It is my observation that the most fundamental problem with politics and government in Washington, D.C., is that our national debate too often takes places on the extreme fringes of our political fabric. This gives our national leaders a warped viewpoint of how We The People feel about different issues.
Exhibit A is the recent effort to reform our laws on immigration. It seemed like no one in the White House or Capital Hill had any clue how we felt. This was a bill that no one liked. You had the left thinking their fellow Democrats were willing to accept millions of illegal immigrants becoming citizens for the simple reason that they'd be able to win more elections. The right seems to think everyone with brown skin should be immediately ejected from the country. Neither one is true. Those inside the Beltway may as well be on another planet, their disconnect from the citizenry is so wide.
My story on how I came to this belief about debates on the extremes and the negative effect on the political culture is actually rather funny. It all stems from the Janet Jackson breast-baring incident at halftime of the 2004 Super Bowl. Remember the two weeks that followed? All the TV and radio talk shows dealt with it, so much so that the presidential campaign was temporarily upstaged.
What we heard from commentators and callers was "our popular culture had hit bottom" or "lighten up, dudes, it was only a breast." We heard next to nothing about the reaction that most of us actually had -- that the baring of a singer's breast might be acceptable on a pay-cable television show, but was inappropriate for a general audience that was there to watch a football game and the halftime entertainment.
My goal is to reintroduce the reasonable back into our political debate. As I wrote in my first post, immigration reform should have been easy. All we had to do was secure the border and not offer citizenship to the illegal immigrants already here, then most of us would have accepted any sort of disposition for the 12 million who are here, since there's no way they can all be deported. But since we don't have a well-reasoned political culture, such ideas apparently never had a chance.
Well, we have to regain the center, folks. Our politicians and their backers are too busy looking for political expediency and spouting ideology. Most of the issues we face, from terrorism to the looming entitlement solvency problems, overwhelm ideology. The posts you read will, hopefully, pull us all back from the edges and form realistic opinions on what we face as a nation.
