April 27, 2005
View Comments | Post CommentDissent is good!
"Republicans have asserted that the changes, drafted by the speaker's office and pushed through by the Republicans in January, were designed to better protect the rights of lawmakers. But their counterparts quickly complained that they were instituted after the House ethics committee admonished Mr. DeLay three times last year. 'We fumbled the ball badly,' said one senior Republican official who spoke anonymously because he did not want to be viewed as critical of the leadership."
Read that last line again. That is precisely what I think is wrong with the current climate in politics. Republicans (and Democrats, although it's less of an issue right now) do not want to be seen as critical of their leadership. They don't want to be seen as going against the party.
I think EVERY politician should be critical of the leadership, as well as all of their fellow politicians, and any politicians in positions below them. It's only by being critical that they could hope to come to any sort of meaningful solutions.
Both sides are terrible about this, and there's currently no way around it. Voters don't bother researching candidates, even though a moderate person that happens to love Jesus might agree with a Democrat, or a moderate Conservative might agree more with a moderate Democrat than an extreme Conservative, or a liberal person for whom civil libertaries are of utmost importance might agree more with a particular Conservative. No one researches individual candidates, people just vote by party. People vote their wallet, their safety, or their god.
As a result, when any politician not towing the party line risks being hung out to dry by the party, no politician can risk not towing the party line. The parties, on the other hand, get their public perception shifted drastically and suddenly by the frenzied media whenever a politician breaks rank, since doing so is seen as exposing some underlying flaw or evil in whatever the party line was that they broke.
Ugh. It's disgusting. Dissent is a good thing.
Posted at April 27, 2005 11:46 AM | Comments (0)
