Politics in the Culture War

I have decided that since most people I know on here aren't on Xanga, that I will repost my blog here. 2 warnings. First, if you read my Xanga, this is simply cut and paste, so don't waste your time reading it twice. Secondly, I am not timid in any of my entries, and often times they are random thoughts put forcibly into words, so they will not be what some of you are looking for. I almost never talk about what I did in a day, etc. etc., but instead use this space to flesh out thoughts, dillemas, or philosophies that are stirring in my brain. If that is what you want, then by all means, read away.

Before I actually get to the heart of my entry, let me post today's horoscope, which considering my latest entries and state of mind, is simply unbelievable:

"It's all about setting priorities, and right now the primary one is to decide where you want to live and how you're going to live. Are you treating yourself as well as you deserve? If not, it's time to change all that."

'Nuff said.

So onto what I really want to talk about. I recently read a series of articles in the Atlantic Monthly that my dear friend Christopher sent me. The one I want to talk about is Why the Culture War Is the Wrong War by E.J. Dionne Jr. Without simply disecting the article, let me say that the point is that both sides of the political spectrum fight this war in their own way, almost creating the war that they are fighting, while really they are all fighting against and for the same general things.

The statement I want to talk about was in fact the last one in the article. He said, "The culture war exploits our discontents. The task of politics is to heal them." Wow. What a powerful statement.

Taking that by itself, one can see a vision of politics that is clear and amazing. Working towards healing the discontents of society is I think one of the highest ideals that a public servant can try to strive for. Listening to this, I think that both political fields have different problems that keep them from actually accomplishing this goal. I think that the right extremists are the farthest from this goal, partially because they are the current masters of exploiting the culture war to fight their own battles on the political field. I think that the Democrats are closer to this, because they have made it their "goal" to ferret out the problems of the underprivileged and solving them. I think that they fail primarily for two reasons:1. Though this is one of their principals, they have been unable to actually allow this to define the direction of their policies, and 2. they often fail to admit when they are wrong and instead try and solve problems by throwing more and more money at them (obviously to the discontent of their constituents).

In general, if I were to idealize the political scene, I would like to see Republicans work towards healing society's malcontents within their morality, not using their morality to create more discontent. I would like to see Democrats more willing to examine government's role and whether or not some of the initiatives that they want to pursue wouldn't be better controlled by some other agency, or if there were in fact a way that the government could assist without trying to control.

More to come on this later.