Every few weeks or so, one of my friends e-mails out a political question to a group of about 10 of my friends. Based on the responses that I read, it made me think about politics in America. Since I love a good analogy, I started to think of one. What I came up with is that as Americans we are all in a car on an American road trip. The problem is that this road trip is about to come to a catastrophic end as we are approaching a cliff.
Our current driver sees the cliff up ahead, but is actually increasing speed towards it. He may be doing this out of ignorance or may even be doing it on purpose. Either way, the result is the same. Progressives (in either party) today are driving. Many despise capitalism and to some extent America itself because they believe it to be inherently unfair and even exploitive. Some just don’t understand basic economics or the limits of government power. This is a small percentage of our population, less than 10%.
The two in the back seat are arguing about the song on the radio and regardless of the genre, disagree with one another. They aren’t really paying attention to the cliff, but instead are locked in their own argument. Again this is only a small percentage of the population, maybe 20% and we hear them arguing at dinner parties, on Facebook, or on the news. These people generally like to argue about a number of political topics from healthcare laws to environmental politics. Many times they argue without most of the facts and what they miss is that while they argue about the “little” things, the government continues to grow, freedom continues to evaporate, and the car gets closer to the cliff.
Another passenger (Libertarians) is in the trunk. So this “passenger” was put in the trunk because he was trying to grab the driver and force him to slow down and turn the car around. There is a small percentage (5%) of the population that are actively speaking out against the government and trying to highlight the abusive nature of its power. What happens? They are painted by the media as crazy or anarchists. Many are called racist or “tea baggers”. They are made to ride in the trunk where they can make some noise, but are powerless to change the car’s course. Yet, their noise is beginning to be heard and acted upon.
The last guy in the passenger seat is asleep, totally ambivalent to the cliff and the noise in the car. A large part of our population, probably over 60%, just simply doesn’t care about politics or understand the ramifications of our national debt or annual deficits.
The road trip is as American as apple pie but this road trip leads to the most predictable disaster in history. Imagine if the Japanese had known about the earthquake and tsunami, but did nothing to prepare for it. That is what we do everyday and economic ruin lies around the bend, perhaps in the next decade.
So which passenger are you? And what are you going to do to avoid the cliff?
UPDATE:
I wrote this post month’s ago but just finally published it. Here in Maine, we have a lot of problems, a new Governor and legislature and a budget debate. Important decisions must be made to save our state from fiscal insolvency. So what have we been discussing over the last few days. A 3 year old mural that was hanging in a public building. Arguing over the radio once again.
