The Two-Party System has evolved into the Flip-Flop System. The American voters in all their wisdom have modified this system in order to keep the politicians off balance, so everyone may have the opportunity to have their cake and eat it too.
Of course, we know that you can't have your cake and eat it too; but, this being America, what with freedom of choice and all, we should all have the equal opportunity to try.
Well, the politicians can play that game too, and so they have also brought about a regime change that affords them the opportunity to change the rules at any point in the game. So now we really have a fair system. It's called the Flip-Flop System. The two parties do the flip-flop whenever the voters ask for change.
Change is good in a democracy, in the same way the Gecko character said in the movie WALL STREET, that greed is good for the stock market. Change creates opportunity for the have-nots to become the haves. And since the haves already have it, it's a win-win situation for everyone.
For example, we all believe in keeping America safe against the terrorists and those people who hate us for no reason whatsoever. In one election, the Republicans win by declaring war on terror and the next election the Democrats win by declaring peace against the terrorists. As we all know from our Vietnam War experience that we can win the peace by declaring that the war has been lost.
This is not just a matter of semantics. We've been successful in flip-flopping between winning the war and winning the peace in many arenas. We fought the alcohol industry during the prohibition, and then we repealed the law so people could sell alcohol again. When they asked Elliott Ness, in the movie version of the story, what he was going to do now that the Prohibition was over, he replied, "I'll go have a drink."
Voters flip-flop all the time. In the 2004 Election, the Republicans won both Houses of Congress. In the 2006 election, the Democrats won both Houses of Congress. The Republicans chanted, "flip-flop, flip-flop," in the Republican Convention of 2004. Now, the Republicans are joining the Democrats against the War on Terror and the Democrats are joining the Republicans against Amnesty for the Mexicans who enter the US to pick fruit and vegetables so Americans can afford to feed their families.
The Democrats are now turning Conservative and the Republicans are turning Liberal. Ted Kennedy joined John McCain to introduce the Bill for Amnesty, and to see them both defeated is ironic. Is Amnesty for the Mexican farm laborers, who enter the US illegally to work the fields, a Liberal or Conservative issue?
Well, we know from studying statistics that the Mexican-Americans have contributed to the defense of the US more soldiers and heroes, and have won more medals in major wars than any other immigrant group in US history. This is also true with the Vietnam War and the present War on Terror. However, not many of us know that most of these heroes were and are the children of illegal aliens, who didn't enter the US to break the law but to work.
Moreover, the Mexican-Americans have intermixed better with the Native American culture and they are culturally more akin to Americans in general.
So which is it going to be, give the Mexicans amnesty to stay and work or deport them and build a wall to keep them out? Which is the Conservative and which is the Liberal stance?
It will be an interesting election this coming year, with Catholic, Mormon, Muslim, Protestant and Jewish candidates running for President.
The Election of 2008 will be the first test of the Flip-Flop System and perhaps a paradigm shift in US policy.July 11, 2007
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