Politics, Government & Public Policy: April 2003 Archives
I love it when I read an essay that plainly articulates something that I've been thinking about for a while but just haven't found the right words for. Robin Goodfellow writes "we are at a time where a change of political axis is needed and will likely occur within the next few years" and I think he's correct. Both major political parties are losing ground to "independents", most of whom can be categorized as either socialists or libertarians. For the past couple of decades these growing factions of socialists and libertarians largely adhered to the Democrat and Republican parties respectively out of convenience and pragmatism, but it appears that we're nearly to the point where fewer than half of the population actually identifies themselves with one of these parties.
Imagine a game of tug-o-war. The rope is the people, and the Republicans are on one end of the rope and the Democrats are on the other. Between the two of them the middle of the rope isn't free-moving: it's strung through a ring that holds it in place. Now, if that makes sense, try and keep up here. When the parties were aligned with the desires of the people, the rope made a straight line, sliding back and forth through the ring as it it wasn't there. Now that the parties do not represent the ideologies of the population, they are pulling the rope into a V shape. The ring near the center of the rope sits at the point of the V, and the two parties are pulling partially against the ring and partially against themselves. The parties are trying to pull the population into the discussion that they want to have, but a large segment of the population doesn't care about the issues that the parties do anymore, and don't align themselves in the same manner.
I feel like I just wrote a bunch of nonsense. Oh well, it's a cool picture in my head, and if you draw out the force vectors on the rope you might get an idea of what I'm trying to explain with my dumb analogy. The point is that eventually the population will get tired of hearing the debates that the parties want to have, and will dump the parties altogether. For example, both parties are strongly behind the "War on Drugs", but a good portion of the population (maybe not quite a majority) thinks that this so-called war is a sham and a waste of money. Another example is social security... everyone knows it's not sustainable, but neither party has the guts to actually face the problem.
So, what's going to happen? I like Robin's conclusion and basically agree that the parties will re-form into a basically libertarian party and a basically statist party. The real question is, which goes which direction?
Mean Mr. Mustard up at Berkeley has some thoughts on SDB's post about potential shifts in opinion among the college student demographic. Mr. Mustard is skeptical, based on his observations at Berkeley, but I think he fails to take into account the high turnover rate of "college students". Four years from now the demographic will contain an entirely new set of people; so while I do believe that the students he knows are unlikely to see the light and become capitalists overnight, that doesn't matter since they won't be "college students" in a few years.
I posted the following to the comments section:
I think that, as Toxic pointed out, opinion among college students will change over the next few years precisely because those who are lost-cause college students now won't be in college anymore soon enough. The members of the demographic turn over so quickly that the major opinions held by "college students" can easily change drastically.I can't really predict whether or not this *will* happen, but it's certainly possible. I know a good many high school students, and most of them are totally psyched about the War on Terror. I don't know if that's a good perspective to have or not, but lots of them love the reality of our military power and the fact that we can use it for good around the world.
So, we'll see. Who knows what effects will be seen here in California (much less in Berkeley) but I wouldn't be surprised to see opinions shift among college students over the next few years.
I have written before, twice, on the topic of allowing women to particpate in front line combat. Via Instapundit I see a discussion on Slate on the same issue, written by women who were actually in the military. An excerpt from the first day of the conversation:
So, our question is, should the Army and Marines be forced to change policies that prohibit women from taking combat jobs in their infantry and artillery units? The question was brought up ad nauseam after Gulf War I (since we'd entered a period of peace and prosperity and had time to address nonessential concerns), and if we're lucky enough to have bought ourselves more peace and prosperity I think we're gonna hear it again.But I sure hope not. The only people who truly want to see women in combat are some TV producers who think it's a "sexy" issue and approximately 500 cranks assembled on college campuses and in NGOs around the Beltway.
The national argument might be worth having if there was some vast, seething body of women longing to personally stick it to the enemy, but Debra, we both know there is not. I have friends and acquaintances up and down the rank structure and from every service—tough, bright, feisty gals all—and I have never met, and they have never met, a woman who burns to join the ground-pounders. (Several large-scale surveys back me up on this.)
The truth is, there are only about 200 women a year who could meet the physical standards required, and even fewer who would select this MOS (military job). So, we'd have a lot of tsores over a few people. And if we launch a legal battle on the subject, we'll open ourselves up to a Supreme Court ruling that might require a female draft for combat positions—and that would be a real debacle.
There's tons more, so go read it if you're interested.
Clayton Cramer writes that Pvt. Jessica Lynch is proof that women can be very effective soldiers, and I have no doubt that that's the case. However, I still believe that keeping women out of direct combat positions is a luxury that we, as a country, can afford. Call me chauvenistic or sexist if you want, but on this matter I'm proud to be.
