COMMENTARY--THE POLITICS DIVIDING US

by Bill Breakstone, January 14, 2011


Paul Krugman, in his NY Times op-ed this morning, really gets down to the basics in the Nation’s political debate. He points out that despite President Obama’s call for renewed civility between the opposing sides of our ideological and political debate, America is a deeply divided Nation. He states:

“And the real challenge we face is not how to resolve our differences—something that won’t happen any time soon — but how to keep the expression of those differences within bounds.

What are the differences I’m talking about?

One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state —a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net—morally superior to the capitalism we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.”

Those differences are at the heart of the divide. Krugman is talking about a basic political philosophy. But the divide exists on more practical issues as well. One is directly related to the tragic events of last weekend in Tucson—gun control. On one side, there are those who cite the second amendment’s constitutional guarantee of the right to bear arms. They defend that right with the certitude that it means life or death for American liberties. On the other side are those who argue that second amendment rights must be tempered by the advanced weapon technologies and mental instability of so many people in this modern age. They point out the numerous mass killings that have occurred in America over the past decade and ask “how many more innocent lives must be sacrificed in order to insure a constitutional right that was written into our Constitution over 200 years ago, at a time when such weapons did not exist?”

Krugman boils the issue down to another key element which is hotly debated among our populace—the role of government in regulating the society. He sees one side taking the position that “much of what the modern federal government does is illegitimate; the other side does not.”

He then compares our divisive politics to the debate over abortion rights:

“In a way, politics as a whole now resembles the longstanding politics of abortion—a subject that puts fundamental values at odds, in which each side believes that the other side is morally in the wrong. Almost 38 years have passed since Roe v. Wade, and this dispute is no closer to resolution.

Yet we have, for the most part, managed to agree on certain ground rules in the abortion controversy: it’s acceptable to express your opinion and to criticize the other side, but it’s not acceptable either to engage in violence or to encourage others to do so.

What we need now is an extension of those ground rules to the wider national debate. . . . . . We need to have leaders of both parties—or Mr. Obama alone if necessary—declare that both violence and any language hinting at the acceptability of violence are out of bounds. We all want reconciliation, but the road to that goal begins with an agreement that our differences will be settled by the rule of law.”

All well and true, but there is a dire need for things to change less the tragedies are to be repeated again and again. And more than attitudes need changing. Though one side abhors governmental regulations, how are we to prevent Tucson from happening again without them?