Paying The Piper-Part 8/1-An Unpleasant Ticket To The Past

Sub Part: One

While America has many political parties, usually only the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are considered to be "major," but so called "third party" candidates have, at times, garnered more than just a small percentage of the votes for any given office, although third party candidates seldom win an election. Since we don't have a parliamentary system, where members are apportioned according to the percentage of the vote by the public for each political party, our two-party system has served us pretty well. In order to attract a broad spectrum of votes, candidates from the two major parties typically either "lean" conservative, or "lean" progressive, or they are so middle of the road they are, well, right in the middle, with the more extremist types being a distinct minority. Much of that has changed over the last few decades, as conservative elements, some being very to extremely conservative, have tended to support the Republican Party. In more recent times those very to extremely conservative elements have gradually taken over the party, even going so far as to label some Republican officeholders "RINO"s ("Republicans In Name Only"), and to even suggest that these people should leave the party.*/** In the last couple of elections, Republican members of both the House and the Senate have been whittled down, with only a few exceptions, to very conservative members. Former "maverick" John McCain has now abandoned long held positions (like on immigration and bipartisanship) to hold onto his Senate seat against a very conservative Republican primary challenger. In fact, McCain now says he was never a "maverick," in spite of all the film/video footage of him over the years claiming the "maverick" mantle.

All of this leads me to the present, where some Republican candidates have made statements against things like Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance. Since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, pro-business Republicans have helped to give business and the wealthy interests a decided edge over anything, including common sense. All the while, income disparity has grown by leaps and bounds. With the election of George W. Bush, we saw certain parts of the economy go back to the days of the Wild West, where either there were no laws, or there was no one really interested in enforcing the scant laws on the books.*** President Bush began his second term with a push to privatize part of Social Security; an attempt that failed. The thing is, now we have some Republicans claiming Social Security, Medicare and unemployment are illegal!!!**** Many conservatives (in this case, I'm not always meaning Republicans) have had an obsession with Social Security since it became law in the mid 1930s. Some of the more modern conservatives have wanted some form of privatization, and I've written here before about my father's warning about it. My dad was a rock-ribbed Republican, but when he got older and found that Social Security did provide some "security," he told me that Republican attempts to privatize parts of it were misguided, and that business interests "can't wait to get their hands on that money!" To be continued.... (A Word History is below the notes)

* This is not to say that Democrats have not, at times, done similar, perhaps the most famous being Franklin Roosevelt's attempt to "purge" some Democratic members of Congress who hadn't been as supportive of his agenda in the 1930s. The major difference, however, is that the Democratic Party has always had such diverse segments, that Democrats have fought with each other, at times, as much as they have with Republicans. The late comedian Will Rogers said in one famous statement, "I don't belong to any organized political party; I'm a Democrat."

** This doesn't mean that all, or even a majority of, Republicans feel that way, but in our multifaceted ways of getting information these days, often times the loudest shouters, or the shrillest of the shrill, get the attention.

*** I've written many times that Republicans didn't do all of this themselves, as they had help from "some" Democrats in Congress, and within the Clinton Administration, although some of those Democrats eventually switched to become Republicans.

**** These programs are not perfect, and they will require adjustments, but the idea that they are illegal is pretty far out there to me, but look out for what's coming if these kinds of ideologues join Congress.

WORD HISTORY:
Poll-"Supposedly" this word goes back to an Indo European root, "boul," which had the notion of "round object." This gave Old Proto Germanic the offshoot "pulio," which meant "head, top." Apparently Anglo-Saxon/Old English did not have a form of this word (I couldn't find one), but it could have died out before it was ever recorded, likewise with some German dialects. English borrowed the word from Low German in the late 1200s as "pol/polle" (I found both spellings). In Low German it was "pol, poll, pole," and it not only meant "head," but also "hair of the head," and these meanings passed into English, too, although the "hair" meaning eventually died out, but it took awhile. By the 1600s (1625, according to one source) the meaning of "head" was used to mean "counting heads" during a public vote; thus "poll" and the meaning associated with elections to this day. During the early 1900s, it also came to be used for people giving opinions on various issues or candidates; thus "public opinion poll." A few centuries ago, a verb form meant "to cut hair." This then came to be applied to deeds, with a "deed poll" being a deed executed by only one person or party, and the deed copies were cut straight, and not indented. With indenture deeds/agreements, the agreement copies were cut with various jagged indentations. When legal issues arose, the copies had to fit together, showing that they were from the same agreement. (Get it?) Besides the Low German form mentioned above, Swedish dialect (not standard) has "pull," which means "head," and Danish has "puld," which means "crown of the head or hat."