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The Hopeless Either/Or

Sister Sarah, Former Half-Governor
What in hell is going on here, politically?

The Republican field of presidential aspirants looks like a cartoon series:  Donald "The Hair" Trump:  the President wasn't born; Our Belle Michele Bachmann:  Jesus wants her and Marcus to be sunbeams; Rick Panhandle Parry:  the neighs of Texas are upon you; Herman Pizza Cain:  there are a lot of women looking for jobs out there, and I feel their pain whenever I can; Newton Leroy Gingrich:  I am now a Catholic and sell books for Tiffany's and Callista;  Willard Mitt Romney:  everybody loves me about 25%!  And there are more.

The Tea Party Regulars cheer for executions, the candidates cheer for water boarding, they hate health care and want to make social security something you underwear!  It is good to be king and to be rich, especially if you aren't, but know you will someday!

Democrats cannot get anything done because there still are Republicans who interrupt them when they disagree with themselves.  They want a majority in Congress so they won't have to do what they didn't do the last time they had a majority.

I don't think we are suffering from social insanity, but I am not certain.

I think it has something to do with the tension between competition and cooperation.

Competition is everywhere!  Consider our passion for sports.  Saturdays and Sundays are not about resting from our labors and praising god:  they are about the Packers and the Steelers.  Saturdays are about college football.  March is about basketball madness.  Almost always, there is a winner and a loser.

Captitalism is a system that proposes competition.  If five people want to be barbers, let them mortgage the house and give it a try.  At least four, and maybe five of them, will fail.  Better for the rest of us:  cheap haircuts.  Is it you dream to run a restaurant:  go for it!  You will almost certainly fail, but the rest of us will have better and cheaper food.

Want to be a millionaire?  Don't we all?  A few all succeed, and the rest of us can buy lottery tickets, and get there the easy way.

Did you get sick?  Tough!  A lot of people do.  Flunk out of school?  Well, all of us cannot be successful in life.

What do people who think first of competition hate?  Regulations!  Taxes!  Requirements for clean air and water!  Government!  Losers!

The other basic urge is for cooperation.    It is everywhere, too.  Teamwork wins in most sports, doesn't it? It is better for everyone if we find a way to keep law and order.  If we work together to hire police officers, and fire fighters, and nurses and teachers.  Society is better off for everyone if education is universal, and if everyone has health care, and those things require cooperation:  working together.

If all of us agree to pay taxes, we can light the streets, and have clean water, and sewage treatment plants.  Cooperation will provide public parks, and highways and trains and electrical and transportation systems.

We need both.  The Tea Party pretends that government is not necessary to have a civil society, and that big civil societies do not require big governments.  They seem not to have remembered that Teddy Roosevelt and the Republican Party of that time demanded control of uncontrolled capitalism, for the common good.

I suspect we will figure that out, again, although on some days it looks hopeless.  On those days, I refuse to  think about who the Republican candidates for the presidency are.  Almost.

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