Article Contributed on: 9/10/2008 11:49:37 AM
As election day (finally!) looms on the horizon, the attacks are getting nastier, the fibs are going from little white lies to something much darker, and we're all getting treated to a campaign season that feels like a cross between the soaps and a WWF smackdown. Very pop culture, but most likely hazardous to our civic health in the long run.
Why does this election feel so squirrely? Candidates are changing positions like actors change wardrobes, trying to respond to any shift in the polls, but where's the meat and potatoes? How do we know that what they tell us now will actually still be what they tell us after they are elected and the political winds shift? We don't.
The candidates are trying as best they can to work around a rift that's developed in the US - in both parties. It's the difference between those who see themselves as citizens of the world (globalists) and those who see themselves as citizens of the US first (constitutionalists). Globalists and Constitutionalists come in several flavors, depending on the major party they are associated with.
Globalists-Republican are known as neo-cons, feeling the world should be under one government, fueled by the corporations, and run by the United States, with military force an option to bring democracy to the uncooperative.. Globalists-Democrat believe the world should be run by the UN, doing the most good for the most number, to obtain peace and the protection of the environment, now defined as fighting global warming, even if it means corporate monopolies providing alternative energies. Both sets of globalists care more about the what than the how. The Machiavellian notion that the "ends justify the means" is enough. Both are willing to throw the Constitution overboard to get what they want done.
Constitutionalists are the "old guard" in both parties, and are closer to the old concept of "statesman" as opposed to "politician." Consitutionalists-Republican hold the belief that business should be independent, relying on customers to keep them healthy (not government handouts), and have a strong belief in saving for the future, self-sufficiency, industriousness and a strong work ethic. They want small government and economic independence. Ron Paul is an example. Constitutionalists-Democratic believe in the strength of the "little guy" fighting over-controlling government, ready to take on corporate power, fight for equal rights for all citizens, and make sure everyone gets the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution.
In reality, what we have are 4 major parties, not two. Major party candidates are trying to speak out of both sides of their mouths to both sets of bases within their respective parties, and since those bases are conceptually split, the resulting rhetoric is a mishmash of conflicting and shifting ideas.
Not to mention that most of what gets said has little bearing on the issues that the independents, libertarians, greens and constitution party (and any other third parties) are concerned with, like protection from overarching national security rules, freedom of speech (opendebates.org has documented major party attempts to keep other voices silent), independent education, protection of property rights, etc. There are a lot more people in those categories than the major parties would like to believe, but the majors are solid in their conviction that the "wasted vote" idea will keep them all voting mainstream in the end.
The general public (even major party members) are growing increasingly sick of the grandstanding, yet they too are split, and their split is what has created the above schisms in the major parties.
Collectivists would prefer some large, benign and caring government taking full responsibility for our welfare (an ideal tried many times, always foundering on the fact that implementation requires real, flawed, tempt-able human beings) that tells us what to do "for our own good," that would eventually encompass the entire globe leading to more peace and prosperity. These are major party Globalists.
Individualists believe "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and that individual rights cannot be transferred to government no matter how enlightened, and that when they are, the government can just as easily take them away. They believe small government by the consent of the governed works best, not only in the US, but that all countries should have their own self-determination free of centralized world government. They say that citizens must fight for their rights, learn from their mistakes, be self-reliant and that when all men experience the freedom guaranteed in the Constitution, the world will have more peace and prosperity. These are major party Constitutionalists.
Until the rift in our own population is resolved, folks will keep lining up with the big 4 and the candidates are pretty much stuck having to use the tools of propaganda: fear-mongering, emotional appeals, and storytelling. While the petty bickering goes on, we're stuck in two wars, our economy flounders, our prestige in the world sinks, the housing crisis worsens, and we have more citizens in jail than anywhere else in the world. Hardly the profile of a country that wants to be "the leader of the free world" but that doesn't stop the rhetoric.
This unease, the sense that things have gone horribly wrong, is because in our heart of hearts we know we have not been doing the right things for the right reasons. We don't make the time to fight the injustices we see. We don't actually know anymore what the Constitution means or why it was written the way it was. We don't do our homework and vote for the candidate who actually does what the Constitution says they are supposed to do. We try to use government to get everyone else to do what we want done, constitutional or not, and can't figure out why those plans never work. We continue to vote with our emotions, yet feel cheated when the folks we considered "the lesser of two evils" betray us (again) once in office.
It's definitely time for change - but it needs to begin between the ears.