Dissonance and the "Culture " War

You may or may not want to take a test (http://typology.people-press.org/typology/) to find out your own politics, but the survey statistics that the Pew (Phew or Few, if you prefer)have accompanying it (http://typology.people-press.org/data/index.php?GroupID=11) give a dramatic picture of the mismatch between where we're headed the next 3+ years and where we would like to be going. Just flipping through the topics and seeing how my countrymen feel on various issues is both reassuring and infuriating. On the one hand, it is refreshing to know just how Americans feel about universal healthcare, increasing the minimum wage, the relative urgency of budget balancing and tax cutting, measures to curtail access to abortion, outsourcing, teaching creationism, and several other hot button "culture war" topics. If we are not more liberal than the radio yakkers and TV yappers represent, we are at least refreshingly responsible, tolerant, and "mind your own business."

What is infuriating is that we are not moving in a more responsible, tolerant or MYOB direction because the folk who control the White House and Congress think they know better what is good for this country, no matter what the citizens may think! This "father knows best" attitude seems, in their minds, to supercede what real working Americans want. So long as we tolerate a government, Republican or Democrat, driven by the dollars of political contributers, we can count on dirtier skies and water, legislation for special interests, and a foreign policy based on the notion that what is good for Walmart is good for the world. Q: What is hilarious, obscene, and tragic at the same time? A: The notion that it is obscene for the government to help the weak, the poor, and the unwell but divine to subsidize Walmart, United Airlines, Chrysler, Bank of America, and Enron.