Commentary on the State of the U.S. Political Stage

(NVT) - These are some personal thoughts on the current state of U.S. politics...or infighting depending on your point of view.

I can't think of a time in my lifetime that our country was so divided.  When attempting to choose a news media outlet for information, we are forced to either pick a liberal interpretation of the news or a conservative one.  There does not seem to be any unbiased news available to the general public.  It used to be that news outlets were required to give equal time to both sides of a story, but now since this is not required we tend to get only one side of the story which results in the rise of an uninformed public.

This same one-sidedness can be seen in our political factions.  On one side we have the Tea Party for example, a conservative, "Republican" group,  formed prior to the election of President Obama, that stands for low taxes, elimination of social programs, small government, unfettered capitalism, and hating anything that the democratic party and its associates have to say.  This organization is considered a fringe group which doesn't seem to be at all flexible when it comes to its conservative views.  On the other side we have a somewhat less organized, generically named group of individuals that go by names such as progressives, liberals, or left wingers.  This group believes in taxing to fund social programs, increasing personal liberties even if they are to the detriment of our moral fabric, increasing the size of the federal government, and hating anything that the republican party and its associates have to say.

This is not to say that either of the groups is completely wrong in all cases as the items I list for each group is only a small, off the cuff list.

What I have a problem with is that there no longer seems to be any centrist tendencies in government.  The democrats refuse to agree with any proposal offered by the republicans, and vice versa.  There was a time where differences were brought up on the floors of the house and senate and debated rigorously until some agreement could be reached before the issue was put up for a vote.  Today you find one party, especially the one with majority rule waiting for the other party to go on recess and forcing a vote through.  Not only is this a disgrace, but is highly undemocratic.  It is neither in the best interest of the senators constituents, nor in the best interest of the country.

I'm afraid that we are heading down a road which our founding fathers would be ashamed to travel.  It is getting very hard to find a politician who you can respect and trust.  We seem to be in a mode where we elect the lesser of two evils when it comes to our political choices and I'm certain that this is not what Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, or John Hancock envisioned when they helped found this great nation of ours.

It is my hope that we fix what is wrong with this country before it is too late, for ourselves, our children, and our children's children.