days posted an article on Center for a Stateless Society today;

So here we go again. Another biennial US election season draws to a close and here come the solemn multi-partisan invocations of civic duty: Exercise that franchise. Pull that lever, push that button, mark that box. The future of western civilization depends on you. And if you don’t vote, don’t complain.

Politically, the last four years were a cooperative Republican/Democrat enterprise. And unless the Republicans win their way to 67 seats in the US Senate and 291 in the US House — neither of which will happen — so that they can override presidential vetoes, that’s the next two years as well.

So go vote. Or stay home and watch reruns of “How I Met Your Mother.” Either way, feel free to complain all you like. I know I will.

…and I felt compelled to comment as follows;

We get the government we deserve, when 3/4’s of the population has no interest in even the most basic part of ‘civic duty’ which is voting. As a long time activist in various political circles, I am constantly met with blank stares from people who are told that voting is just the beginning, or the ending. It takes years of work, canvassing, motivating, attending meetings, crafting language, more canvassing, more motivating, more meetings, etc, just to get a single measure on the ballot. Voting is just the final act in seeing something you wanted come to fruition.

Ask the Tea Partiers (some of whom made the pretense of being libertarians for many years) how much work they’ve had to engage in to take over the Republican party. Do you honestly think that the government would have been shut down, that the congress would have sat on their collective hands for 6 years, that Ted Cruz would be a Senator from Texas without their support? Are you (and your commenters) going to seriously sit there and suggest that there is nothing we can do to change things by participating, while the right half of the (calcifying and failing) two-party system appears to be having a nervous breakdown? Engaging in denial of reality, much less science?

Cooperative? When all President has to do to ensure a measure is never adopted is for him to support it? When actions he takes are supported by the Republican leadership before he takes them, then opposed after he takes them?

If we allow the Tea Partiers with their radical religious right agenda to gain more power, because we can’t be bothered to get out and resist them, because we are convinced that no changes will actually occur, then we will get the changes we don’t want (according to polls) because they are moving on their agenda across the country in areas that they already control. We will indeed get the government we deserve.

The results are in, and the Republicans took the Senate as many pundits predicted over the last few months. Democrats beat themselves, they didn’t set the conversation, they accepted the conversation from Republicans that Obama is a bad President. Consequently the argument is won by them. 

Credit Jim Wright & Girl Du Jour

Lesson to be learned here; do not let your opponent lay out the battleground you will fight over, to
paraphrase Sun Tzu.

I have been a staunch supporter of President Obama since he won the office, even though I didn’t vote for him in 2008. After the horrible treatment he received for what I considered to be a better than average execution of his duties, I made a point of voting for him in 2012. 

I would like to say that I “don’t understand” why he is treated the way he is, but I’m afraid I actually do.   The pattern is all too familiar to anyone raised in the South.

The Republicans set out to do nothing 6 years ago, and blame Obama for their inaction. The electorate has rewarded them for their hypocrisy by returning them to office again, and again. It is a sad, sad day in the US.

Every time Ted Cruz talks, and the news points a camera at him, I beg the talking head to explain a) why they bothered to give him attention or b) why they don’t demand he produce a shred of proof for any of the insanity he spouts. “Excuse me Mr. Cruz, but you appear to have forgotten to get dressed today and you are standing there naked.” 

…all of the Republican leaders are in this boat. None of them can enumerate real complaints, real objections. None of them are willing to lead.  Now that they control both houses of Congress, I can’t wait to see what kind of draconian proposals they will advance as conservative policy.  Should be an entertaining next two years.

Author: RAnthony

I'm a freethinking, unapologetic liberal. I'm a former CAD guru with an architectural fetish. I'm a happily married father. I'm also a disabled Meniere's sufferer. View all posts by RAnthony