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Friedman on Weirdness
Been a while since I dragged Th. L. Friedman over to the blog, but today’s opinion entry at nytimes.com is worth reading as a reminder of what’s at stake in our political contests. The Dems lost what should have been a sure bet in New York, and only have their inside party politics to blame, according to commentary I have read/heard. People are going to start voting the person rather than party as a survival move, if they haven’t done that already. Anyway, read the-world-is-flat-man for his thoughts on Green and Weird, and get the Times on your porch or online if you want more of this.
Not sure the source for your comments on NY and the “voting the person rather than party”, but it’s fair to say I’m already an enthusiastic “vote the person rather than party” voter, and you can call it a survival move because it most certainly is.
I’m inclined to side with positions resembling the Democrats’ that repealing the tax breaks for the rich is an important fiscal necessity. Yet I recall that, extremely recently, for TWO YEARS the presidential administration, the Senate majority, and the House majority were all solidly Democrat, yet no action was taken to do anything about the shortfall in tax revenue related to giving tax breaks to the wealthiest half of one percent of Americans, which we’re now being told remains the #1 problem with our national finances. (These wealthiest Americans, as so eloquently noted by Warren Buffet, can certainly afford to start contributing their fair share, as have, for one example, our soldiers serving overseas, etc.) One can only conclude, cynical as that may be, that inside Democrat party politics actually have little interest in righting this wrong, or there would have been something done about it sooner. Yet, here we are, with what ought to be done being used merely as a prod with which to poke their political opponents in the seemingly never-ending game of “let’s not do anything but tell the voters it was the other guys’ fault”.
The rejoinder to such expression of opinion is always “yes, but the Republicans are worse”, and still that does not explain to me why I should not invest my votes based on the individual, and not the party. Clearly, “party” is what keeps us mired in this morass. My reply is that the Democrats are worse than the alternative (i.e. voting for the person and not the party) so thank you for endorsing the strategy of avoiding the worse of two evils.
Reading the article I wondered about Texas and population growth. I accept that it is a poorly governed state, what with Governor’s Rick Perry and George W Bush, and others going back for decades upon decades.&nbps; Even so, folks from other US and Mexican States keep streaming into Texas. Perhaps the climate change in Texas, notwithstanding the heat and the brush fires, is attractive to people. On the other hand, New Hampshire is one of those states gaining people, even while jobs remain in Massachusetts (and thus the income taxes remain in Massachusetts). Maybe people use a number of factors to determine where they live.
As for the Election in the New York Ninth, part of the problem is believing that all Jewish Voters are alike. Just as menus at delicatessens have changed in recent years, as more Jews from Russia have moved into the district, so have political tastes.
Is politics not the greatest sport in America, even more interesting than the King of Sports, horse racing.
Regards — Cliff