Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Politics

Demint says Tea Party candidates will end earmarks. Although I'm a liberal, I don't think that's a bad idea. I do think it's a very naive idea. Time will tell how that works out.

It seems no one in politics - of any persuasion - can get done what they say they want to do. I think that's because the system is designed to prevent any one person from doing what they want to do. We just don't seem to understand this.

I no longer get too worked up about politics because I've realized in our current system it doesn't really matter much. I vote in every election, and I always will. But our system is designed to be totally reactive to the whims of the moment at election time, only to have those folks realize the people they backed can't really do what they said they would do because the system prevents it.

People want whatever their immediate concern is addressed. Government isn't designed to address anything quickly. By the time government reacts to whatever the immediate concern is, the immediate concern has changed.

Two years from now people will be ticked off at the people who just got elected and they'll be ousted too. I'm just not going to invest my own energy in this dance, other than to vote or speak out when it's something really major.

Anyone who really wants to effect any kind of change - on either side - needs to hire public relations professionals to change the minds of the people. Then government has to react to that. It's designed to be that way, and it seems to work quite well, but it's not the way to accomplish much in a proactive manner.