Reagan’s words to today’s “conservatives”

Would Ronald Reagan admonish today’s so-called “conservatives” with “There you go again”?

I supported and voted for John Anderson in 1980 because I saw him as a real Republican who was concerned with “res publica” (public things).  Rather than have a laundry list of “ills of what was wrong” he concerned himself with balancing issues.

Unfortunately the Republican Party has devolved into a blame machine in which Democrats can do no right.

If the Republicans were real conservatives, wouldn’t they be all in favor of considering many ideas rather than be in lockstep on one set of ideas?

If they were real conservatives, wouldn’t they read the Constitution very carefully instead of corrupting it to fit their own ideas?

If they were real conservatives, wouldn’t they heed Washington’s advice in his farewell address to avoid factions?

Once upon a time the Senate was called the “greatest deliberative body in the world.  Now it has a Majority of one who obstructs any legislation that he doesn’t like.

A fortune teller, Donald Trump, and George Washington

I visited a fortune teller to ask what Donald Trump would be doing for the next year or two.  She refused to take my money; she said Trump is too unpredictable.

She did offer to let me talk to George Washington for his thoughts.

Washington did say that the city of Washington should be renamed because it has gone against all of his hopes and advice.  He said that Trump reminded him of Pete Seeger’s song “The Big Muddy” in which “the big fool says to push on.”

Washington said that he and Seeger had struck up quite a friendship.  In fact, Washington said that Seeger is a true populist.

Washington saved his great scorn for the Senate.  He complained that every year they read his “Farewell Address” and every year they ignored it completely, especially the parts about factions, excessive military, and avoiding foreign entanglements.  He started to list “enemies” who should be our friends and “friends” we should hold at a distance, but the time I paid the fortune teller for ran out.

The world’s greatest deliberative body?

I’ve long thought that calling the U.S. Senate was an American conceit.  Now we are seeing it as one of the world’s greatest political games.  It is more fixed opinions than it is deliberative.

The polarization seems to grow by the day.  Have all these Senators stopped reading the Constitution?  Are they even paying attention when they have their ritual reading of “Washington’s Farewell Address”.  Among the many admonitions are his warnings about “overgrown military establishments” and the forming of factions.

If Senators have already declared their positions on almost every issue, they are really putting lie to “deliberative body”.

For more on the Senatorial dysfunction, see “On the death of the world’s greatest deliberative body”, Paul Kane, Washington Post, 2017-01-31.

Senate seat of the people of Massachusetts?

Scott Brown, the newly elected United States Senator for Massachusetts, called his new position "the people's seat", "G.O.P. Senate Victory Stuns Democrats", New York Times, 2010-01-20. I read somewhere that he called it not a Kennedy seat, not a Democrat seat, but "the seat of the people of Massachusetts".

But how can it be "the seat of the people of Massachusetts" when so much money and time pour into Massachusetts for both candidates? I would say that outsiders determined the vote almost as much as the people who actually voted.

Scott Brown and the Republicans should be careful about congratulating themselves about the election. The turnout was 55 percent of the 4.1 million registered voters. That means that Scott Brown came in second to none of the above: forty-five percent of the registered voters didn't think the election was that important, twenty-eight percent voted for Brown, and twenty-six percent voted for Martha Coakley, and less than one percent actually took the trouble to vote for neither of the two major-party candidates.

Given that many commentators think Brown's 52-47 percent win over Coakley was a strong rebuke of the Democrats, I think they really should look at the 45-28-26 percent "win" for "none of the above" should be looked at as a strong rebuke of the political system in general.

The Senate should defer to the President's choice unless...

a Senator is a member of the opposite party. I couldn't find any direct quote, but I remember when Republicans held the Presidency, Republican Senators, whether they held the majority or not, said that the Senate should defer to the President's choice for the Supreme Court.

Now that they hold neither the Presidency nor the majority in the Senate, many are casting aspersions on President Obama's choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.

We should note that the "many" who are raising issues with Sotomayor are not in the Senate. Many of the quotes I've seen from Republican Senators are of caution; they plan to ask questions that should be asked of any nominee for appointed office.

Maybe this confirmation will widen the split between my-way conservatives and moderate Republicans who believe in pragmatic governance.