Politics are always full of sports metaphors mainly I guess because of the competitive aspect of running for office. Some of this isn't rocket science, but it is fun to compare the craziness we have for our side whether in sports or politics. Unfortunately for people right now home team wrangling produces seriously bad public policy.
And really any good conservative especially libertarian really doesn't want an effective government, because then you could end up with people trying to control your life, but there does come a point where we need some government. We drive on roads, someone does have to protect the country, I like clean water, and other tidbits of government work that well we need someone to take care of these things.
I have been reading both local coverage of the Texas Rangers and some coverage from the St Louis press on the Cardinals. Take the last game for example. Everyone here talks about how the pitchers got themselves out of jams, while in the St Louis press they talk about how the hitters didn't get it done. And they are talking pretty much the same thing. The little nuiances that took place in those situations where St Louis didn't get the job done or the Texas pitchers did were in most cases situations that were deteremined basically by inches. The pitch a tad bit different or the swing just a bit different could have produced seriously different results. It is the intensity of the press for each side trying to kowtow to local readership that makes all this fun reading. And for sports this is fun and good.
For politics though we do need less playing to the home crowd and serious looks at what our country needs. Right now the Republicans have the most press because of the constant debates we are getting now. Each candidate is stuck in trying to find the right message to play to the home town Republicans. And yes it is pretty much not going to change just because I make an observation about it. What is going to hurt is when we go Rep v Dem next year, and both sides will stick to this constant barrage of how can I please my constituency. Again I am not a fan of having too much government, but at some point we do need help in fixing problems.
In sports we do get help with the home team press vs home team press in judging how the last game went, a read through many national media organizations can give a reader an idea of just how the game went and if there is something to one side's story over the other.
For politics we cannot get away from playing to the home crowd and for most years that wouldn't be a big
deal, but for the immediate and long term future right now we do need a bit more.
As Americans we have developed an attitude on World leadership, that we are in charge and people should follow our lead. We try to down play this publicly on the world stage, but in reality we push our agenda.
And in general our agenda has its good points. The spread of democracy, free markets, and the rights we are suppose to adore can benefit any country. What we have lost is the ablility to lead by example, right now we,as the world public sees us,is a country that isn't living up to expectations. And these are our own expectations. We have had the ability to do something in the past fifty years that has never been done before in world history and we became self absorbed. In my posts I pretty much bash American Wall Street as a major contributor to our current woes. In reality America's problems have been caused by Americans.
Apathy is just as bad as greed when it comes down to it. If we don't care, how can we expect to get better. That is what has happened to public education in general, to point out one example. And as our education has faltered so goes our ability to think critically, make rational decisions, basically know when the emperor has no clothes and say so. Think about it, has any of your children taken classes in ethics, philosophy, remember civics? Yes we do need science etc to keep up with the world technically, but to really lead you need a thorough understanding of how to solve a problem. And problems come in many shapes and sizes.
We can still create the greatest time in world history through our leadership and what we have built not just economically, but through our values, our attitude, can do spirit, our constitution, and the little things like playing softball on Sunday eve, whether in church or beer league. This attitude that life can be lived and enjoyed, the infamous work hard play hard idea is something we should aspire to share with the world.
Right now though we need to sit down and really examine where we stand and what we need to do to achieve this goal. And this comes back around to where I started, we have no one to sit down and make the call on whether this team or that team has the better story. Yes we have the press, but the national press has succumbed to playing to what they think people want to hear instead of saying what we need to hear. The national press use to be a good barometer of where we stood, but as time has passed they have changed to the public perception, not demanding from itself to say what needs to be said. Yes a few members can still step up, but overall the press represent a said reflection of where our society stands.
So it is ironic, we do a much better job dissecting a sports game than dissecting our future. And we wonder why we cannot determine who is best fit to lead our country.
I love my sports and my teams, I will be honest, but right now, time is important and we need to look at ourselves now to keep up the great experiment of American democracy because this would really be sad that the greatest document written by man, our constitution , would go by the wayside based on apathy and greed. Much to be done, but really the solutions are there and simple, we just need to look inside ourselves to find them.
Long live the constitution, the constitution is dying.
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