Requesting Moderation

I no longer consider myself a Democrat or a Republican, a conservative or a liberal.  Both parties have moved toward the extremes spewing demagoguery and misinformation from their misguided positions and have turned me away from their false rhetoric and make me yearn for moderation - for heartfelt reason over mindless passion.

I am tired of hearing from the Right as represented by Rush, Sean, Glenn, Sarah, Karl and their tea party groupies. They still say that our President was not born here, is a Muslim, is an elitist, a communist, a socialist and a Nazi. They are mad about increased taxes even though taxes have gone down under Obama.  They complain about the bailout for the banks even though it was needed because of and initiated by the previous administration.  They also complain about our deficit that also was produced by previous Republican administrations.  They accuse the administration of taking over the banks and the car companies even though these industries were almost destroyed by poor management and a corrupt culture and were saved by the government so that they could stay in business and pay huge bonuses to their undeserving staff.  They call the new health care reform bill a form of socialism or communism, though its most offensive parts like mandatory coverage, were originally recommended by the Republicans. They say that the free market should be left to correct itself and avoid abuses, even though as we all recently saw, it hasn’t, doesn’t and won’t. Their team claims that high compensations are needed to attract and keep the best talent and encourage the greatest productivity though management studies show the opposite to be true. They say the cure for our economy’s ills is lower taxes forgetting that it certainly did not work under Bush.

I am also tired of hearing from the Left.  They tell us that the earth is warming up and that it could mean the end for the planet.  The principal spokesperson is the former Vice President of the United States who won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for his efforts to publicize this man-made disaster in-the-making.  But he himself owns two enormous mansions which consume massive amounts of energy.  He flies around in a private jet and drives in a very large gas guzzling car.  He does not live like a man concerned about the “inconvenient truth.”  Why not just say that we are polluting our earth, air, water and minds and that we need to change our behavior and clean up our mess?

The other big liberal movement is for the legalization of 12-20 million document-free immigrants.  Regardless of the fact that 15 million Americans are out of work, another nine million are underemployed and almost 36 million Americans live in poverty, 13 million of them children; ignoring the fact that our schools are overcrowded and underachieving; and without regard to our country’s financial crisis, the Left wants us to add 20 million people to our country’s growing underclass.  The Left feels that there should be no borders keeping people from enjoying a better life by exploiting and being exploited by a different, richer country than their own forgetting perhaps that there are billions of people wanting to leave their lives of abject poverty.  We can’t even help our own poor.

I’m tired of hearing that American imperialism is the cause of every country’s failure.  We allegedly ruined all the countries in Latin America, all of sub-Sahara Africa, Haiti and Iran just as Israel has allegedly disrupted the once charmingly peaceful Middle-East.  The Left seems to feel that not only are individuals never responsible for their own actions, but neither are other countries and their cultures.  Only top dogs like America can bear any responsibility for their own actions and those of everyone around them.  And I don’t want to hear the mantra of cultural relativism that every country and culture has equally egregious problems.  I don’t buy it, I won’t even rent it.

And now that the Left has a very moderate President, the extremists complain that he has not done enough, quickly enough.  They are mad that he has not made gay marriage the law of the land even though he always said that he opposed gay marriage as does the majority of the general population.  They complain that his health care reform bill, the most progressive legislation since Medicare, did not go far enough disregarding the fact that the Congress barely passed this more modest version.

I am pleading here for a return to reason, a quest for moderation, the golden mean and, for heaven sake, some integrity. 

To the Right I say get over the fact that Barack Obama is our President.  He is a lot better than the one we had before him and he is really trying his best to cure a badly injured country.  He is a native-born American, he is a capitalist and he is probably neither Muslim nor Christian.  He is not anti-semitic.  He did not take over the car companies or banks, he saved them.  His $787 billion stimulus bill probably prevented a national depression.  The health care bill he sponsored is a type of socialism but so is having the government subsidize farmers or giving tax breaks to oil companies and so is Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, and welfare.  In America, we do not live as though survival is only for the fittest. Surely, the richest country in the world can ensure basic survival services to all of its citizens including medical coverage, a good education,  sufficient nutrition, a clean environment and decent housing, even if it is called socialistic.

I also challenge the principal motivational theory of the Right that the more you get paid the better your work product.  It is simply not true.  Bonuses are not and should not be the basis for productivity.  Wall Street traders, star athletes, CEOs, opinionators and actors can do just as good work for a lot less pay.

To the Left I say stop calling anyone who disagrees with you a racist or a moron.  A country has a right and obligation to protect its borders.  America allows more legal immigrants to enter the country each year than all the other countries on earth do combined.  Enough is enough.  Please let us make sure that our own people have jobs and needed services before inviting others to share the economic pie.

And please do not make political extremism your godless religion.

We have record deficits and our people are inadequately educated and live unhealthy lifestyles.  The rich are much too rich and the poor are too poor.  Perhaps our tax code should be adjusted.  In addition to raising the marginal tax rate for income in excess of $250,000 to 40%, perhaps additional brackets should be re-created to 50%, 70% and, finally, 90% for incomes in excess of $1 million, $5 million and $10 million, respectively. 

I predict that this would not only raise needed revenue, it would also discourage companies from paying out such huge sums and would thus change our mind set to one that appreciates the more intrinsic rewards like pride in your work, loyalty, doing for others, using your talents and helping your country’s less fortunate.

And while considering reducing our budget deficit, serious thought should be given to significantly downsizing military spending by closing many of the 1,000 bases we have all over the world from South Korea to Germany to Turkey to Iraq and Afghanistan employing more than 2.5 million people abroad.  Our country’s policy regarding foreign aid should also be scrutinized.  Why are we, who are ourselves deep in debt and borrowing from other countries, giving money to other countries, some of whom don’t even like us?

Farm subsidies should also be reviewed.  Must large agribusinesses be bribed into doing what is in their best interest and that of our country? And can American companies be encouraged to give jobs to Americans rather than outsourcing them?

And why do our large oil companies pay taxes to other countries but not to ours?

Maybe marijuana with all of its medical and spiritual benefits should be legalized nationwide freeing up law enforcement, downsizing prison populations, decriminalizing consumers and distributors, and drying up the illegal and dangerous trafficking by drug cartels while raising taxes as well as consciousness.

And finally as government is involved in providing goods and services to the public, it should do so with the highest level of efficiency, effectiveness, and integrity. All government employees should work a full day, every day regardless of their job security.

Doesn’t this sound a lot more reasonable than what we’re hearing from both ends of our political spectrum?  Can’t we exercise a moderate amount of moderation?

Or is that asking too much?