|
|
|
Last Updated: Jul 23, 2008 - 10:01:48 AM |
After last week’s piece appeared, a friendly reader cautioned me that I had stepped on an unusual number of toes for one column.
Certainly, I wrote more than usual asperity. Opening Othello had involved too many late rehearsals – followed by four shows in three days – with too much commuting and too little sleep.
I was, shall we say, testy.
But let’s be clear.
While I wrote critically of Governor Kaine, I ascribed his lack of success to poor advice. And, while every governor is responsible for choosing his staff, Kaine hasn’t enjoyed full access to Virginia’s Democratic A-team. Many of the party’s brightest stars left state government to follow the will o’ the wisp of Mark Warner’s presidential ambitions – yet another instance of Warner’s propensity for putting his personal agenda ahead of both his party and the Commonwealth.
Also, while I wrote harshly of the House Republicans, I expressed no criticism of Republicans or Democrats in the State Senate – a body which has, in recent years, held up the flickering torch of bipartisan cooperation.
Most important, while I expressed myself with more than usual acerbity, I wrote nothing I didn’t mean. Some members of the House Republican caucus – including several members representing Chesterfield – are, as individuals, dedicated public servants. But the House Republicans, as a group, constitute the biggest single obstacle to making this a better commonwealth for ordinary Virginians.
When they’re not trying to regulate people’s private lives or introduce religion into the public schools, the House Republicans’ basic policy is opposition to taxes, which – however attractive to the uncritical voter – is not exactly a philosophy of government.
Cutting waste is always good policy, but finding real waste takes hard work. Cutting taxes is much easier, but it’s intellectually lazy – and almost always leads to unintended consequences.
The House Republicans’ bad impact on state government isn’t a matter of individual malfeasance. It stems from excessively tight party control. Through ruthless use of the Speaker’s power to punish members who vote their individual consciences – or their constituents’ interests – the House Republicans have hog-tied their most thoughtful and constructive members and delivered them, as a bloc, to the party’s extreme right wing.
Now, in this regard, Republicans are not alone guilty. Decades ago, when Democrats controlled the General Assembly, they operated with equal ruthlessness. The big difference was that Democrats – in Virginia – are united by nothing more than the desire to win elections. This orientation – while hardly noble – is inherently more pragmatic than the ideological extremism which has dominated the GOP in recent decades.
But my point is not to criticize one party in order to justify the other. My point is that both parties – in Virginia and nationally – have ceased to serve the general welfare. Through their control of enormous financial resources, sophisticated voter lists, and the intricacies of the legislative process, both parties have become regimented power blocs with little regard for the interests of ordinary citizens.
When I was a teacher, I used to advise my students that – once they became wage-earning, tax-paying adults – they should get involved with whichever major party they preferred. I accepted without question the proposition that America’s system is the best in the world and – since a two-party system has dominated our politics since the Washington administration – I assumed that this was the best possible way of conducting the public business.
Today, if I could have all my former students back for ten minutes, I’d apologize for giving such bad advice. What I’d advise today is this:
Don’t join either major party. Work through smaller, less overtly political groups. Work for specific changes, starting at the community level. And when you go to the polls – if there’s an independent or third-party candidate you like better than either of the two major-party candidates – vote your convictions.
I would urge them to re-read Federalist Papers Number Ten, which contains James Madison’s warning against the tendency of parties to disregard the public welfare, which includes the following:
“Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens… that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”
Of course, I can’t have my students back, but I would offer this consideration to my present-day readers: This November, there’s a very real danger that – in just two years – we will have replaced one-party control by an extremely conservative Republican president and Congress with one-party control by extremely liberal Democrats.
This can hardly be healthy.
The public interest would be best served by electing more truly independent candidates and weakening the two parties’ hold on power. But until that day comes, perhaps the best we can do is to preserve a balance of power by keeping either party from gaining complete control of the political branches of government.
© Copyright by Village Publishing
Top of Page Comment
on This Article
The
Village News office is located at 4607 West Hundred Road Chester
Mailing address is PO Box 2397 Chester, VA 23831
Phone: 751-0421 Fax: 751-9155
Office hours are 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday - Friday call ahead for
other hours.
Statement
of Journalistic Ethics
|
|
|
Village News:
Read right 'round the world.
|
|
