Saturday, November 11, 2006

Obligatory Midterm Post

Given what has happened over the past week, I feel obliged to write something about thes whatchamacallems, midterms. Now, I don't know much about politics - in fact I know less than nothing, counting propaganda and brainwashing in the negative - but what I do know is that the Democrats finally won the House, governatoria-tialization?, and i think ... no wait ... or maybe ... it's close ... nah ... oh yeah the Senate too, by a narrow margin.

It would seem that (for once) Jon Stewart is wrong, but do the midterms really change anything? The old regime is replaced with a new one, which as always promises to fix everything, but looking through history, promises like these are hard to believe. It seems that all politicians are equally detached from the real world, be they Republican, Democrat, or None of the Above. And even if once upon a time, some guy comes along who really understands what he's doing (god forbid!) the bureacratic nature of the system means that his opinion will be stifled anyway.

Here, let me give you an example, with simple math and that bill-becomes-a-law stuff we all learned in sixth grade. Suppose the Republicans want to propose a law that the Democrats don't like. Oops we have the majority - overruled. Ah, but what if the Democrats want to propose a law that the Republicans don't like? The president can (and is not afraid to, as we now know) veto it, and we don't have to 2/3 majority in either house to overrule it. So.... what does this mean? It means one of two things - Republicans and Democrats will (for the next two years) have to learn to set aside their differences and get along ... or, for the next two years, no federal laws of any significance will be passed. Say what you want, but I'm betting on the latter.

Well, that's just my analysis of the midterms, but as I said before, I know very little about politics. Say what you want.

Oh, and speaking of politics, now's fine time to post my political compass:

You are a

Social Moderate
(56% permissive)

and an...

Economic Liberal
(31% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Democrat




Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid

Ah, looks like I'm a Democrat ... just barely though. Those Centrists sure have an appealing philosophy though: "Compromise? " Yes, the reason we don't have a major Centrist party in the U.S. of A? I guess they're just not crazy enough.

No comments: