The Middle of the Road Myth
Greg Ordy, June 1999
The United States is living a myth. A myth that assumes certain characteristics of our political system. Characteristics that were probably never true, and certainly are not true today.
The myth is built on the premise that in our so-called two party system of government the two parties will always straddle the truth. That is, the truth lies between the positions of the two parties. With the aid of a free press that searches out the truth, and illuminates the facts, we are safely able to drive down the middle of the road, and avoid a serious national mistake.
With labels such as liberal and conservative, names that suggest opposites, we are led to believe that we are seeing both sides of an issue. All sides of an issue. We use words such as left and right to describe positions. It is implied that we talking about left of the middle and right of the middle. The truth must lie in the middle, doesn't it? If we want we can literally cast random votes. If a Democrat is elected, we will lean to the left. If a Republican is elected, we will lean to the right. We may drift from side to side, but we will never leave the safety of the road. If we get too near the edge, the press will shout the truth, and we will head back toward the safety and truth of the middle of the road. If we can ever get a compromise between the parties, a bipartisan agreement, then we are guaranteed that we are on the right track. All of this is misguided and false.
A more recent but related myth is the divided government myth. Simply make sure that different branches of government are controlled by different parties. Now, a compromise is guaranteed. Isn't bipartisan always good? We can all ignore Washington, nothing much can go wrong. We are on a form of autopilot.
While all of these ideas sound good, what happens if they are wrong? What if the truth lies off to the side of the road? What are the consequences of living with these myths?
The consequences are what we see today. Major political parties that are indistinguishable from each other, and voter apathy. In the long run, the consequence is that we will crash as a nation, and never even see it coming.
How can I possibly say that the two parties are the same? isn't one for more taxes and one for less? One for abortion, the other pro-life? Yes, these appear to be differences. There are many more. The problem is that the current Republicans, despite having control of the House and Senate, seem to be all talk and no action. The liberals and the socialists have been setting the agenda for over 50 years, with no end in sight. No matter who is in power, government grows, taxes more, spends more, regulates more, and controls more.
Both parties are completely and totally united in their belief that government is the solution to most every problem. And in that important and critical point, both parties are on the same side of the road. Take taxes, for example. If given the chance, Democrats would raise taxes a few percentage points, all in the name of the children and making life fair. Republicans would lower the percentages a few points. Is that really a difference? And if we have been going back and forth between those two positions, why is the amount of money that government spends only ever going up? There is talk about reducing government, but that's all it is.
If a citizen is looking for true reform in and reduction of government, the two major political parties offer no solutions, they offer no choice, that perspective is not down the middle of their road.
Voter turnout, which has been very low, is due to a number of reasons. Some citizens feel that their vote doesn't matter. Perhaps what they are really saying is that the election doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter because we have this system that insures that while we will veer from side to side, we will always head in the right direction.
Many citizens are content with the current situation, believing that that the middle of the road myth will keep things from getting too much out of control. It's perfectly fine to run on autopilot. For those of us who see little difference in the major parties, the government is not every close to the road. We are taking a misguided and dangerous path.
Finally a few words on the press. For me, there is no doubt that the press is, for all intents and purposes, an extension of the Democratic Party. They are liberal and lazy socialists.
My understanding was that the fundamental role of the press was to deliver the who, what, where, when, and why of a story. Just the facts. Just the truth. Today's press is full of opinion, bias, feelings, and image. They want to tell me what is relevant and necessary for my life. If I will just sit through the commercial message they will show me how much they care about my life by giving me important information. The news or press function is blending more and more with the media and entertainment function. News, movies, situation comedies, doesn't matter. It's all product, it's all programming. Ratings matter - too much. Packaging is more important than content. The President speaks for 5 minutes, and the remaining 25 minutes of the program are devoted to telling me what he said. Many of the so-called Sunday morning shows spend almost half of their time allowing the media personalities to tell me their opinions. All of this content is biased, and as full of lies and distortions as the original material from the politicians.
When a plane crashes, when a team wins a championship, when the Pope dies, when just about anything happens, the press rushes to get the opinion of the President. How lazy. They can simply build a media studio outside of the White House and pretend that the world revolves around what comes out of that one building. As the government extends its control and regulation of education, retirement, child care, health care, jobs, the economy, the environment, and extracts high taxes for the few years that a person is even remotely independent, the press will have an easy job finding the news. It's all being made by the small ruling class that is controlling the rest of us. The rest of us really will no longer matter.
Copyright (c) 1999, Greg Ordy
Last update: Monday, April 29, 2002 07:39 PM
Back to my Home Page