Why Always All or Nothing?

The concept of a representative democracy is that the people's views get represented by the people they elect who then work with all the other representatives to formulate laws.

Now in the first half of the 19th century we saw this system fall apart over the issue of slavery and it led t the civil war.

Now that might be too simplistic really, but it is fundamentally true, as the Southern States worried about having policy dictated to them by the Northern States with larger populations.

Now I wasn't alive in those days and of course information flowed much differently but it seems like we are fundamentally in a similar situation.

Now of course our Government set up checks and balances to try to make sure that everyone's interests were protected to some extent and we see them working but the very fact that they are working is adding to the divisiveness.

The recent rather dramatic health care vote shows the majority party trying to make a major change using a process that bypassed the normal 60 vote requirement but still coming up short.

Now the only way to fix our healthcare system, which does have certain problems, would be for the Government to work together, but that might be impossible in today's environment.

Both parties, although it seems more prominent in the Republican party have become controlled by zealots who refuse to compromise.

Of course, since they still don't represent a majority, they can't force their position of everyone else, as much as they might want to.

In the world I inhabit, admittedly part time now, we are always talking about win-win solutions.

The idea is to find a solution or a settlement that gives both sides what is really important to them while realizing that the 100% solution is not possible.  When that fails the only recourse is a long and expensive legal battle.

Of course maybe we have too many lawyers in the Government who are used to arguing win-lose situations.

This win-lose mentality is why so little gets done and what does get done is immediately attacked by the other side.

Something needs to change.