from Kevin
I try and stay out of the national political debates here but this is one where it has gotten to the point nationally where I’m going to comment. Sure there is blame for both sides but I also feel that one group is clearly more to blame than the others. I think we can narrow down the focus from the Republicans to the tea party itself.
I think if it were just a Republican house majority without the Tea Party, John Boehner would have led them to meaningful compromise and this would have been solved. With the Tea Party in place they won’t allow that to happen. This is our own fault as a nation. We voted in a large block of extremist ideologues. Extremist ideologues do not compromise in any meaningful way. Is it any wonder we are where we are today?
I suppose I could blame John Boehner for not taking the more moderate Republicans and finding an alliance with the Democratic majority. But that would have hurt their chances for reelection and neither political party seems willing to do things that do that. Even the stated goal of the Republicans is to oust the president and regain power, not govern to the best of their ability. There seem to be very few people in Washington who take their duty to the country more seriously than their ability to be reelected and maintain power.
I will say that there is at least one notable exception to this I’ve seen and He’s paid politically for it. That is President Obama. Time and time again he has shown that he is willing to buck his party to do what needs to be done for the country, reelection be damned. I’ve heard for years that this is the type of person we want. We want a centrist who cares more for the country than their reelection. Now that we finally have one, we go into knee jerk reaction mode and elect in a group of extremist ideologues and blame him for the result. We say we want elected officials who are centrists and put the country in front of their political careers but in action it appears that there is a rather large segment of us who don’t.
For the people in Washington this crisis is being caused by the Tea Party but we are all to blame for allowing them to be there to cause this in the first place. Way to go, America.
Thanks, Kevin
