There are actually more than a few things that bother me about the way the world works, but the current political situation in the United States is insane. I’m a registered Republican in the State of Florida, and a fiscal conservative while being somewhat socially liberal. This, for me, matches the Republican ideals of small government that stays out of our personal lives. I differ very strongly on several social issues, mainly based on the principle of keeping government out of our private lives. But what I find most objectionable is the willingness to vote against something workable, because it would make the other guy look good. This is my own party, but the other party is not any better. Their responses are always expected and they rarely follow through. As Mark Twain said: “I do not belong to any organized political party, I’m a Democrat!”

There is conservative spending (less money for more service) and there is strangling services. Today’s Republican Party seems intent on the strangling side of this issue. Government does serve several useful purposes, and those all take resources. There seems to be no argument about paying federal taxes, aside from who should pay what, but there is always reluctance to accept Federal dollars at the State level. Even though it is tax dollars paid by the State’s population, and could be used to benefit the State’s population, the funds are rejected. The major arguments against accepting the money boil down to issues of trust.

Long ignoring of infrastructure, seems to fall to both parties. Our roads and bridges are falling apart, and they spend millions on turkeys to satisfy their local interests. Taxes are collected specifically for this purpose (read the fine print at the gas pump next time you fill up), and then disappear into the woodwork, or are insufficient to keep up with the task. I live in an intentional community, and we vote on a budget for the expenditures we need to make during the year to provide the services and other items the community maintains, like our roads. From this budget our individual assessments are made and we “tax” ourselves enough to cover the budget. There is no such binding between the tax system and the expenditure system at the Federal level, so the Fed can both borrow money and print more, as needed. Well, anyone can see that will not work indefinitely. Some market analysts are starting to suggest strongly that a complete collapse is quickly becoming inevitable. The collapse of our bridges is easier to document.

One a different note, but one intimately connected with the current political insanity, is the fact that the separation of church and state is a joke. The State is not allowed by the Constitution to be involved in Religion, but religious organizations can direct the political views their members. A person may not pray in school, yet every session of Congress is started with a prayer. The State can not direct you in how to pray, even though it seems it can direct you in where not to pray. On the other hand, your prayers can be directed from the pulpit to favor one candidate or another, or one party over another. This is the way , whichThe creator gave us the free will to decide moral issues, that are being legislated by this form of political pressure. A woman’s reproductive freedom was declared by the highest court in the country, and still the politicians are spending large efforts to restrict those rights. The State should be no more involved in this issue that to insure that the health care system provides safe access to the services that a women’s health requires, just like they should for men’s health.

There are several other topics that I could bring this political situation to task about, but the possibility of being misunderstood outweighs the benefits of the discussion. These topics are really second order effects of the current political policy climate, and are not necessary to the conclusions drawn from these other topics. So I only discussed the most important aspects of what I see going on. You should be able to guess, by what was not discussed above, the topics to which this paragraph refers.

As an individual, with my individual point of view, I can see these problems pretty clearly, but from my vantage point, I don’t see any way to promote a viable change. There is a pressing need to change politics from a football game where each team is fighting for their team’s dominance, back to the object of public service, where your job is to find the solution that best fits all the people in your constituency and your ideals are a guide rather than a stumbling block to this effort. Most of my frustration centers around not having any leverage to accomplish the obvious, necessary, goal. Most of my peeves stem from similar frustrations. This one however is screaming in my ears way too much of the time. Thanks for letting me vent…