Do I dare hope...could something good be happening?

These are not congressmen working together.  This is just a generic photo.  There is word that a group of Democrats and Republicans are working quietly together, but there are no cameras there to record it.

Word is leaking out that a group of congressmen from both parties are quietly meeting together to try and find a way to at least stabilize the troubled health insurance market.  Our non-Leader, President Donald Trump, miffed that his preferred health insurance reform package failed in the Senate, has vowed to just let the market collapse, in effect saying "f__k the people if they lose what little insurance they might have. I don't care."  These congressmen are actually, hopefully, doing something positive and not just posing.

I'm sure House Leaders Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Leaders Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, are miffed that some of their members aren't toeing their parties "my way or the highway" line, too.  These renegades are stealing their Leader's thunder.

What's missing from this picture?  Bright lights and TV cameras.  The Donald and Mitch and Paul and Chuck and Nancy just LOVE to step in front of a TV camera and bloviate about how only THEY can fix _____.  They'll tell you their way is the only way, which is why we're in the mess we are today.

Kudos to these fearless congressmen who are willing to tell their Leadership to get out of the way.  May they lock themselves in a quiet room, bring in a platter of sandwiches and some beverages, and haggle until they can come up with something, not necessarily exactly what they would prefer, but something they and we can all live with.  And for Pete's sake, don't let a TV camera get within a mile of them!

S

"We need to come together for the good of the country...."

....said the Republicans and the Democrats.  "So just do exactly what I say and everything will be fine."

We Americans are pretty much evenly split between our preference for liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.  You'd think our politicians would sit down, haggle some, bang on the table some and swear, then eventually agree to split the difference.  "I'll give some here if you'll give some there."  That's how you get things done.  Doesn't that seem reasonable?

But Nooooooo!  The ultra-conservative (Tea Party) Republicans and the ultra-liberal wing of the Democratic party (do they have a catchy name?) won't give an inch.  "My way or the highway" they say.  If I were to sum up the Republicans with one word or phrase it would be "tax cuts".  They resent spending a penny of their upper-class money on anything the Democrats might want.  And the one word that sums up the Democrats would be "gimme".  They want all kinds of benefits, and want the Republicans to pay for it.  Dream on!  Those two extremes are like oil and water....they're never going to mix.

This leads to pissed off, violent followers who take their guns to baseball fields and try to kill Republicans.  It might just as easily be disgruntled hotheads who tried to kill Democrats at     fill in the place__. 

Listen up you knuckleheads....work it out!  Democrats:  $15 an hour for unskilled labor can't be justified.  If you want to make $15-$20 an hour you need a skill.  Republicans:  Agree to fund apprenticeships and trade schools so the unskilled can learn and work and pay taxes. 

Republicans:  Lack of healthcare is killing people, mainly poor people whose employers seldom offer benefits.  Your proposed healthcare replacement plan is, to use Prez Trump's word, "mean".  Show a little heart.  You want to round up all the "undocumented workers" and send them somewhere, anywhere else but here.  But we need their labor!  Find a way to bring them into the system where they can raise their kids without fear, work, and pay taxes.  Democrats:  Work together to devise a plan that guarantees "registration" will NOT be the first step to deportation as so many fear.  Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Democrats:  More gun control laws won't work any better than the old gun control laws.  Face facts. Republicans:  Grow some balls....quit cowering to the NRA.  You can work with Democrats to get help for the mentally ill who are too often the ones who get hold of guns and go on killing sprees.  Spending some money on mental health care now will pay dividends later.  And both of you should surely be able to agree to get guns out of the hands of known felons who are prohibited from having them in the first place.  Our laws have no teeth!  Fix it.

See, it isn't that hard.  Compromise.  Neither will get everything they want, but no one will feel like they were kicked to the curb, either.  Politicians got us into this mess, and they can get us out of it, too.  Let's try pragmatism for a change, because God knows extreme ideologies have done us more harm than good.

S

The true essence of baseball

What do you get when you cross an Aston Martin with a Premiership Champion (rugby) Northampton Saints fan?  This:

I'm impressed!

Here's a question for you baseball fans....when you go to a game do you actually go to watch the game, or to just eat hot dogs and nachos and drink beer?

Last night about 8:30 I took Luke the Wonder Dog out and noticed they were playing a Frisco Rough Riders game at our minor league ballpark a couple blocks away.  It was a delightful evening, about 72 degrees, no humidity, slight breeze, and I was suddenly overcome by the desire to go to a game there tonight.

All I really wanted was some ballpark food, which is always better than the same thing if it were served at home.  Sorta like eating some canned crap food sitting around a camp fire.

But, hey, sometimes you gotta take the bitter with the sweet.  I would willingly sit there and dodge foul balls for some gooey junk food.  I aaaaalmost had K convinced we should go, but then she had a momentary flash of sanity and laughed in my face.  

When negotiations concluded she'd promised me some fake cheese (the staple of world-class ballpark nachos) over some fresh chips /w plenty of jalapenos, served to me in my chair high up on our balcony if I would let her off the hook.

Cold beer is a given.  SOLD!  Congress should take note.....THIS is how you compromise.  :)

S

We have the wrong people in charge!

I sometimes feel like I'm in political "no-mans land".  My conservative friends think I'm a liberal, and my liberal friends think I'm a conservative.  Sheesh, y'all gimme a break, OK?

Here's how it really is:  I'm a conservative, somewhere a bit to the right of dead-center.  I usually vote for Republicans, but sometimes for a Democrat who might share my disdain of Big Bankers and want to impose some reforms on them.  But increasingly, I simply pass up voting for either candidate in a particular race because I find "my guy" to be disgusting.  (Ted Cruz immediately comes to mind.)

Last night after our customary Friday evening dinner out K and I stopped at the bookstore.  There I saw this book by Chris Matthews that got me to thinking.  (I didn't buy it because, frankly, I've always found Chris Matthews to be pretty obnoxious.)  Still, the topic made me smile.  THIS is what we need today.  

Here were President Ronald Reagan, the consummate conservative, and Tip O'Neil, the crusty old liberal Speaker of the House, pictured on the cover in a cordial, collegial embrace.  Two pragmatists.  I've heard stories of how they would get together, cuss and discuss for hours or days, do some horse trading, and eventually arrive at a position that both could live with.  Neither got all they wanted, but neither crushed the other, either.  They both lived to fight another day.  And we were all better off for it.   America worked.

I have friends, both on-line and in the real world, who are just a bit to the left of dead center.  I have absolutely no doubt we could get together, discuss the country's mess, perhaps share an adult beverage or two, and arrive at a reasonable position we could all abide by.  But we never hear about people like us in the news.

It's always the ideologues from the extreme fringes of our two parties (tell me again why we can't have three parties?) who seem to be in control.  I swear they'd argue with a stop sign!  Before one side can even get the words out of their mouth, the other side is condemning it as likely to cause our country's immediate and complete collapse. 

I'm ready for a REVOLUTION!  No, I don't mean where we pick up guns and pitchforks and go killing anyone who even looks like they might disagree with us.  I only want to pick up guns and pitchforks and go after the extreme ideologues.  (Relax....I'm just kidding.  Maybe.  :)

Those who disagree with me in a civilized, open-minded way....pull up a chair.  Let's talk some football, who brews the best beer, and maybe a little health care.  We'll figure it out.

Give and take.  Compromise.  That's how our Founding Fathers did it.  You know, those old guys we always put up on a pedestal as if they were saints?  

S

Compromise

Anyone who's read my blog for more than just a couple of days knows I'm a student of current events and politics.  The subject fascinates me.  I read A LOT, and I read material from many sources and from all political persuasions.  I don't simply regurgitate whatever one news source or another tells me is "the truth".  Too many of us do, and I think it has caused us to become lazy thinkers.  Rephrase:  "non-thinkers".


Some people seem to want to watch / listen / read ONLY those things that reaffirm what they already believe.  No opposing views allowed.  "My way or the highway."  I'm sorry, but to me that is the height of ignorance.  (Yes, you can be "educated" and still be "ignorant".)  I believe that a good idea can come from anywhere.  Democrats should listen to Republicans and vice versa.  Americans should listen to Canadians and French and Australians, etc and vice versa.  We all need to shut our mouths once in a while and just listen.  Then we can pick the best of everything, regardless of where it comes from, and become better for it.


I have recently been challenged to "pick sides", and told that "middle of the road is too wishy-washy".  In this context my challenger means "stand your ground and don't compromise".  Let's put this challenge in the context of American history:


My challenger and I are both proud Americans, no doubt.  We believe we have an exceptional form of government, cobbled together for us by an incredibly wise group of patriots.  "Our Founding Father's" is always spoken in a whispered, reverent tone.  What if our Founding Father's had been told to "pick sides" and that "middle of the road is too wishy-washy"?  Here's what the history books say of that period:  


The US Constitution has been called a "bundle of compromise" due to the fact that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 had to compromise on numerous key points in order to create a new Constitution that was acceptable to each state.


One example....The Virginia Plan called for representation based on the population of each state, while the New Jersey Plan wanted equal representation for each state.  The two sides combined both with the Connecticut Compromise, more famously known as "The Great Compromise".


If there hadn't been a room full of "middle of the road wishy-washy" men willing to compromise we wouldn't have a Constitution today.  (At least not the one we do now.)  Our wise "Founding Father's" would instead be thought of today as just a bunch of stubborn old coots. 


And let's be honest...."pick sides / middle of the road is too wishy-washy" is anathema to "compromise".  Pragmatists compromise when necessary while ideologues stand their ground regardless.  It was pragmatists who founded this country and got things done.  God bless 'em.


Happy July 4th everyone!  :)


S