...will be the death of the U.S.
It hasn't posed too much of a problem until the last say 30 years, when a developing nation still had many problems to unite behind. People could get over their differences to get something done, instead of bickering about every single issue. Now the party system I believe is past helpful discussion of issues to hammer out the right course and into destroying the capabilities of the nation to act on anything.
I don't believe we lost the Vietnam war based on military tact, but on public opinion at home. As also in the war in the middle east, it is not a question of military power. If the sole objective was to take out the threat, we could have carpet bombed the whole country. Obviously this is an extreme that should never have been done or should be done in the future, but the problem is in finding the goal and having the will in our government and ultimately populace to carry through what we started.
Disagreement is healthy to a republic, and I'm not asking for a totalitarian state, but the complete and utter political bullshit our country goes through needs to go. People base their decisions on what everyone else is doing, not what they think is right, like some high-school popularity contest. Politicians need to hammer out what they think is the right thing to do, individually not with their party, and once a course of action is decided all focus should be on making the most of that decision. There is no use looking into the past trying to make the other side look bad, only in trying to make the most of the situation at hand.
It hasn't posed too much of a problem until the last say 30 years, when a developing nation still had many problems to unite behind. People could get over their differences to get something done, instead of bickering about every single issue. Now the party system I believe is past helpful discussion of issues to hammer out the right course and into destroying the capabilities of the nation to act on anything.
I don't believe we lost the Vietnam war based on military tact, but on public opinion at home. As also in the war in the middle east, it is not a question of military power. If the sole objective was to take out the threat, we could have carpet bombed the whole country. Obviously this is an extreme that should never have been done or should be done in the future, but the problem is in finding the goal and having the will in our government and ultimately populace to carry through what we started.
Disagreement is healthy to a republic, and I'm not asking for a totalitarian state, but the complete and utter political bullshit our country goes through needs to go. People base their decisions on what everyone else is doing, not what they think is right, like some high-school popularity contest. Politicians need to hammer out what they think is the right thing to do, individually not with their party, and once a course of action is decided all focus should be on making the most of that decision. There is no use looking into the past trying to make the other side look bad, only in trying to make the most of the situation at hand.
P.S. - After writing this I saw that a Republican bias could be construed, but that was not the aim, only I think a product of the current times that we live in. Both parties are very much to blame in my opinion.George Washington wrote:
It serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill founded Jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot & insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence & corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country, are subjected to the policy and will of another.