John Derbyshire
There is, in fact, no politics in the USA. All significant political posts are held by either Democrats or Republicans, and on every issue likely to be thought important by the historians of 500 years hence, the two parties are of the same mind.
Think of some big American national-policy questions of our time.
• Should abortion be unconstitutional?
• Why are we in NATO—an alliance created to deter Soviet imperialism—21 years after the Soviet Union ceased to exist?
• Should “chain” immigration be restricted to spouses and dependent children?
• Should race preferences by public agencies be unconstitutional?
• With life expectancy today around 15 years above what it was when Social Security was introduced and seven or eight years higher than when Medicare came in, why have not eligibility ages for these entitlements been adjusted upward to correspond?
• If our massive nuclear arsenal was sufficient to deter the USSR, why would it not be sufficient to deter Iran?
• Why are there no secure fences along our nation’s land borders?
• Should welfare recipients be allowed to vote?
• Should public employees be allowed to unionize?
• Instead of a 3.4-million-word federal tax code, could not necessary revenue be raised by means any ordinary educated citizen can understand in their entirety?
• Instead of a 3.4-million-word federal tax code, could not necessary revenue be raised by means any ordinary educated citizen can understand in their entirety?
• Why does Congress never declare war, as Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides? Why do they never deny appellate jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, as Article III, Section 2 permits?
• What does the USA gain by permitting large-scale settlement of Muslims in our country?
• A shortage of skills in some occupation is signaled economically by a rapid, prolonged rise in wages for that occupation. Why, in the absence of such signals, are guest-worker visas issued?
• Should civil servants be hired strictly by merit as determined by competitive examinations?
You can likely add a few of your own, but that’s enough to make my point, which is: If any of those questions were to be posed to our two current major presidential candidates, how different would you expect their answers to be? How different would you expect policy to be on any of these questions as a result of the coming election going one way rather than another?
I doubt I’ll bother to vote in November.