Governance and cultural and social ideology

This last weeks nonsense about the budgets has Common Sense wondering: What role should cultural and social ideology play in governance?

The question turns out to be in many ways central to democratic governance.  Laws and social policies are in fact a reflection of shared values and perspectives.  Some of these are widely accepted.  With few exceptions it's wrong to kill each other.  Others, such as abortion rights, are rather more controversial.  It is in these areas where democracy struggles, where it is difficult to answer the essential question of what is good for the country as a whole and people as individuals.

While these kinds of questions are never been easy in a democracy, of late Common Sense thinks that they have become much more difficult.  Indeed, it seems that increasingly idealogical purity has replaced reasoned discourse.  This makes reaching a reasonable consensus not just far more difficult but virtually impossible.  Sadly, this failure often threatens to aggravate the very issue being addressed, to make the problem worse, not better.

As a case in point consider the recent battle over Planned Parenthood funding.  It is a fact that Planned Parenthood provides a variety of services including abortion referrals.  It is also a fact that under existing Federal law it is illegal for Planned Parenthood to use Federal funds for abortions.  As a consequence the organization has created a wall between it's other Federally funded activities and it's abortion services.  Those are indisputable facts.  A number of studies have shown rather conclusively that if Planned Parenthood were defunded that among the consequences would be serious deterioration of health among poor women and, this is the part that matters here, an increase in abortions as absent birth control services more unplanned pregnancies occur. The common sense consequence is that defunding Planned Parenthood makes the issue of abortions worse, not better.  The net is that if you oppose abortion or simply regard it as a tragedy it makes good sense to fund Planned Parenthood and other agencies that help women avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Common Sense thinks that real problems, particularly difficult issues, need real common sense solutions.  Abortion is a tragedy.  Idealogical purity driven social and cultural chauvinism that creates more abortions is plainly immoral in Common Sense's view.

Perhaps if this were the only example Common Sense could excuse it as one of those things where feelings are so strong that common ground simply doesn't exist.  Sadly, it's not.  Last week saw enforcement of the Clean Air laws and Medicare privatization at issue over similar cultural chauvinism.

The Tea Party won some seats in Congress.  It's caucus list 52 members.  The House has 435 members.  That means that the Tea Party represents about 12% of the house.  It's also worth noting that 2 in 3, 66%, of Tea Party candidates LOST their election bid.  The Tea Party is clearly a minority.  They clearly do not represent a majority of Americans.  That said, they are a significant minority.  As Common Sense has previously noted, tyranny by the majority is not acceptable in a democracy.  The Tea Party voice clearly deserves to be heard.  However, having a voice and holding the country hostage isn't acceptable.  Tyranny by a minority is every bit as unacceptable, particularly when it aggravates the very issues it purports to address, holds active duty military families hostage and threatens the welfare of all Americans.

America deserves better from Congress and our elected representatives including the Tea Party.  That's just a common sense perspective.