Washington Is Broken. Here's How To Fix It.

COVID-19 didn't cause the problem. It only made apparent how serious the problem is. The two-party system is broken. Neither party is interested in working together to solve problems. Based on observing their behavior for half a lifetime, it's apparent that each party's sole aim is to maintain power, to control the playing cards.

Compromise has become such an odious notion that no one wants to compromise anything. This is why we will have to eliminate it from the national vocabulary.

When politicians compromise, their constituents get angry at them. As a result, they fear repercussions, and it clouds their thinking. (Whenever you see behavior that seems irrational and doesn't make sense, if you probe you'll generally find a fear-based cause underneath it.)

SO we get rid of the word altogether. "No Compromise" now means, "No, I will not use the word Compromise."

Instead we will use the words Cooperate and Collaborate.

WHAT IF
What if we were to cast a spell over the Capitol that forced every congressperson to be locked in a room until they actually agreed on something. I know, it sounds like a fantasy, but what if?

What if instead of attacking each other from across the aisle, they got on the same side of the aisle and looked at the problems in front of them from the same angle. Us against the problem, not us against you.

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The mess is a mess. One thing I learned a long time ago is that if you want to find out HOW things failed, you'll never find out the truth if your detectives show up with a hanging judge in tow. 

Why do we listen to all this blame game, since we (again) do not really have all the facts, but only know that which has been mediated to us through others. This is why C.S. Lewis never read the newspapers. What's really happening is seldom covered, and if it was important you might hear about it six months from now.

Realistically, I do not expect things to be fixed. The best we can hope for might be damage control.

As Milton Friedman wrote in An Economists Protest, "I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse." 

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Forgive me but, to paraphrase  the Everly Brothers, "All I want to do is dream, dream, dream."