The current discussion about the Obama mandate is proof that even though we are a United States, we are different in our outlooks on our country's future. That doesn't make us enemies. . It means that we have not yet had the real debates and discussions that need to happen before we reach consensus and our legislature and policy makers decide they know what's best. for everyone.
We need the interest groups to team up with the politicians and activists on the local level and to have more town hall meetings where people can ask real questions and get real answers. We need the Congress to focus again on their constituents and not expect to be educated by lobbyists. We need to get the people involved in governing again. . The way to have a real representative government is to understand the people who are to be represented and to know what they want. People can't have an informed opinion if their Congresspeople and the activists are not educating them. In my opinion, we need to get back to the communities and neighborhoods and get the people energized, educated and actually governing.
It will be a mistake at this stage in the game for either party to assume that they have been given a blank check to do whatever they want to do in respect to the important issues we face. In respect to tax reform, I see no indication that the people of the United States have said we want across the board tax hikes. It is more likely that the people want to see the rich paying their fair share of the tax responsibility. As for the corporations who are posting record profits and still not paying very much in taxes, we want to see them more directly involved in community and neighborhood development.
I think the Democratic pundits are missing the big picture in respect to the president's mandate. I think if you ask most people, they will say they have lost confidence in both political parties and what they want is for the government to find new ways to accomplish things, ways that are not so polarizing and that we can compromise upon without feeling that we had to abandon everything that we believe. I also think that one of the biggest changes people want, is for the people's interests to finally take priority over the interests of the political parties. In other words, I think the president won a mandate, not the Democratic Party. President Obama is the President of the United States of America, not only the Democratic party.
Republicans are not absolutely wrong when they say we need to be careful not to make the US an environment that is hostile to business, and the Democrats are not absolutely wrong when they say its not fair for the CEOs to be making millions of dollars in salaries that are not being fairly taxed and complaining that the tax code is hostile to business or that they will be prevented from making any profit.if they are asked to pay more taxes. We need new solutions, not old ideas forced down the public's throat with claims of mandate. We need new BIG ideas about how to move this country forward and we need a president of all the people, to show us how to get there and to lead us there. In other words, we need to start by listening to one another without judgement and hostility.
A leader with a mandate doesn't have to listen to anyone, he has to listen to everyone because a large majority of people have said to him, lead us out of this mess! They voted to say guide us, not go back to old ideas and start stuffing it down everyone's throat while screaming "mandate." Obama is a man of intellect and ideas. He understands what we need in this country, he just needed the people to give him the real power to get it done. To do this, we must stop calling for compromise before we start calling for new ideas upon which we can all compromise and feel good about what we have done..
The positive power of this approach is proven by the fact that more states are accepting the idea of same sex marriage, and more are willing to accept that marijuana should be legalized. What changed? The approach taken by the activists and politicians who presented these ideas. They changed the way we see the problems, which allows us to change our response to the issues without feeling that we were coerced by anyone or anything except our own good sense. .It was a Republican, not a Democrat that pushed marijuana legalization into the mainstream political discourse. It was two straight Republican legal experts and attorneys who taught the LGBT community how to argue their case without ignoring the sensitivities of people who live by Holy scriptures that condemn sodomy. We know that we, as a people are not as polarized as the political parties are and that is why we must take politics back from the parties and return our government to the people if we hope to get anything done.
President Barack Obama has a mandate to lead this country into the 21st century, and to open the doors to big and new ideas, to remove the fear that permeated our political discourse and replace that fear with a spirit of confidence that says we can do this, and more. We need to hear new voices, see new faces, and become acquainted with new groups of people and learn their interests too. The diversity of the US society demands this.
More than a mandate, the president, in my opinion, has been given a huge vote of confidence and a challenge. Take this great experiment and move it into the 21st century using the model of governance prescribed by its founders. He mist forget executive power and use executive influence, and the other powers of intellect, heart, trust and all of the virtues the people see in him. Those are the president's greatest powers. He must stop ignoring the US Constitution. It is our friend in this run for the future.
Of course the President has a vision of his own and he presented some of that vision during his campaign. Yet, since so much of substance was ignored so that the candidates could focus our attention on the economy, we never got to hear much of it. Now is the time for him to share it, but only perhaps after listening to some of the new discussions. After listening ro more Americans, he might even want to change his own outlook. Who knows? And that is the beauty of it all. We don't start a transformation with already knowing. We begin with listening and learning. If the president uses his mandate in the right way, it will unify us and what we need now, more than anything else, is to learn to work together.. .
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