Partisanship has nearly halted our government. Can we regain mutual respect and respect for tradition?

Question

Republican, Democrat, Consevative, Liberal, Libertarian, Green, etc. None are all right, none are all wrong.
Balance. Respect. Tradition.
Can we respect and cooperate to make things work?
Or will we be too stubborn and inflexible?

Answer 1

Proportional representation is a good answer. It would open up the dialouge more and bring the US to a 2+ system.

Answer 2

I'm not so sure that it's as "grey" as you seem to think it is. There are a lot of things that are definitely black or white.

Let's take taxes as a non-controversial example that we can all agree on.... (he said, facetiously).

The Laffer Curve is obviously true, such as it is. It merely shows that if the tax rate is zero, government collects nothing, and if it is 100%, government also collects nothing since no one bothers to work. The conclusion is that as tax rates rise, government income rises, but only up to a point, but after that, revenue falls with increasing taxes.

That much is clearly correct, and disputable only by someone who simply doesn't understand Economics. Where it becomes what is called Reaganomics is adding the hypothesis that the tax rates are beyond the point where an increase diminishes revenue.

Now, Bush thought a few years ago that we were beyond that point, and proposed tax cuts. They passed. Tax revenue increased and the overall economy improved.

Now, some of the divisions of politics you mentioned above deny these facts, and propose to repeal the tax cuts as a way to raise revenue, despite the clear evidence that the opposite will occur.

There's clearly a right and wrong here.

What we need is not to be politically correct and show respect for people that simply don't know the difference between a fact and their wish, what we need is for people to come to grips with reality.

There are realities about all the issues of today, including those no one actually cares about. Here's the one thing we all need to understand...

reality is not a matter of opinion.

Answer 3

Since I think the government has no business doing the large majority of the things it does, I think that anything that keeps it from meddling in people's lives any further is great. So if partisanship keeps it from doing some things, that's good. If it shut down the government completely, even better.

Answer 4

The government has halted before. Remember the Clinton/Republican Congress budget wars? The government stopped cold several times because the republicans held up the money.

Answer 5

Until the extremists on both sides stop being ridiculous, we cannot. The extremists are more prevalent on the right with their Christian right crap. Liberal extremism isn't as prominent. There's still some but not as much. Either way, it's got to end. We need to return to some element of centrism.

Answer 6

Can you name any traditions that liberals respect? They think the past was full of nothing but hypocrisy, bigotry, and oppresion so they don't respect "tradition."

Anyone who thinks that Roe v. Wade was a valid interpretation of the Constitution and is completely irreversible is unbalanced, stubborn and inflexible. They won't compromise with me and I won't with them.

Answer 7

I personally go for the getting along thing but I no longer can trust the people we send to do the task.

Answer 8

Right now, noone in their right mind can trust republicans. We have been let down since 2000.

Answer 9

Of coarse. we made it this far through the worst of both parties, why cant we work together?

Answer 10

that would take some measure of intelligence,, one Mr trustwort here has his ignorance showing,, and he is so reported