One of the hardest things anyone can do is change their political views. I feel like this is not as general a statement as it sounds. I have spent a good deal of time in the last year thinking over what I believe, and I have found that there are a lot of things that I am for or against that are against my faith. Not only against my faith, but just simple contradictions as well. This, I found, was because of our might-as-well-be two-party system of politics.
This in and of itself is an issue, because everything is only relegated to two powers. One of the reasons I was kind of happy President Trump won was because he was not a part of the political world before running, even though he ran as a Republican his being elected as one is another issue because his values do not really line up with those of the the Republican Party anyhow. So, where do you and I land in all of this? Well, I will tell you a bit about myself.
I grew up in a conservative Christian home in Central New York. Yes, there is a part of New York that is not the city or upstate. Have you ever heard of Syracuse?
Anywho, the point is that coming to EMU where, I assume many of us can agree, the majority of people are left-leaning was a change I was not sure I would like. I became defensive pretty often and stand- offish because I was afraid of confrontation, but in the last three years I have changed quite a bit. I have also grown a lot in my faith and identity in Christ, both of which should be firmly at the center of your belief system.
This brings us back to politics. One of the worst things someone can do is fall into what I call “the two-party system of thinking.” What does that mean? Well, there seems to be an understanding in the general public that you belong to either one of two parties and thus must follow their lead. Besides being a foolish thing to do, this is an easy-to-fall-for trap. Republicans and Democrats, if you did not catch on to who I was talking about, say they want to advance the agendas that have their constituents’ wishes in mind.
This, I would argue, is not completely true. I say not completely because they have to be somewhat in true to get your votes. Often agreeing with what their constituents say, they play the field to make it out like they are on your team, but often in reality they only want to line their pockets; they do this by playing the name game with policies.
A good example of this would be the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. It was toted as a solution to health care in the United States but instead just made the prices much higher and the care even worse. But hey, at least everyone is covered, right?
The reason it was bad is actually for a series of bad things. One, it forces people to join or be charged a fee, which means that the insurance companies have a forced demand for their product.
Two, this in turn allows the insurance companies to raise their rates and guarantee there will be people buying. At the same time, this kills smaller companies that cannot make up the gap of losses from having to pick up people who are terminal, as messed up as that sounds.
Three, the government comes in and says that they will help the insurance companies by subsidizing the coverage. This is incredibly bad because that makes the government a cash cow for the companies. All they have to do is raise their rates, say that they need more money from the government or they will have to start dropping people, then wait for that sweet green milk to start flowing in.
This is not an isolated incident either, nor is it relegated to only the Democratic Party, but that is a story for another time. How do they get away with this without getting noticed? Well, they tell their people to just vote for it anyway. A great example of this would be when Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” during the National Association of Counties’ annual Legislative Conference. I do not think I have ever heard a better reason. How about you? One thing that I am aware of in this article is the lack of Republican examples. Besides the Democratic Party being infamous with their naming, the Republican Party has, relatively recently, gotten power in the government. I have no doubt that I will be writing about them soon enough.
That was a lot, I know, but please hold on for just a little longer. All of that said, being loyal to a single party without questioning it or their motives is a foolish thing to do. We should look into the policies that our leaders are trying to pass.
Politics and society is far too complex to put into one of two boxes, unless you are a Libertarian.
By the way, the actual bill of the Affordable Care Act is available online for free. It is like 906 tantalizing pages of beautiful poetry, if I do say so myself.
