Darryl PaulsonFor 35 years I told students in my government courses that politics comes from the Ancient Greek word “poly” meaning “many” and “tics” meaning “ugly, bloodsucking parasites.” During the first 15 years, students laughed. For the last 20 years, students busily wrote the definition in their notes.
They had no reason to believe it was not true.
Everyone knows that Congress is broken and dysfunctional. Only 1 in 10 Americans think Congress is doing a good job. I figure those 10 percent must come from the states that have legalized marijuana.
Americans hate politics and politicians because it is so easy to do so. The current Congress is among the least productive in history. When Harry Truman ran against the “Do Nothing” Congress in 1948, that Congress passed 906 laws. Our current Congress has passed 173 public laws or one-fifth the number of Truman’s Congress.
Compromise, once the cornerstone of politics, is now despised and viewed as a sign of weakness. The norm of Congress used to be “to get along, go along.” Now it’s “if you get along, you better get out.” Those who compromise find that they will be punished by the leadership and face a primary challenge.
Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson, running in a newly created Congressional district in central Florida, referred to Democrats who compromised as “weenies.” Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, who served 20 years ago, observed: “Show me a guy who won’t compromise, and I’ll show you a guy with rocks for brains.”
During the founding of the United States, our nation produced George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and scores of other great leaders. Where are our leaders today?
Any student of The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution knows that these documents were the product of compromise. Could these documents be written in today’s political environment? I doubt it.
Benjamin Franklin commented during the drafting of the Constitution that he did not agree with all of its provisions. Nevertheless, Franklin humbly told his fellow Democrats that “I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of this convention who may still have objections to it, would, with me . . . doubt a little of his own infallibility and . . . put his name to this instrument.”
Washington could have been King or President for life, but he was humble enough to recognize his own dispensability and the need for others to provide new leadership. This gracious decision by Washington led King George III to call Washington “the greatest man in the world.”
Abraham Lincoln provides a final example of political humility. He was not too proud or fearful to appoint his rivals to positions in his Cabinet. In the closing days of the Civil War, most in the North, including the Radical Republicans in Congress, wanted to punish the South for leaving the Union and causing massive death and destruction.
In his second inaugural address, Lincoln rejected the counsel of his party and simply argued to heal the division by seeking “malice toward none; with charity for all.”
Where are the Franklin’s, Washington’s and Lincoln’s of today?
