Since I am now pretty much boycotting things political, except to poke fun at them, I did not see the recent Republican presidential debates but I did read a few on-line articles about it. There are a couple of things that got my attention.

The first thing is how so many of the candidates proudly boasted that they created jobs in their States.  This goes back to some of the Will Rogers quotes I have put up the last few weeks. Yeah, governors and others like them can create jobs by increasing the rolls of the public sector but that is about it.  It seems like these guys and gal want to take credit for every job that might have come into existence while they held a political office. The vastly increasing oil prices created jobs in Texas; there was very little Mr. Perry did to affect that. Maybe he claims he put the oil there in the same what that Al Gore invented the internet 🙂 The same is true for the rest of those yahoos wanting to take credit for something they had nothing to do with. Of course, this is not unique to the Republicans. Mr. Obama seems to think that he can spend his way into prosperity. Our economy is just too big for that to make much of a difference.

The second and most significant thing that tweaked me about these debates is how much they show that any of them are totally unwilling to work with the other party to accomplish something for the common good of this nation.  It sounds like their constant dissing of the president got big applause secondary to only when Mr. Perry proclaimed that he was proud of all the people he has executed, far more people than any other governor and more than almost the rest combined, while he has been in office. I guess my Quaker feelings are coming to play here but I would never boast about taking human life. That is the darkest side of our nature and should be mourned, not celebrated as he evidently likes doing. Shame on him but even more shame to those who applauded so loudly!

My second point on this topic is that the Republican strategy from the very beginning of the Obama presidency is to do absolutely nothing that might help the opposing party in any way.  As a result this seems to be  the end of any compromise for the common good? Will compromise ever come back to our political process? I am beginning to doubt it.  With that in mind I am hoping that Thoreau, who I talked about a few posts ago, is right when he said

Government is best that governs the least

Let’s hope so anyway. You gotta love all these politicians. Someone has got to hire them. They are no good for much of anything else.  But maybe the front counter of McDonald’s is a better place for many of them. Just not at my McDonald’s as I want my hamburger without all the rhetoric..

But what do I know….