To Find a Uniter in a Divided Nation

I'm a facebook and myspace junky. I admit it. I go on almost daily to both sites. Sometimes I do nothing but "check up" on the activity that my own page has seen, or those of my friends. I get to feel like the great and powerful Oz for a second or two, seeing everyone and yet feeling unseen. Though of course my activity is seen by my "friends" and, in particular, by the powers that be running the sites.

I often find it easier to write responses to people I disagree with on facebook or myspace than to start a blog. So . . . I've decided to bring the two worlds together momentarily. I'm going to use an online "conversation" as fodder for this very blog.

Jen and I talk about politics all the time. It's hard not to feel disheartened. It's hard not to feel disappointed in a sea of candidates who range from eh to AAAAAHHHHH! With the Electoral College in place, it's hard not to feel disenfranchised! Do people even know what the Electoral College is any more? Do they care? It's basically the government's way of taking the vote out of our hands as much as possible. And we call this a Democracy! Did you know that the Electors are under no particular obligation to vote with their states' majority? They do so merely out of tradition and the fear of losing their jobs. But disenfranchisement is the subject of another blog.

Recently I had a very interesting conversation with one of my cousins. She's a history major. Our conversation was about politics, but mostly the politics of the past. She doesn't know much, if anything, about the '08 candidates. (What does this say about my generation?) But she was astute in pointing out the fact that the "heroes" of the past were often not as perfect as we'd like to remember them as being. Take FDR, for example. He was undoubtedly an American hero. The New Deal absolutely saved the US economically in a time of strife. Along with WWII. And he began Social Security. Which was a godsend of a retirement plan . . . fifty years ago. He was also elected to the Presidency four times. Four times! Or JFK. Who was an awfully reluctant Civil Rights advocate. I'd like to believe that that any discrepancy between RFK's early years and his later years, any discrepancy between his domestic policy and his foreign policy, was simply an effect of education. That the more he saw of the world, the more inclined he was to help it, and had he seen even more of the world, he would have had even more plans to help those less fortunate than himself. But maybe I'm just being idealistic. Maybe I'm just trying to find some reason to believe in the government of the United States.

In an attempt to come to the point, there is only one politician who, in my life time, I have felt a strong affinity with. Don't get me wrong - I'll vote for whatever candidate runs on the Democratic ticket. Not that my vote counts for much in New York State. But I have a hard time feeling an affinity for candidates who are, as Hillary so eloquently put it, "ready to lead the nation to a little bit of change." (This quote was taken from the LOGO "Visible Vote" Debate. My apologies if it is not 100% verbatim, though I believe it is.)

So who do I have an affinity for? Dennis Kucinich. I could go on and on about how I feel about Kucinich, and why. I could take up the space of a dozen blogs or more, one on each issue Kucinich has an opinion on. And here's an important fact about Kucinich: he has more than opinions. He has experience. Lots of it. As a Congressman, he's been on more committees for law and policy making than any candidate I've ever known of. He's voted on everything. And unlike many (most?) politicians who have very fuzzy, very loosely configured "plans" of action, Kucinich can give you his plan, point by exacting point. That is, if the debates would just give him some air time. And I've never seen anyone look so HAPPY just to be able to talk about the issues!

Well, recently I was on myspace, looking at Ani Difranco's page. I have to agree with the Little Folksinger that Dennis is refreshingly electable. And I don't mean that sarcastically. Anyway, there's a political debate of sorts going on on one of Ani's myspace page's blogs. The blog is asking for support for Kucinich. Somehow it became a debate between young women about who is better for America, Kucinich or Ron Paul. I've done some research on Ron Paul. Because I wanted to see why so many seemingly progressive people wanted to vote for a Republican. After looking at Ron Paul's web page, I see what he has going for himself. He's all about the economics. Promised tax cuts and a promise for a return of Constitutional freedoms and an end to war - coming from within the Republican Party, no less - speaks loudly. But don't be fooled. He's quite a right wing conservative. As constitutional as Ron Paul would like you to think he is, and maybe he is . . . but he's certainly not progressive. He'd like to let you home school your kids and teach them to use guns, but he doesn't want to fund public schools. He wants to take away freedom of choice. He's all for "states' rights". Which is an interesting issue to be talking about 150 years or so after the Civil War.

So, without further ado, here's my response to the young Ron Paul supporters out there. I hope my cousin would be proud of my historical memory.

If it wasn't for a belief in altering the Constitution to change with the times, there would be no 2nd Amendment! Don't forget that the Constitution was originally written without the Bill of Rights, and adding it began the never ending process of systematically altering the Constitution to better fit the social and political awareness and consciousness of the nation. Generally speaking, Amendments have always been to grant rights, and not to take them away. A glaring exception to this is the ultimately failed Prohibition. But note that as "libertarian" as Ron Paul may want you to believe he is, he's running under a Republican ticket. And the Republicans were all too recently trying to write an Amendment to permanently BAN homosexual couples from having equal marital rights in this country. It's an Amendment that didn't take flight purely because an Act was written, instead (DOMA). An Act that was supported by many moderate Democrats, even (think Hillary), because theoretically an Act has a shorter lived impact and is "less detrimental" than an Amendment (though it doesn't make it "right").

Also, regarding States' Rights: the Civil War was essentially a war of States' Rights. It was a war in which slave states said "We, as independent states in this Union, have a right to make our own decisions regarding our people and laws. And if the rest of the Union doesn't like it, we're going to leave." By fighting (and winning) that war, and by declaring slaves free and passing Amendments to that effect, Abraham Lincoln and our United States government was declaring that states do not in fact supercede the federal government. The federal government has a right to legislate issues and enforce that legislation in all states. This has been particularly true in cases such as slavery, civil rights, voter eligibility, and the drinking age, when the issue is seen as one of morality. Even more pointedly, this is true when issues are seen as affecting all Americans, and in being important to maintain as one crosses state boundaries. This is the reason, for example, that there is a national currency and certain national trade laws and anti-trust laws (though they aren't always followed). Again citing slavery - the Dredd Scott Supreme Court case was crucial because it looked at a slave being moved into a non-slave state, and whether or not such discrepancies could be tolerated in the country. To give a contemporary example, right now a person in Massachusettes who is gay can marry. If their work or any other reason takes them outside of Massachusettes, their marriage is no longer legal. Even in their home state, they cannot file all taxes jointly because the federal tax system doesn't see two men or two women as spouses.

If there is one thing I'm sure about government, it is that putting all the power into the states will not fix our problems. As the 19th century taught us, it will aggravate them.

If there's one thing I'm sure about Dennis Kucinich, it is that he knows the Constitution better than you or I, and any steps he takes to modify our nation will be fully Constitutional. Where's your pocket Constitution? Where's Ron Paul's?

~ Janet