Higgins: Cowboys and Indians
Written by Tim Higgins | | letters@toledofreepress.com
I am normally of the opinion that those reminiscing about ‘The Good Old Days’ should be bludgeoned with one of the ponderous tomes of history that illustrate how truly wrong they are. That being said however, I have to admit that making judgments at least seemed far easier when I was younger. Books, TV, and the movies had us convinced that cowboys were always the good guys (except when they wore black hats) good triumphed over evil, and love triumphed over all when we used to play ‘Cowboys and Indians’.
Reality proved far more complex as I got older, and many of the truths I knew from these sources weren’t always so. Not all the guys wearing black hats were villains, not all the guys wearing white hats were heroes; and sometimes the Indians beat the cowboys (and deserved to) because they were just people trying to defend a land and a way of life they thought was their own. As for love, it was subject to luck and circumstance; and sometimes in spite of the best efforts of the people involved, it still failed.
This comes to mind rather often when I look at much of what is portrayed in politics, and some of what’s written even here by my fellow pundits in the TFP. Some of them still seem far too sure that you can still tell the good guys from the bad by the color of their hats (something that in today’s society could be considered ‘profiling’). They appear naïve enough to insist that you can tell the good guys from the bad guys, simply by knowing the political party that they belong to.
Personally, I think that the reality of political parties is far more complicated and nefarious. There are self-serving bastards on both sides of the aisle, whose only goal is to move up the political food chain by fair means or foul; and whose only care where the people are concerned is to pander to them publicly while playing them for a sucker in private. There are also good people attempting to do the right thing, though perhaps not as many as there used to be or as I would prefer. Unfortunately, the current system is one that increasingly rewards party loyalty above constituent loyalty, with personal integrity coming in a tragic third.
Some might prefer to do the right thing, but know that if they stand in opposition to the political party to which they are nominally affiliated; they will quickly be relegated to political obscurity. If they don’t support that party (right or wrong), it in turn won’t support them financially or otherwise; and will likely doom their re-election possibility. Afraid of missing out on plum appointments or re-election, they are forced to stake out and defend ideology that they don’t agree with.
In what some might deem simple cowardice and others mere political expediency, both major political parties allow the flawed system of ‘adversarial politics’ to doom this nation not to entrenched positions as they would like us to believe, but to a two party-supported stagnation created out of the belief that nothing will change because nothing can change which serves their best interests.
Congress has become the place where good ideas go to die, as both parties seek not to calmly analyze the benefits and liabilities of an idea, but to mischaracterize and demonize it in order to bait their nominal opponents. It may be good politics to do so, but it’s bad policy. Taxing and spending are both necessary to this nation’s future. Common sense might put limits on both, but allowing the demagoguery over such issues to die (especially in an election year) is likewise bad politics for the Jackasses and Elephants.
I would like to hope that those entrenched in ‘the party’ could simply be voted out office, allowing people of good will to do their job; but the incumbents in control of the two major parties seem to have far too much of a strangle hold on the system these days. The rules of the game are written for their benefit and not that of citizens. (How else can you explain that taxpayers pay for party primaries in spite of the fact that there are more Independents than Democrats or Republicans?)
It would be easy to join some of my brethren, and return to the simple-minded days of black hats and white. Instead of demonizing the people, the parties (as I appear to have done here), I’d rather demonize the system and the ideas being put forward. I may sometimes miss the days of my childhood, but not enough to return to playing ‘Cowboys and Indians’ with them.
