Reason #12: Partisan Playfighting

The way our leaders gin up phony controversies with non-issues like flag burning reminds me of professional wrestling. Everybody knows that so-called sport is fake and yet millions of people tune in to watch sweaty, oversized behemoths in tights pretend to pound each other to the canvas. Our politics have turned into the same kind farce. Republicans and Democrats stand on either side of the aisle and lob insults at each other, but it’s all just for show. They’re really just shadow boxing as a way to distract us from the real problems they don’t want, or don’t know how, to solve.

Both parties need the status quo. And both of them depend on the ignorance and passivity of the American people to maintain their power.

There used to be substantive differences between the two parties. The role of government, the use of our military, the way we educated our children - Republicans like Barry Goldwater and Democrats like John F Kennedy used to have major philosophical disagreements over these kinds of issues. But when you examine big policy questions like these nowadays, you find that the two parties are really only arguing over slight shades of difference. It’s no longer a matter of whether we should have a big government. That question was answered long ago. Now, it’s only about how big Big Government should be and which departments and agencies should get the lions’ shares of our tax dollars.

Put simply, both parties need the status quo. And both of them depend on the ignorance and passivity of the American people to maintain their power. So instead of debating the best ways to truly make things better, the two parties jab at each other about trivial, cosmetic squabbles. This constant play fighting is yet another reason why we wind up with money grubbing mental lightweights in our elected offices instead of dependable leaders. Why would anyone with integrity and a real love for his or her country tolerate these charades?

NEXT: Reason #13: Second Stringers in the White House