It can be pretty amazing what one doesn't see.
It may just be me, but I worry about the policies of the Tea Party and the Republican elitists bringing about what they worry about the most and that is a socialist movement in this country.
Right now the Occupy movement still seems pretty disconnected, no real leadership, no real agenda, but the lack of forethought in how the Republican leadership and the tea party groups are acting may bring about an organized movement. The total lack of concern for what is going on outside of their particular agenda and not realizing how bad the economy truly is for many people could start to create a counter movement and that counter movement would have a serious socialist agenda. We don't need socialism, but if leadership of a country is seriously disconnected from reality the people will eventually fight back. And socialism isn't the answer, but from the bit I have been reading about the occupy movement there is some noise around these types of ideas starting to develop.
This goes back to some of my previous posts and that is a strong democracy needs a strong and educated middle class. Wealth doesn't have to be perfectly evenly distributed, but it has to be attainable for the large majority. Once people are deprived of the ability to grow and achieve more they tend to hold grudges. These grudges can manifest itself in many ways.
Two problems developing in this country are poverty being a cancer upon our society as a whole and the possibility that competing groups will try to use democracy to create a true socialist state. If Fox news etc think Obama is the reincarnation of socialism, well they got another thing coming when a true socialist movement emerges because of their continued lack of understanding of what is going on in this country. The problem is the leadership that relies on Fox news to try and create a false sense of who we are as a nation will have this backfire if they are overly reliant on their own sense of self.
I think most Americans still believe in a sense that prosperity is a good thing, but as time goes on this can become used as a tool to ignite passions against the leadership if people feel this has been taken away from them. The Tea party groups and the Republican leadership seem to be making mistakes that can cause this to happen. They are so bent on trying to stop Obama at all costs, exclaiming that the fabric of our country is in danger because of him, but never really addressing the true problems facing our country and economy.
We need answers quickly and the two largest conservative groups are failing in this regard. The unbending or uncompromising attitude only leads to more discontent from the fringes. What they don't seem to realize is that thinking that the fringe doesn't matter is exactly where they will fall and drag this country along with them. People in this country all probably have heard that life isn't fair and most accept that you won't always get what you want, but if the general populace feels that aren't given an opportunity to be successful with one system; they will start to look for other means to feel successful. Or to find justice and make things right again.
This is why the current Occupy movement is so dangerous. Again not strong now, but a continued lack of policy to truly fix problems and work with the people will create fuel for a group like certain people in the Occupy movement to be able to develop a working opposition with policies that will become popular that the Republicans etc don't want. If they think the current administration policies are detrimental to their goals, what are they going to do when their worst fears become reality.
So if you want capitalism to continue, democracy to be strong, our rights developed by our constitution to remain, we need to find conservative leadership that understands that we don't need a large government to solve our problems, just one that creates policies etc to keep all of the above viable in our society. Large government has failed with such things as institutionalized welfare and poverty, an education system that is getting worse with each generation, regulations with bloated bureaucracies that are ineffective, and a drain on productivity and the free market. The problem is the elite in this country have manipulated this system, but still whine they are being mistreated and yet no real solutions come from these people to truly maintain what this country can become.
So it goes back to the problem that the Republican Leadership and Tea Party groups the so called strength of conservatism in this country by their lack of being true conservatives they are opening the window to let in exactly what they don't want.
I have been toying with the concept of a progressive conservative party for this country so I actually did a bit of research and couldn't find an active party with this name now, but as mentioned in earlier posts we have had one historically. I also read a bit about the Canadian, (yes Canadian) progressive conservative party. Found an interesting quote from the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains: " The name of this party will strike many as an oxymoron. Yet it unintentionally catches something of the party's essence. It has been a coalition of ardent supporters of the free market system and minimal government, and of those (the so-called Red Tories) who have an organic view of society and believe that the state has an obligation to preserve social harmony and to take care of those who cannot easily fend for themselves."
Bringing this definition down to American Politics may seem a bit of a stretch, but we need to find a conservative group who understands that if you have a free market system there are going to be winners and losers, it is how you treat the losers that define you as a society. Or the more popular phrase "you are only as strong as your weakest link". We don't need institutionalized programs that drain us as a society, but we do need to keep our ability to grow not just economically, but as a people at the forefront of everything from our government.
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