Republican vs. Democrat

One of the more apt, simple descriptions of the basic foundations for our two parties is that one party thinks that people are stupid and the other party thinks that people are lazy.

Say for example that a man works very hard, making lots of money, but he spends all of that money just as fast as he earns it. Then misfortune befalls him and he loses his job. Quickly he is out on the street with no home or way to support himself. Without food and shelter, he will die. One party says that people are like this–that is to say, stupid. You are better off to tax from him while he is working hard and then pay that money back to him when he is out of work, since he cannot be trusted to save money for himself, unless you force him to.

But then say that this man, now being given a living by the government, is simply happy to accept these checks without seeking work every again. The other party says that people are like this–that is to say, lazy. If a person doesn’t plan ahead and he doesn’t labor, you aren’t being cruel by denying him care. He made his own choices, in the full knowledge of the risks, which led him to this position and he deserves to end up with his just rewards.

True, this isn’t the only explanation for these stances. Saying that one party thinks that people are stupid and the other thinks them lazy is a cynical explanation for the divide. If you were to ask the parties themselves, one would say that they think society should be caring, while the other might say that individuals and family should be caring. The first would argue that if you trust to individuals and family that people with a poor or no family, or who otherwise don’t have someone to champion them will be lost, even though they have behaved no worse than people with more prosperous connections. While as the latter would say that only individuals can properly aid anyone in need, being able to decide whether they are deserving or if they need an intervention, if they should be denied care until they change, and so on. They worry that a central, open repository of money will simply give handouts without asking anything in return, eventually leading to issues of socialism, or alternately it could run a risk of the government getting too interested in controlling the actions of those in need and possibly abusing that power.

Unfortunately, the first party, the Democrats, have a message which sounds more caring and less paranoid. So you see that as time goes on, social welfare institutions continue to be created and grow. People don’t want to be the bad guy, and so they will always and consistently more strongly support the person who can more convincingly appear to be the good guy. The person who gets up and says, “Screw anyone who doesn’t plan ahead!”, or even worse, the guy who gets up and starts listing off numbers and actuarials, both of these are going to be ignored and receive little popular support.

Ultimately, holding to the position of the Republicans, even if you feel that your case is the stronger one, which secures a more long-term and healthy solution, is self-destructive. The Republican party may be able to act, somewhat, as a brake that slows down the progression of events towards greater and greater socialism, but they will not halt it, and more importantly, the more strongly they hold to their guns, the less they will be able to have any input when any movement is made.

Democracy vs. Republic

Obviously, one problem is that the US is far too democratic, by which I am not referring to the political party.

A democratic method of government is one where everyone votes on every issue, and so everyone’s voice is heard. A republican method of government is one where a small group of people, trusted to be wiser and more contemplative than the general populace, is elected to decide how to approach issues. The US is, technically, a republic.

It’s worth noting, though, that when the constitution was signed, essentially only white landowners could vote for representatives. In modern day, this might be akin to saying that only people who owned a house can vote. The idea was, essentially, to make sure that only people who were already fairly down-to-earth, knowledgeable, and hard working would vote. If your hope is to elect representatives who are wise and contemplative, you need a fairly wise and contemplative group to elect them in the first place.

Of course, the argument towards enfranchising all citizens is that the government is there for all citizens, and there’s no way to guarantee that unless the representatives are beholden to everyone.

I am not certain, however, that there is any great solution to this. Or rather, what solutions there are, I doubt that it would ever be possible to get any wide-stream support for. There is no point in advocating college-campus sounding grand ideas, regardless that they might actually be wise.

Lazy AND Stupid

Thus it is perhaps more important and the second issue, which is that both sides have valid points. It might be paranoia to think that the government would, for example, give more money to those who voted to keep the current party in power. And it might be paranoia to think that if government-run social programs were to be diminished that we’d have people dying in the streets. But there is no rule to say that you can’t write legislation to deal with eventualities that you don’t think will ever manifest. If you don’t think that anything bad will happen if you end Social Security, then you should be fully willing to write legislation that you can agree to which handles the case that bad things do happen. If you were right, then that legislation never goes into effect. If you were wrong, then you get something which you’re amenable to and avoids any worries that you would have out of what your partner proposed.

Personally, I can look at the USSR and say that yes, people are lazy. I can look at payday loans and say that yes, people are stupid. People don’t take up a position unless they think they have some reasonable cause to hold that position. Yes, there are some minority cases where the person simply is entirely in the wrong, but in general, you’re better to accept their arguments as valid and work from that position than to think half the world are blithering idiots with no idea what they are talking about.

Yes, half the world is of below average intelligence, but this doesn’t really correlate to political beliefs, despite what you may think.