23 August 2012

It's still the economy stupid...

Just as the GOP will use the non-issue of gun rights to inflame their base, the democrats are using the settled abortion issue to rev up their connection with women.  From the DNC’s view, the GOP will immediately drop burkhas over women and require them to be subject to arranged marriages and victimized by honor killings.  This is the same fantasy rhetoric the GOP uses in regards to the present administration’s supposed plan to confiscate firearms and subject citizens to twenty-four hour surveillance.  The sheer absurdity of these arguments ignores the fact the in Roe v Wade and Keller (in DC) these portions of law are largely settled and it is only the outlier states and municipalities which are holdouts against universal reproductive and gun rights.

 

The problem this causes is that it creates a film though which rational people must  battle in order to have any discussion about real issues.  These are issues over the size and role of government, the type and scope of fiscal policy and whether the USA will be a nation engaged with the world from a position of strength or an isolated country.  Personally, the social debate is absurd in my mind on its face.  No president has had any influence on social issues as these are almost always driven from the population and routed through the courts.

 

Good and intelligent friends of mine will wind themselves up over these issues with seeming amnesia over the actual impact over the past 20 years.  None of these rights has eroded, in fact they have expanded and become more established. 

 

The economy, however, is another matter entirely.