There is (or was) something called the Common Ground Caucus (or
something similar). My understanding is that they came to some
agreements on reforming immigration, but the House leadership
wouldn't allow the bill to reach the floor. Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Evan Reese" <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date sent: Wed, 21 Nov 2018 13:36:35 -0500
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Centralization Dilemma
Good points.
Unfortunately, anybody who tries to work across party lines in
Congress
these days gets a lot of blowback from their constituents.
There's an interesting article in the November 12 New Yorker
about Ryan
Costello, a Republican Representative who, while being farther to
the right
than I am, still tried to work with Democrats on some issues.
The articles
about how nastily he was treated by both left and right for
making the
effort.
Very sad.
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Hachey
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2018 1:25 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Centralization Dilemma
Hi Peter,
Interesting analysis here. So, which decisions do we really want
to make for
ourselves?
Let's put this into practical terms.
1. In terms of healthcare, what decisions do we want to make for
ourselves?
Seems the majority of us want some kind of health insurance and
some poles
suggest that the majority wants a single payer plan. One thing I
do know is
that we all want healthcare we can afford. That will be a hard
one to
decentralize unless we want each state to decide autonimously
what it wants
to do.
Applying this to foreign policy would indeed be very interesting.
How many
Americans support continued wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Now for taxes. Unless we want to eliminate federal taxes
altogether, we will
always have to come up with a single answer for one like this.
IMHO, what this continued desire for change which does indeed
date back to
1992 tels me that both powerful parties have missed the mark in
terms of
what we want out of our government. I've described what I
believe might move
us in the right direction. We need to do a lot more to separate
money from
politics such that our elected officials spend much more time
governing and
far less time fundraising.
We also need both sides to sincerely attempt to work together.
We haven't
had very much of that since the election of 2000 and perhaps
longer than
that.
On this Thanksgiving Eve, let us all be thankful that we have
this list
where we can discuss all of these troubling issues in a civilized
manner and
free from hate. Now, let's see the Democrats and Republicans try
that for
awhile.
Bob Hachey
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of peter
altschul
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 2:45 PM
To: Blind Democracy
Subject: [blind-democracy] The Centralization Dilemma
Election 2018 in Context: A Political System Out of Sync with the
Nation
It's Supposed to Serve
Scott Rasmussen Nov 15, 2018 12:01 AM Townhall.com
In the wake of Election 2018, analysts have delved deeply into
a seemingly
limitless supply of data points to explain the details of what
happened.
What role did suburban women play? Or health care? Was there a
Kavanaugh
effect?
This obsession with details may be causing us to miss the
bigger picture
of what's going on.
Donald Trump became the fourth consecutive president to win the
presidency
with his party in control of Congress and then lose control.
Presidents
Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have all been
there before.
This swapping back and forth of political power has been going
on for so
long that it somehow seems normal. But it's not. A streak like
this has
never happened before in American history.
In fact, prior to 1992, it had never happened during even two
consecutive
presidencies.
This ongoing dissatisfaction and desire for change reflects a
fundamental
rejection of both political parties. Republicans and Democrats
are both
capable of tapping into discontent when the other team is in
power.
However, neither party has figured out how to deliver meaningful
accomplishments when given the chance to exercise power.
Why is this happening? Why hasn't either party figured out a
governing
philosophy that can appeal to voters?
Most likely, it's because neither party has come to grips with
the digital
revolution. Oh, sure, they have social media consultants for
campaigns and
send all kinds of carefully targeted online messages to their
base. But
they are still envisioning a political order that existed before
Apple and
Microsoft changed the world.
From colonial days up until the 1970s, everything in America got
bigger,
more centralized and more homogenized. Three television networks
controlled
94 percent of the prime-time audience. The political system
followed suit
and developed a bigger central government.
In that pre-digital world, official Washington dreamt of a
top-down
government in which very smart people made the rules for the rest
of us to
live by. The two parties competed by trying to convince voters
that their
team would make the best rules.
But, the new technologies of the 1970s launched a great
turnaround, and
society began to decentralize. Rather than just three television
networks,
we could choose from countless cable channels, and later the
internet.
Things really took off with the creation of the smartphone, one
of the most
revolutionary pieces of technology ever developed.
While society was decentralizing, the political system continued
to march in
the opposite direction. Political power is more centralized than
ever, and
a vast regulatory state has emerged.
The disconnect between a decentralizing society and a
centralizing political
system is the underlying tension creating our toxic political
environment
today.
Just like in the 1970s, both Republicans and Democrats in
official
Washington still talk in terms of a one-size-fits-all governing
solution.
They think voters are looking to them to make the decisions that
will
determine the fate of the nation.
But this is the 21st century, and we have access to more
information in
our smartphones today than the president had in the '70s. Voters
aren't
looking for one team or the other to make the key decisions for
us.
Instead, we want to make more of those decisions for ourselves.
