In my first post I noted that there were several lines of thought that have been woven into it.  One that is not in clear view, but that runs beneath the surface is a clash of opposites.  In a conversation during lunch, it was mentioned that politics is such an angry business.  Of late, our representatives seem to lack a common ground on which to meet, and are therefore left with only one option—to stand in opposition.  This was an older gentleman who has personal memories of Harry Truman, so the use of the phrase 'of late' meant the last few of decades.

This got me thinking.  He's right, I thought.  The common ground that he understood as missing, was missing for a reason.  It reminded me of the class between Washington and Hamilton on the one side, and Jefferson and Madison on the other at the founding of our nation.  For our founders the question was the nature of our government.  Was it to be republican or federal?  The debate was hot and heavy, and it was so for a good reason.  The two sides simply began with two difference assumptions about what shape our government 'should' take.

This brings me to the debate of today.  This clash has been building for many decades.  And it is not over the shape of government, but the nature of government, and maybe the nature of reality.  You have on the one hand those who begin with the notion that human beings are individuals who come together to establish a society and owe that society an honest effort to insure domestic tranquility.  They understand that government's power, the social will, is a power that needs to be expressed carefully.  To not do so is to only augment the reality that life is not only unfair, but also often harsh and cruel.  And so they see that the job at hand is to insure that government is blind, that it is shaped to treat all equally, even while knowing that all are not equal in talent, standing, or quality.

On the other side are those to take issue with the above.  They begin with the idea that life is unfair and so it must be made to be fair.  We are not individuals coming together, but rather a group by nature or necessity.  As such the individual owes the group, or better put, the individual's labor is owned by the group.  Government is seen as the means to remove the unfairness, harshness, and cruelty of life, even if it means crushing the individual.  The power of government is not seen as having the ultimate potential of tyranny, of bending the individual's will to the group's, but rather the ultimate purpose of insuring that the individual does bend to the will of the group.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I understand and would love to embrace the impulse to remove unfairness from this world.  I just know that without a change in human nature (a topic for future post), acting upon the impulse would only result in greater unfairness.  I cannot help but conclude, therefore, that there is a battle over the soul of America.  It is between those who seek to establish a 'realistic' society of individuals and those who shape the individual to create a 'utopian' society.  This is why 'individualism' is attacked as selfish and evil.  This is why socialism, or more accurately collectivism, is honored as generous and good.  This was the dynamic at the center of the conversation between then candidate Obama and Joe the plumber.  This is why candidate Obama could speak with confidence that he would sound largess when he asked Joe in effect, "Doesn't it make sense in these tough times for you to want to share your toys (wealth)?"  What candidate Obama was really saying was, "Doesn't it make sense for government to use it's power in these tough times to force you abandon the priorities of life you have establish for the use of your toys (wealth), and force upon you the priorities I deem proper?

Yes, that is why there is such contention and angst in politics in recent 'decades.'  This is also why the calls for bipartisanship by the President are hollow at best, and disingenuous at worst.