MASON CONSERVATIVE

We Brought Much Of This On Ourselves

I haev a lot to say but I'll wait until the weekend.  I'll leave you with this for now:

The Presidency: The Root Of Our Problems

On the eve of the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare, I got to thinking a bit how we are even here.  How have we gone from having an honest conversation about America’s health care system to deciding the fate of legislation solely given to the current President and how his legacy, or at least part of it, hinges on this decision and its aftermath?  The more I thought about it, the more I got to thinking about the nature of our current system of government we have now.  Congress has an approval rating of 9% and we have two presidential candidates carrying on that right now, largely resemble another Seinfeld election where it’s essentially about nothing.  That is a condemnation of the Republican Party who turned away the reform, activist grassroots that brought us back to power in 2010 way faster than we had any right to be back for a billionaire one-term governor who’s never lived a hard day in his life.  Then we have an incumbent president who was elected because he promised everything to everyone, knowing full well he could meet none of those promises.  It is insidious what he pulled over us.

Then I got to think, whose fault is this?  Is it Congress’s fault?  We hear nothing but the infernal partisanship that mucks up the system.  If only the Tea Party would “compromise.”  If only the Progressive Left would “compromise.”  Yet any student of history would understand today’s partisanship pales in comparison to the days of congressman beating senators half to death at their desks or men threatening duels on the floor of the House.  In fact, our partisanship I would argue is less than in the past because of all the media transparency and the unprecedented access every-day citizens have into the inner-workings of government. 

The problem is the Presidency itself.  Never before had we have had such a sustained effort to hold one branch of government over all others.  Both political parties use the presidency as their access to power.  Neither party is truly for small government because of the way the presidency dominates our politics.  All the efforts of activists and political parties become for one man, and that effort doesn’t stop after they are elected.  So much power has become centralized in the executive branch that reelection becomes more important than executing the people’s business.  Allow me to elaborate a bit more.