The Election of Scott Brown

So the other day I had a friend ask me what I thought of the election of Scott Brown to fill Massachusetts senate seat. I don't think she wanted this long of an answer but she got it anyway. After putting so much work into the answer I figured I'd post it and see what you all think. Enjoy!

I am pretty pleased Scott Brown was elected and here's why:

1. Super majorities in congress are not a good thing if you ask me. I remember once when I was younger I was complaining to my Dad that if we could just get some of the dumb democrats out of office and get a few more conservatives into office we could finally start "fixing" the country. We could pass all sorts of laws and repeal all sorts of other laws and get things going in the "right direction" again. I was very surprised when my Dad didn't agree with me. He pointed out to me that America, despite all its faults, is still the greatest nation in the world. Comparatively speaking its citizens have enjoyed and continue to enjoy more prosperity and more freedom than any other nation on earth. Part of the reason for this is the policies and laws, or lack thereof that our leaders in government have been enacting for centuries. Turning over those laws then, and replacing them with radical new unproven ones that sound nice as political rhetoric and promise success is probably not the best idea. In other words, it is a good thing that laws take a long time to change and a long time to put in place.

In fact, to move on from what my Dad said, that is how our system was designed. When the signers of the constitution were initially laying things down they looked long and hard for a motivating factor to drive the new system. Some said that people would participate in government and that it would not become corrupt if it was based on public virtue. That is, people would recognize that it was their moral duty to act decently and for the good of all people in the affairs of government. James Madison, however, knew that this was probably not the best idea (as the Articles of Confederation had already proven and as the French Revolution a few years later would reiterate). Instead, he said that they should create a system that would allow and depend on the competitive interests of the people (all systems eventually come down to this, they just traditionally had depended on the competitive interests of the aristocracy. Putting this competition in the hands of the people was his real revolutionary genius). America, as we see it today is a result of this competition. Our leaders have had to come up with the best ideas they could, or at least package their ideas as attractively as possible in order to gain the public support necessary to pass them into laws. And again, here, we see the real problem with a super majority. When there ceases to be competition ideas don't have to undergo the same scrutiny as other ideas would. That I believe, is one of the big problems with so many of the democrat's ideas. Before the election of Scott Brown they knew they could pass anything they wanted without any realistic competition. That means they could pass stuff that even they, traditionally, would not consider up to par.

2. Now for another reason that I am happy Scott Brown got elected: it gives many democrats (possibly including President Obama) a legitimate reason to back down from supporting the health care bill as it was when they were trying to pass it. Lets go back to election year. One of the biggest things that swept democrats into office were their promises that they were going to "change" things for the better, especially health care. Accordingly, when they came into office the public had really big expectations for them. In fact, expectations were so big for them to deliver on all their big promises that for them not to pass health care and other promised bills would be seen as incompetence to govern on their part. Democrats became so afraid of being seen as incompetent, especially when they had a super majority that they became desperate to just pass anything! They became so desperate in fact that they began resorting to anything to pass their bill. This included sticking in promises to wavering democrats and moderates to fund their pet projects in their districts, adding even greater costs to an already massively expensive bill. It also included rushing things through just so they could show the public, "We got the bill passed!" with the results being, yeah, they got it passed but we have no idea what "it" is.

Now, thankfully, with the election of Scott Brown, democrats have a reason to back down and start over. And, they will be willing to do it because now they have someone to blame. If they (and the republicans would do the same thing in their situation) had to stand up and say, "Hey, we've thought about it and this bill has been really rushed, is full of pet projects, and includes a lot of bad ideas and we're going to start over..." they would never do it. They would prefer to pass a bad bill, pretending everything is fine rather than lose face by admitting they acted hastily and foolishly. Now, again, thankfully, democrats can back down because they can blame their incompetence not on their incompetence but rather on those dang republicans blocking their bill. We may think that's a bad thing, democrats blaming republicans for something that is really their fault but hey, if it means we get a better, more well thought out bill, or even nicer still no bill at all, then I'm all for it.

3. Finally, I am happy Scott Brown was elected because it is a very clear wake up call. Massachusetts is historically a democrat stronghold. Ted Kennedy owned that seat (he even kept it after practically committing murder). The fact that Scott Brown was able to win the seat is a clear sign of what Americans want. In their opinion health care is not the issue right now, and adding trillions of dollars of debt to the deficit is not a good idea. They want to have jobs again and they want to reduce spending. By electing Scott Brown the American people have sent a clear message to President Obama and his party. The American people do not want a radical president. They want someone that will represent or at least address the ideals of both parties. By far, the most effective presidents are not radically to the right or radically to the left (examples include George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. And by effective I mean they were able to do the most, and not necessarily that I agree with everything they did). Scott Brown's election has shown Obama that to govern effectively he will have to be a centrist and that his grandiose visions of how America ought to be should be traded for a consensus of the American People's vision of how America ought to be.

Now, just in closing there is one other thing I want to say: why I am a little worried about Scott Brown's election. His election was a major victory for the republican party. Whether he intended to or not he attracted national and even international attention. Because of this at his acceptance speech there were idiot reporters already asking the question, "would you consider running for president in 2012?" That is the last thing we need; another inexperienced, idiotic senator riding a wave of popularity into the White House. Sorry, as much as I hate the political games and circles of influence I don't think these new faces with no track record to judge them by are the best people to nominate for president. At least we had factual evidence with John McCain that he was a moron. All we had with Obama, and all we would have with Scott Brown are small indications of their future moroncy (P.S. Can we include Sarah Palin on that list too???)