VISION WITH VIRTUE IS NEEDED
This morning I received an email from a reader that complimented me, I think, for “being bi-partisan in finding fault with both major parties.”
On the Democratic side, I am troubled with over centralization, federalization and nationalization of much of our society, an acceptance of deficit spending and bailouts, (ignoring the concept of moral hazard,) spending other people’s money and being relativistic in their worldview.
On the Republican side, I am troubled with acceptance of crony capitalism, a reluctance to support strong anti-trust enforcement, cozying up to whomever is in power, a tolerance for deficit spending and bailouts, (too big to fail), gambling with other people’s money, encouraging radical individualism at the expense of community needs.
I should also say there are goals of both parties that I admire. Democrats seem to focus on fairness and principles of equity; while Republicans tend to focus on protecting our liberties as originally stated by our founding fathers as written in the United States Constitution.
If we continue on the present path, I remain concerned that we will forfeit our ability to self-govern and our Republic could collapse like ancient Athens and Rome.
The Character Building Project is an attempt, one citizen at a time, to help revive our civic culture by empowering families and communities in a politics of virtue and with principle.
Example of a comment forwarded via email…I think that you (Kerrigan) are on to something hugely important…I think often of why certain policies are pursued…we should exam our reasons for our choices…bad reasons…popularity, crowd pleasing may be the basis…a good man would be asking himself why he is following a particular course..IRAQ we must do something after the atrocity of the twin towers….but this is WAR…shouldn’t there be a more substantial basis for our embarking on such an undertaking etc. ?? Of course..
It seems inevitable that the personal is political when the choice in our federal elections is not between policies, budget proposals or programs but instead is a popularity contest – a choice between individual personalities. The question of virtue is important where every elected official holds the public power in trust for the people. Where issue governance has been tried (by initiative and referendum, for example), it has failed due to the incoherence of presenting singular proposals to voters that are unbalanced by legislative or budgetary trade-offs. If the public assembly cannot determine legislative issues and priorities by voting on them individually, we must entrust this decisionmaking role to our elected representatives. Thus our nation is a republic rather than a democracy.We are lacking a structural means to require decisions from those elected to make them, however. A single party has majorities in both houses of Congress and the White House and has not managed to introduce a budget for the operation of the federal government. Irrespective of the party in control, this abdication of the basic function of the legislature is a disgrace. Remember that when you go to the polls in November.