Gridlock

The reason for the breakdown in the ability to compromise in Congress is simple.  It is because of one word that Barack Obama emphasized when he ran for president in 2008.  That word is 'Change'.  Before Obama became president there certainly were policy differences between the two dominant political parties, but they were generally on the same page regarding the basic American principles of capitalism, democracy and social culture.  That is no longer the case.  Today's Democrats are intent on changing everything.  They advocate big government, socialism, income redistribution, sexual revolution, educational indoctrination, and politically correct behavior.  They use junk science 'studies' and fabricated polls to back their agenda. They impose their mandates by ignoring Constitutional law and controlling the sources of information.

Democrats are intentionally polarizing the country because they hate traditional America.  They tell us that the United States is mean, evil, and the cause of all the world's problems rather than the defender of freedom and engine of global economic growth we have been for more than a century.  Something has gone very wrong in America's information distribution and educational systems.  It is almost as if the nation's most bizarre lunatics have become the media producers and editors, college professors, educational institution administrators, and designers of high school and college curriculums.

America does not need to change our basic principles.  We have continued to evolve for 235 years to deal with and solve the problems of social injustice and economic imbalances that every country on earth faces.  We have succeeded in eliminating the underlying foundations of social injustice as much as humanly possible, even though the critics refuse to believe it.  The vast majority of Americans today are color blind.  No society can ever totally eliminate ethnic antipathies, unless it conducts brainwashing mind control or extermination.  But that is unnecessary because the intolerant can be ignored.

We do still have a long way to go regarding economic issues, and the only way to succeed is through the fundamental principles of capitalism - private enterprise, free markets and limited government interference.  Trashing capitalism in our educational system, income redistribution, big government interference in commerce and industry, and socializing major sectors of the economy will kill any hope of generating widespread prosperity for all.  It will leave us with wealth concentrated in the authoritarian few at the top of the financial, academic, and political food chain.

In reality, the progress of the last fifty years has been phenomenal.  America is full of women and members of ethnic minorities at the top of every profession, corporate enterprise, educational institution and government organization, as well as throughout the mid-levels of each occupation on their way to the top.  Discrimination in hiring no longer exists for minorities.  All one needs is the credentials.  Color of skin has nothing to do with gaining meaningful employment, except for the federally legislated discrimination against white men in seeking many job opportunities.

The percentage of women and minorities near the top of every endeavor is generally not yet equivalent to their percentage of the population, but it is closing fast.  The reason it is not yet there is because white men did have a head start.  Society cannot snap its fingers and get to where it wants to be overnight.  In another generation there will be near equivalency of men, women and minorities in positions of responsibility and compensation packages.  Society needs to chill out and let evolution run its course.  Political gridlock and demands for change will lead to nothing but intensified cultural polarization, ethnic animosity, societal turmoil, and eventually devolution from the social integration and economic prosperity created by the century of American success.