Jim Hlavac
Domestic Affairs
Domestic Affairs
We are always referring to history and to statistics and to personality when we look
at so many aspects of the current government structure in the world. We are
confused by the mass of details.  And because the statistics of the past are
questionable, if even existing, and the history is only known by a few in broad
swaths of knowledge, and the personalities live on only in biographies we cannot
truly know why what program was set up in the past.

     No matter who brings out a book on why some aspect of the government is
great or bad there is always a countering book with a totally different look at the
same situation.  And if the book concentrates on one small section, then it ignores
the whole picture. If it looks at the whole picture it ignores the individual parts.  

     So many people have engaged in the debate, using words as they want them
to mean, and as they understand other people's words, that the debate is mostly
pointless at this time.  Or at least under the current way of considering things.
There isn't a book published on politics in whatever manifestation that doesn't try to
set off some word as meaning what the author wants it to mean.  This is usually
coupled with a complaint that the other people are using words wrong.   And the
argument turns to one of semantics.

     In any case consider this: socialists like Congressman Bernie Sanders,
conservatives like William F. Buckley, Republicans like former governor Gary
Johnson of New Mexico, to the libertine National Organization to Reform Marijuana
Laws, to the libertarian Cato Institute all want to legalize marijuana.  Meanwhile,
Republicans in Congress, Democrats in Congress, liberal think tanks like the
Brookings Institute, right-wing think tanks like the Family Research Council and
right-wing moralists like William Bennett and left-wing moralists like Ralph Nader all
want to keep the war on drugs going strong.  
     
     When left-leaning Democrats like Gray Davis of California, and right-leaning
Democrats like Bob Graham of Florida, and left leaning Republicans like Christie
Whitman of New Jersey and right leaning Republicans like Mike Perry of Texas -- all
former or current governors -- join together in pushing for enforcement of the
marijuana laws -- Who can say whether a position for or against marijuana
legalization is Right-wing or Left-wing?  Is it a conservative position, or a liberal
position?  Do the Democrats want one thing and the Republicans want another?  

     There's plenty of argument that each party wants to maintain a "big tent"
concept of itself, where it can include a multitude of positions on any given subject
but everyone is faithful to the party's "Core Values."  What are these core values?  
Can anyone explain them?  What, exactly, does the Republican Party stand for?  
Less government?  Really -- the government seems to grow when they are in
power.  And even Ronald Reagan's call for a big tax cut, some how projected as
"for smaller government," while his actual publicly stated reasoning was:  "it'll
provide more revenue to the government in the long run because the amount of
money to be taxed will be so much bigger and even with a lower tax rate we will
bring in more money."  That hardly sounds like smaller government to me.

     And when a Georgia Democrat and a Massachusetts Democrat can claim to
have the same Core Values, well, you would be hard pressed to find many areas of
actual agreement once you get down to the nitty gritty.