https://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-321-garbage-in-garbage-out/
Free to download. Just one of the quotes within:
"People talk about the middle of the road as if it were unacceptable. Actually, all human problems except morals come into the grey areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all the usable surface. The extremes of right and left are in the gutters."
- Dwight Eisenhower
Dan Carlin slams the far left and the far right and has many interesting insights about the current course we are on.
JOJ
That Eisenhower quote is one of the most sensible I've heard in a long time.
Thanks for posting that.
John
I can't think of a better way to express this idea and what would represent the recipe to effectively addressing the divisiveness in our country today.
We need to make this post of the year and it's only January!
Related exactly to this.
I was thinking about the Senate vote in GA earlier this month. Just 2 senators being elected out of 100 but it was billed as the most important election in history because it meant the difference between the republicans having the majority or not having the majority.
The only world where just 2 senators, from 1 state going from republicans to democrats was this powerful is one where all the democrats always vote for one side and all the republicans vote for the other side on a lot of things.
If they represented the real world and were open minded/objective and negotiated with the other side, having a 50-50 split would be optimal.
Instead, having even a 2 person advantage, for instance 51-49 means everything to each party because things are so dang divisive, that this would sometimes mean the difference between having your party winning most of the time, as members vote strictly along party lines and losing ever time.
Problem with compromise is that often, what's compromised is the US Constitution. Seems strange that being a constitutional fundamentalist earns one the label of "Right WInger". Our Federal Government would be much simpler and cheaper if they'd just stick to the guidelines.
Let the states experiment and we can chose to live with whichever level of government makes us the most comfortable.
not to mention that some people's definition of far left or far right hardly fits mine.
"Problem with compromise is that often, what's compromised is the US Constitution. Seems strange that being a constitutional fundamentalist earns one the label of "Right WInger".
Thanks Tim!
That's true...............unless you are a Democrats siting the Constitution (-:
https://americanhistory.si.edu/democracy-exhibition/great-leap/adopting-constitution
In September 1787 Americans had their first chance to see the new constitution proposed by a convention in Philadelphia. Over the summer, the convention had met in private, allowing no press coverage of their debates or decisions. The Providence Gazette and Country Journal was among the newspapers that first published the plan. What followed was a broad debate that Alexander Hamilton called a “Great National Discussion.” Should the states ratify, reject, or amend the document that became the U.S. Constitution?
Copy of U.S. Constitution
Loan from Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History
“We Are One” design detail from Continental paper money, 1776
I thought this quote above was funny. Can you imagine Congress debating something for months with no press coverage?
Today, even when you do things in secret or that are classified, you still might get leaks(at least during the last 4 years).
Actually, there were "leaks" during the convention. Conversations and comments in various forms outside of the actual convention. These have been crucial, at least academically, in the determination of the intent of the founders.