Your Thoughts Exactly

I've been a bad blogger. I even passed up a chance to talk about what possibly is my favorite topic, robot domination, and didn't even comment. It's ok, because it's been in good hands with Marmaniac.

I have a (more than) healthy dose of disillusionment with the American political system, but lately I've been coming around a bit from my previously leftist, views about our country. Sometimes it's hard to see something from the inside, and there are a lot of things about the US that are done, and even done well. Perhaps the nattering nabobs of negativity are just hard to resist, and we like to nitpick. In any case- free-markets, two-party system, smaller government- I think I like them! I'm not a republican, but here's something I did find particularly interesting.

The Unity08 effort, a "centrist initiative", plans on running a Democrat and Republican together on the same presidential ticket for the 2008 race. Normally this would be a simple publicity stunt, (perhaps that's all it will turn out to be) but in this case it's being backed by some real work and a real plan: to have a virtual convention (it sounds a little more professional that "you vote on the internet!") pick the candidates, and that ticket will run for the '08 Presidency. But that isn't what I like about it.

The big drive in Unity08 and the motive behind it is that partisanship is holding back American politics. By focusing the issues on their Crucial Issues:

Global terrorism, our national debt, our dependence on foreign oil, the emergence of India and China as strategic competitors and/or allies, nuclear proliferation, global climate change, the corruption of Washington’s lobbying system, the education of our young, the health care of all, and the disappearance of the American Dream for so many of our people.

And I think those are, by and large, what matter to Americans today. Sure, I've said that I think there's an overemphasis on terrorism, and perhaps the lobbying system comment is probably going to seem dated in a year, but the IDEA is there, and I like it. It's frustrating that Congress is convening to debate a Constitutional gay marriage ban (which has actually already failed before in Congress) when even its proponents know there is no chance of it passing. It's frustrating that nothing will happen in the next 5 months except campaigning and PR appearances.

The divide between the Republicans and Democrats is bigger than it has been in a while, and it's exacerbated by the us vs. them attitude. It's so easy to see the other side as idiotic talkboxes, especially when there are so many of them. But focusing on those idiots just allows us to ignore their more centrist cohorts, and they probably think they're idiots too. I think that shaking up the system, even if simply by refocusing the debate in 08 and getting even a small percentage of the electorate, could be just what the whole system needs. So I'm officially throwing one third of the YTE vote (not valid in all 50 states) in their direction. At least until they turn out to be embezzling their campaign money.