My-Way-or-the-Highway
I just read an interesting op-ed piece on the yahoo.com website, titled “Is this the ‘worst Congress ever’? The article begins, “The debt ceiling showdown has revealed Washington’s deepening divisions, and aversion to compromise of any sort.” Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, says that hardliners in both parties have gained such power that compromise is basically dead, even on critically important matters.
People in both parties have moved away from the middle and toward the extremes, of both left and right. Extremists have taken on the role of obstructionists, and seem to revel in their new-found power. Compromise, to those holding this dysfunctional mindset, is something evil, and therefore to be avoided.
The American public seems to be increasingly frustrated, and rightly so, with this sort of ideological rigidity. As I said in the previous posting, I see this ideological rigidity all around, in all sorts of areas. It’s a malaise that’s very hard to cure, because those who see the world this way are esssentially insecure. And leaving the comfort of their ideology leaves them feeling vulnerable.








