American Idiocracy

I'm tired of partisan politics in my government

  • Agreed

    Votes: 8 47.1%
  • Disagreed

    Votes: 7 41.2%
  • No opinion

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • I'm not sure

    Votes: 1 5.9%

  • Total voters
    17

Divine Wind

Platinum Member
Aug 2, 2011
20,640
5,568
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Texas
Back in 1989-1990 I earned an MA in International Relations from Troy State University, 3/4's of which was paid courtesy of American tax payers. Thanks guys and gals!

Besides bragging rights, the year and a quarter of night and weekend classes at Hulburt AFB also introduced me to one of the best political magazines on the planet; the Economist.

This article is a taste of why it's a great analysis of current geopolitical, economic and military situations around the globe.

Schumpeter: American idiocracy | The Economist

A few highlights:

After studying 10,000 firms in 20 countries, Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and three other academics concluded that American firms are the world’s best managed, with German, Japanese and Swedish firms a short way behind and Chinese and Indian ones trailing badly.

Yet America’s politicians are intent on squandering this painfully accumulated capital. As it revoked America’s triple-A credit rating on August 5th, Standard & Poor’s explained that the gulf between the political parties was becoming unbridgeable, and that policymaking was becoming unpredictable. Other sober institutions concur. The World Economic Forum has downgraded America from second place in 2009 to fourth place in 2010 in its annual global competitiveness rankings. By the forum’s reckoning, America comes a lowly 40th for the quality of its institutions, 54th for trust in its politicians, 68th for government waste and a dismal 87th for its macroeconomic environment. The World Bank sees a relentless decline in various indicators of American governance. Daniel Kaufmann of the Brookings Institution notes that last year 33% of American business leaders told pollsters that a big constraint was the “instability of the policy framework”. The figure for France was 14%; for Chile, 5%.

This ideological civil war has led to the marginalisation of corporate America. In the Republican Party country-club types have been elbowed aside by Rush Limbaugh listeners. In the Democratic Party the business-friendly centrists who flourished under Bill Clinton have been sidelined by Ivy League intellectuals and trade-union and minority activists. Granted, Mitt Romney, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, looks like a made-for-television business candidate: a Harvard Business School graduate and Bain consultant who helped to create successful companies such as Home Depot. But on the campaign trail he has devoted more effort to wooing Mr Limbaugh’s legions than to crafting businesslike solutions for America.

The civil war is creating two obvious problems for American business: paralysis and uncertainty.

All this has immediate consequences for business. The federal government not only runs basic services such as the Federal Aviation Authority (where thousands of workers were briefly laid off because Congress refused to renew the FAA’s authority). It also accounts for a quarter of the economy. Scott Davis, the boss of UPS, the world’s largest package-delivery company, recently complained that FAA funding disputes made him unsure how many of his aeroplanes to fit with new air-traffic-control gear, while the failure to ratify a trade pact with South Korea weakened the case for expanding his fleet of aircraft and lorries.

The direst consequences of all this lie in the future, however. America’s health-care system consumes a sixth of GDP but produces only mediocre results. America’s schools produce run-of-the-mill results despite generous funding. The immigration system leaves 11m people in the shadows and condemns many of the brightest graduates of American universities to years of grovelling before bureaucrats if they want to stay in America. Many give up and take their skills back to India or China.
 
I agree that our political differences are going to severely damage our economy and place in the world. But the differences are real. There's no way you can make them go away. Perhaps in a generation or two, they'll have resolved themselves. But for the immediate future, we're in a deadlock.
 
Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer" The greatest danger to the world economy is Right Wing fanatics in the US Congress".

"Un-American NO COMPROMISE Republicans"- TIME Magazine
 
I agree that our political differences are going to severely damage our economy and place in the world. But the differences are real. There's no way you can make them go away. Perhaps in a generation or two, they'll have resolved themselves. But for the immediate future, we're in a deadlock.

Agreed the differences are real. Those differences have been with us since the days of Jefferson and Hamilton. They will never go away. In fact, it would be extremely bad for us if one side or the other did go away. In many ways it is the same situation as the different approach of parents; the colder, more pragmatic father and the warmer, more nurturing mother. To have one completely dominate or eliminate the other would be bad for the family. The same goes for politics in America. The problem we have here is the same as any other dysfunctional family. We need to keep the family, but we need to remove the dysfunction by learning to work with each other.

Several years ago, in an effort to save my own marriage, I went to marriage counseling. One of the first things the doctor told us was that all married couples fight. It's natural for disputes to come up. The difference between a good, successful marriage and a bad, failed marriage was how they fought. Good couples fight fair and keep the dispute on topic. Bad couples dredge up old bullshit and keep moving the goalposts in an effort to "win" the fight. While one or the other may "win" the fight, the marriage is doomed to failure.
 
bipartisanship is when politicians from both parties come together to screw the people.

So, no I dont have a problem with partisanship. I like it when people have different ideas and those ideas are debated on their merits.

Now will you please stop pretending that it's the GOP causing all the partisanship. It was the GOP who compromised in that poorly thought out debt ceiling "Compromise". Obama got exactly what he wanted.
 
I agree that our political differences are going to severely damage our economy and place in the world. But the differences are real. There's no way you can make them go away. Perhaps in a generation or two, they'll have resolved themselves. But for the immediate future, we're in a deadlock.

Agreed the differences are real. Those differences have been with us since the days of Jefferson and Hamilton. They will never go away. In fact, it would be extremely bad for us if one side or the other did go away. In many ways it is the same situation as the different approach of parents; the colder, more pragmatic father and the warmer, more nurturing mother. To have one completely dominate or eliminate the other would be bad for the family. The same goes for politics in America. The problem we have here is the same as any other dysfunctional family. We need to keep the family, but we need to remove the dysfunction by learning to work with each other.

Several years ago, in an effort to save my own marriage, I went to marriage counseling. One of the first things the doctor told us was that all married couples fight. It's natural for disputes to come up. The difference between a good, successful marriage and a bad, failed marriage was how they fought. Good couples fight fair and keep the dispute on topic. Bad couples dredge up old bullshit and keep moving the goalposts in an effort to "win" the fight. While one or the other may "win" the fight, the marriage is doomed to failure.

Nice metaphor of the parents. But as far as saving this marriage goes, at the moment neither party wants to save it on terms acceptable to the other party. And by party, I don't mean just the formal party structures, but the broad chunks of the electorate that elect the politicians of the two parties. Maybe I'm wrong and a significant majority will coalesce around one or the other of the platforms offered them, or on something in between, sometime soon. I'm skeptical that that's going to happen in the next decade at least.
 
I agree that our political differences are going to severely damage our economy and place in the world. But the differences are real. There's no way you can make them go away. Perhaps in a generation or two, they'll have resolved themselves. But for the immediate future, we're in a deadlock.

Unfortunately, the divide was turned into a chasm when Jr. and his great line "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists". That made everyone try to say their way was the only right way.

Unfortunately, our lawmakers that we sent to Washington to represent the views of all the people of this country, have chosen instead to reduce their rhetoric to bumper stickers and tweets, instead of doing their actual jobs which includes debate and compromise.

I mean.......the views of someone in Iowa are going to be much different than those in LA or NYC, so if you want to truly represent the people, you need to compromise on things so that the whole country has a voice.
 
Unfortunately, the divide was turned into a chasm when Jr. and his great line "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists". That made everyone try to say their way was the only right way.

I think this captures it entirely. There has always been partisanship in America, but lately, both sides have taken to saying not only that they are correct, but that the other side is 100% incorrect. Obviously, neither side is always right nor always wrong, and facts don't change based on which party uses them, but all that is being tossed out the window.

We see it on this board every day. Someone posts legitimate facts, backed up with a link or site or source, and the other simply ignores them because they can't accept their opponent might be correct about something.

I think this country gets better when both sides realize the other side has something worthwhile to contribute.
 
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Non partisan politics is the kind of politics practiced by the Kims in North Korea, the Albanians in the olden times, and in China.

Partisanship is the life blood of democracy. People have different opinions, needs, levels of mental health. No one can every agree on everything with anyone else. A nation should not be coerced into lockstep because democracy is a little messy.

Hurray for messy.
 
Nothing wrong with being partisan. It is in an unwillingness to compromise where problems arise.

And that's the problem with the GOP. Shit........things they were for a couple of years ago they are against now because Obama said it was a good idea.

It's not just the GOP which is the problem. Remember when President Obama first came into office and let the the Speaker of the House run with the Health Care ball? Pelosi stomped out all GOP ideas and basically said, "We own it all now so go fuck yourself".

"Partisanship", by itself, isn't the problem. Being committed to one's party ideals is a good thing. OTOH, being so focused on dominating the nation's politics that a person would rather see the nation fail or lose an election rather than compromise is friggin' insane. It's this level of partisanship which is discussed in the article and which is dragging our nation down.
 
I would agree both parties are moving towards the fringes rather than trying to govern from the middle.

But whose fault is that?

I remember that for years, I had to listen to my liberal Democratic friends tell me that if More Republicans were just sensible, bi-partisan, country before Party centrists... you know like John McCain, why they might even consider voting for a Republican.

So Republicans did the "Oky-Doke", and nominated John McCain.

And he got 4 million less votes than Bush got 4 years earlier.

I think the problems are ones NEITHER side are willing to address. First, that Free Trade has been a complete disaster for the country and her industries. But neither party will oppose that, and people who speak out against free trade like Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan are villified as "nuts".

I also have severe doubt that our problems can be resolved democratically. I think someone is going to have to feed us some very harsh medicines to get the problems fixed.
 
I disagree. I want partisanship when it comes to my core Values. I don't want to see a whole lot of compromise on things like spending, and Federal Power. Sorry, Something you can't compromise. Because they only work if it is not Compromised.

Compromise gets you 22 Billion in cuts and "promises" to cut more later, when the Creditors wanted to see 400 Billion less Deficit.

Compromise gets you a convoluted Health Care law that fails miserably to lower costs, and cover everyyone, that even a conservative like myself thinks Single Payer would have been better than this shit.

Compromise gets you 860 Billion in Stimulus Dolled out to Obama's Supporters in the Unions, while you sit unemployed and watch union workers from 250 Miles away do work in your town, with Stimulus funds.

Compromise gets you a wishy washy Candidate like McCain that basically threw the election.

Sorry, Ill compromise on a lot of stuff, But sometimes standing on Principle is the only Option.
 
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I would agree both parties are moving towards the fringes rather than trying to govern from the middle.

But whose fault is that?

I remember that for years, I had to listen to my liberal Democratic friends tell me that if More Republicans were just sensible, bi-partisan, country before Party centrists... you know like John McCain, why they might even consider voting for a Republican.

So Republicans did the "Oky-Doke", and nominated John McCain.

And he got 4 million less votes than Bush got 4 years earlier.

I think the problems are ones NEITHER side are willing to address. First, that Free Trade has been a complete disaster for the country and her industries. But neither party will oppose that, and people who speak out against free trade like Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan are villified as "nuts".

I also have severe doubt that our problems can be resolved democratically. I think someone is going to have to feed us some very harsh medicines to get the problems fixed.

there not Nuts for speaking out against Free Trade. They are just ignoring History. Things were not exactly wonderful back in the days of Economic Isolationism, and Massive Tariffs.

the Problem is not Free Trade, the problem is we don't actually have Free and Fair Trade. We let anyone sell anything here, but those same places. Like China. Restrict our Trade. Free Trade really only works when all parties play Fair.
 
partisan politics is not about core values

partisan politics is about placing blame on core values....

~S~
 
Hyperpartisanship is vastly preferable to the road obama would have us travel. The time for compromise is over. I for one, am tired of giving my freedom away to progressive politics in little increments.
90 years of compromise with progressives has gotten into this hole. Only strict Constitutional Conservatism can pull us out.
 

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