You will often hear politicians and pundits complaining about government gridlock.
Anytime you hear this be assured that the speaker either has no understanding of the nature of the history of the founding of our Constitutional Republic or is a Democrat trying to shut up any opposition to their grand plans. Unfortunately, usually both.
Our system of government is designed to be slow and cumbersome. Checks and balances are in place to prevent humans from being human. It is supposed to be very difficult to move legislation through the House and the Senate and get a President to sign it into law.
If it was easy the route from a Constitutional Republic to an Authoritarian State administered by the political elites would have been a quick one. We are seeing, in Obama's Executive actions, what the Founders were trying to prevent. Not being able to get Congress to go along with his wishes he has invoked "Gridlock" (the prescribed state of normal for a Constitutional Republic) in order to justify his actions.
It is demoralizing to watch supposedly informed policy makers and their critics display their utter lack of understanding of our Constitutional Republic. The Founders were very clear that they were creating a system where getting anything done politically would be very difficult. Persuasion and compromise would be the only paths to legislation. That was the point. Every new law infringes our liberty. It was never their intention that we should have 51 legislatures filled with career politicians doing nothing but passing laws day and night.
Civility has never been part of American politics. Today whenever the admonition to be civil in politics is issued it is from the mouths of Democrats and actually means Republicans should shut up and go along with whatever it is Democrats want to do.
Politics were so "civil" around the time of the Founding that Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fought a duel with pistols. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr%E2%80%93Hamilton_duel Hamilton died of his wound.
Things were so civil when Lincoln was elected President that political cartoons portrayed him as a monkey.
In 1856 things were so civil..."In 1856, a South Carolina Congressman, Preston Brooks,
nearly killed Sumner on the Senate floor two days after Sumner
delivered an intensely anti-slavery speech called "The Crime Against
Kansas".[2] In the speech, Sumner characterized the attacker's cousin,[3][4] South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, as a pimp for slavery.[5]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sumner
Brooks never suffered any real consequences for his attempted murder.
" Although an attempt to oust him from the House of Representatives
failed, and he immediately resigned his seat, he received only token
punishment ( a $300 fine. A fairly large sum at the time) and was re-elected by the people of South Carolina." http://www.ushistory.org/us/31e.asp
In fact, Southern newspapers applauded his actions and suggested there should be much more of the same.
George W Bush was routinely vilified in and out of the press as a Nazi, warmonger, war criminal and everything else under the sun by every Democrat with a mouth.
"Politics ain't bean bag" has been a saying in active use since 1895. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finley_Peter_Dunne
Civility and Gridlock lamentations have only one goal, as I stated earlier: To bully us into going along. My advice? Don't.
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