- 24 Dec 2012 18:00
#14136235
Increasingly I have come to the conclusion, the fiscal cliff being a thing that has led me down this road, that we ought to abandon ideology entirely and adopt a stance of compromise for compromise sake. I am concerned about the future of the economy and part of the reason we have reached this fiscal cliff situation is ideology. The left and right both have "game plans" and first principles, a sort of vision of what I call The Shining City on a Hill. For the left it is a social democratic utopia, a sort of beatific vision of a mythological Sweden with high equality and few social problems thanks to an extensive welfare state funded via high taxation. For the right it is the mythological vision of what they believe the country once was. In the meantime compromise is lost in the fray. Republicans threaten to allow everybody's taxes to go up then to vote for a package including tax increases on a few. So they are willing to throw 98% under the bus to not harm the two, but in the end everybody is harmed. Their choices are between harming 2% and allowing everybody to be harmed and they choose the latter. Increasingly I am convinced that an all out war on ideology is necessary.
We must fight the Tea Party and Congressional Progessive Caucus at every turn. Destroy ideology at every corner. Politically ruin Tea Party congressman via scorched earth tactics and character assassination. The time has come for a game plan of pragmatism and it must be waged without mercy. We need to portray everybody on left and right as deranged lunatics true or not so they they can be defeated. We need to totally blacken the name of ideology in the minds of the public by constantly bashing ideologues and radicals at every turn. Sooner or later these seeds will be planted and the public will not vote for radicals of left or right anymore, just as constant repetition of the idea all taxes are bad has taken root in the GOP.
We do not need a Shining City on a Hill. We simply need compromise. There is no end game because we will never get there. Instead I think we need to focus on the next five or ten years and move on down the line thereon. The stability of the economy and the stock market must be paramount!
We must fight the Tea Party and Congressional Progessive Caucus at every turn. Destroy ideology at every corner. Politically ruin Tea Party congressman via scorched earth tactics and character assassination. The time has come for a game plan of pragmatism and it must be waged without mercy. We need to portray everybody on left and right as deranged lunatics true or not so they they can be defeated. We need to totally blacken the name of ideology in the minds of the public by constantly bashing ideologues and radicals at every turn. Sooner or later these seeds will be planted and the public will not vote for radicals of left or right anymore, just as constant repetition of the idea all taxes are bad has taken root in the GOP.
We do not need a Shining City on a Hill. We simply need compromise. There is no end game because we will never get there. Instead I think we need to focus on the next five or ten years and move on down the line thereon. The stability of the economy and the stock market must be paramount!
- By QatzelOk
- By litwin
- By Pants-of-dog