WHAT HAPPENED TO COMPROMISE?

First, we must establish the fact that your Commander is an idealist, and not a very effective realist. I make every effort to be objective, but it is frequently difficult to honestly see the other guy’s opinion without being influenced by my upbringing in an ultra-conservative, depression era family.

In preparation for this commentary I went to my New World Dictionary and looked up the definition of “POLITICS,” and it is recorded as “the science and art of political government” – “political methods tactics” – “factional scheming for power and status within a group”. I feel the latter definition fairly describes the conditions facing the state of politics today, namely factional scheming for power and status within a group.

With all the problems facing our great nation today we find our politicians tearing one another apart on virtually ever single issue. It is said that the art of politics is the ability to reach acceptable compromises, but how can that happen when both major political parties are operating in full battle mode for the personal destruction of their opponents, and all their positions.

History establishes that political rancor has existed since the colonial days, but our Founding Fathers found a way to reach acceptable accords that successfully led to our Declaration of Independence and our magnificent Constitution. At least in those early days politicians attacked one another with some degree of civility. If we are to look at the vocal advocates of each party today there is little or no attempt to reach a compromise and civility is now, and has been for some time, out of vogue in Washington.

Originally I intended to list the provocateurs on both sides of the political discussion, but I have changed my mind. There are so many people who have raised the harshness of the debate I could list several hundred names. The 24 hour cable news cycle usually doesn’t help the debate; it just seems to add fuel to the fire. It is essential to include the media spokespersons as well as the political operatives to that list, because they all have polluted the discussion to all time low levels of decency. All they accomplish is smearing the opponent’s position and then nothing is really achieved when the opposition is steamrolled or personally destroyed.

The current fad to urge investigations and prosecutions of past administrations may come back to haunt our current leadership. Personally, this tactic disgusts me to my core. History proves that every President could be questioned for some past actions. Hindsight tends to hold a high degree of accuracy for everyone, but much more is to be gained by moving forward.

So I have come to the conclusion that “POLITICS” should now be defined as “the art of greed and personal enrichment.” These positions are both detrimental and wrong for our citizenry, but the ultimate decisions are now essentially based upon “whose Ox is being gored.” Why do we permit this to happen to our great country? I really am beginning to wonder if we can reverse the destructive course that we are blindly following.

COMMANDER GRANGER