Our Governments Fatal Flaw

LOL.

Hey, I like a blog that cuts to the chase.

One of the things that disturbed me as a Democrat was my party's undisguised pandering to the selfish in people.

Democrats prey on the human selfish desire for self enrichment. "Don't think about how bad this policy is for the country as a whole.... it will put money in YOUR pocket... not go out there and vote for us!"

That always stuck in my craw as a Democrat. As a Republican convert, it sticks in my craw worse now.

"not... vote for us" should have been "now go out there and vote for us!"

Darned keyboard should have known better. lol.

The Dems taxed it out of existence two Administrations ago.

You’re absolutely right PDX Dave. The Democratic political philosophy seems to be built around pandering to the electorate; however, the Republicans are not without blame. As they see how effective the pandering technique is for the Democrats, they too seem to be moving more and more to relying on pandering as a vote getting technique.

This onset of pandering is the result of our moving our politics from being centered on principles (as was during the founding of our Country) to an issue-centric politics. Principles are broad, lofty, virtuous concepts; issues are narrow and self-centered. So long as we do not demand that our politicians address principles first, we should expect to get exactly what we are getting.

I’ve been advocating, (albeit, not very effectively) that each politician provide the public a closed list of his or her principles, and the facts used in developing them. By closed I mean that the list would contain a governing principle for every issue possible issue. If an issue arises for which the politician has no governing principle, he must devise a new principle or modify an existing principle to cover the new issue. In this manner, a very capable and complete set of principles may be evolved.

This would draw the focus away from isolated issues and toward principles. Issues would be addressed only in the context of a governing principle making it very difficult to pander. There are many, many other advantages to a principled approach to politics. But politicians absolutely refuse to publish their principles … less they be held to their own standards. To date, no politician has even attempted to publish a closed set of principles, and even if they did, I’m not sure that the public or the media would know how to use them.