Dear Rob,
Thanks for sending this clip - http://www.mittvmitt.com/
It is ironic that The Party of Pure Principle "must" choose between two completely unprincipled people.
Oddly, this choice is not only ironic, but predictable.
Voltaire put it well: "The Best is Enemy of The Good."
In the following passage, Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, elaborates on Voltaire: "The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.” "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton
Yesterday, I realized that American "exceptionalism" - in the best sense of the word - is due to her penchant for compromise, thus making disparate peoples and divergent interests "work" together (however shamblingly).
Currently, The United States is "exceptional" only in "her" unwillingness to compromise, which is to say, in her self-chosen goal of making Democracy unworkable.
It is impossible - literally impossible - for any political party with an absolutist view of commonplace "policy domains" to achieve any outcome but political failure... and perhaps collapse.
"No new taxes!" is an egregious example of intransigent absolutism.
Even Thatcherite conservative Niall Ferguson calls "No New Taxes" a "Dogma to Wreck the Country" - http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/24/gop-antitax-dogma-endangers-the-country.html
Unwittingly (or perhaps wittingly!) The Destruction of Democracy may be the aspiration of "The Impossibly Pure Party" - a party pining to return to its mythical "home on the range where the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day."
Yeah. Right.
No matter how strong a person or a party's attraction to "yesteryear," the resurrection of the past is a delusional impossibility.
Pax on both houses
Alan
PS Have you seen Ron Paul's campaign clip, "Newt Gingrich: Serial Hypocrisy"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWKTOCP45zY&feature=player_embedded
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On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 11:07 PM, Rob D wrote:
http://www.mittvmitt.com/
See Mitt Romney battle his evil arch-nemesis -- Mitt Romney from 4 years before. It's a tough fight, but in the end Mitt Romney manages to beat out his earlier self. Both contenders do get bruised a bit in the skirmish. Whomever you are rooting for, whether it's "old mitt" or "new mitt", it's still fun to watch.
Rob
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