Barney Bishop: A pox on both political parties

Our beautiful 237-year experiment in democracy has brought us to a difficult crossroad.  Either we are going to continue to lurch from financial crisis to financial crisis or someone in Washington, D.C., is going to have to get over their childish temper tantrums.

At this point in time I’m ready to declare a pox on both political parties for their unwillingness to sit down and negotiate.

The problem is that both political parties are trying to score political points at each other’s expense and America is the one suffering for it.

Instead, all of us should be demanding that our elected leaders put aside their important differences and do the country’s business.  Note that I acknowledged that the differences are important, but in a country where compromise is expected everyday by every average American, why do we allow our politicians to behave like spoiled, rotten children?

Take President Obama, for example.  He came in riding on a white steed and he promised us all “change.”  He hasn’t changed a single way that Washington does business.  Instead, he now boldly says that he will not “negotiate” on the debt limit.  Mr. President, we (I use the word “we” loosely because I didn’t vote for him either time – but he is still the president) elected you to lead this country, and you’re going to go down in history as the most obstinate president we’ve ever had.

So they want to cut the heart out of your health-care program.  Is that a surprise to anyone given the way it was passed, without any bipartisan support?

Inasmuch as the Republicans control the House, you are going to have to work with them because they are part of our government.  They have a voice in the affairs of this country and you can’t ignore them without making this country look like any run-of-the-mill banana republic.

Oh, you can blame the Republicans all you want, but everyone knows in any fight that there is generally plenty of blame to go around.

Republicans, you have to bear responsibility for your actions as well.  Look, I loathe Obamacare.  But to prove what you are saying, you have to have enough faith in what you’re preaching.  Get it?

Obamacare is going to collapse of its own weight.  It’s too massive, too unworkable, too expensive, too confusing and for all of the promises that were made, very little if any of it is ever going to come true.

If the unions, who supported this ill-fated idea, can now say with a straight face that the working men and women of this country are going to get screwed by this socialistic medical debacle, isn’t that good enough for you?

Don’t defund Obamacare now, because your views, which by the way are shared by the vast majority of independents (and these are the folks that you want in any election!), will never get proven.  If you are ever successful in defunding Obamacare, the Democrats are just going to say it failed because you made it fail.  Let it fail on its own – because it will!

And to show what little respect both Dems and Repubs have for the intelligence of the American people, you then cut yourselves and your staff in for an exemption on Obamacare?  How despicable can y’all be?

I say again, a pox on both of your political parties.  Because if you think that the tea party movement is unwieldy, unorthodox and unforgiving, wait until you stir the common folk across this land. Then we’ll finally realize that the only thing important to each of you is your own measly existence — at the expense of the greatest political experiment ever devised by mankind.