The Ten Political Commandments

There is a new political faith, with key tenets. It is practiced by the red and blue teams, especially in the permanent political campaign. I'm sure there are more than ten commandments, but I became nauseous and had to stop.

1. A blinding facial concussion for an eye. Overwhelming force, repeatedly applied, is the best teacher. (Ignore the cycle of violence it teaches/creates. Ignore that it doesn't deal with root causes of the first eye loss, which could have been accidental or the result of bad processes.)

2. The government can't do anything right and the private sector is infallible. (It is government's job to contract everything to the private sector. Ignore the layers of contractors, each with their 15-20% profit motives. This poison will spread to health care via business process outsourcing. The worst hospital administrators I knew acted like general contractors, the current model of our federal government. There is a widespread failure in leadership.)

3. God blesses those he loves with resources and wealth, i.e. the prosperity gospel. (Who is the government to intervene with God's will by changing tax codes?)

4. Competition brings out the best in everyone and is the best allocator of resources. (Ignore that the government purposefully restricts competition in many markets and major purchase decisions. Ignore the damage competition does to complex processes that require collaboration.)

5. People are motivated by money, thus pay for performance will solve the ills of any problem, especially education and health care. (Ignore that P4P caused people to focus on/manipulate their pay scheme, not improving financial products on Wall Street. Expect the same distortions in teaching and health care delivery)

6. Anyone can be a boot strapper, i.e. pull themselves up from debilitating situations. All it takes is a little grit. (Never mind the mentally ill, the addicted, the frail elderly who lost all their retirement money to Bernie Madoff. Buck up Granny and grab your bootstraps.)

7. Taxes are evil. (A rational discussion of resources required to shepherd our country is not possible, not in the race to the global lowest common denominator on taxes and worker pay/benefits. Congress' corporate sponsors get value for their donations.)

8. The liberal media is the Fourth Estate, holding the other three estates in check. (Corporate owned media is not close to fulfilling its sacred mission. Most talking heads are a diversion, many are a perversion.)

9. Virtually every important freedom is limited, the right to bear arms, the right to pray, free speech, the right to drill for oil offshore, the right to invade any country we want for whatever reason we want, and the right to donate freely to political candidates.

10. Satan did it. He likes making Republicans look bad more so than Democrats, because Democrats are on Satan's side. (When Repugnican'ts mess up, it's clearly the Damnocrats fault.)

As an independent voter, I find most political rhetoric off base, a tool for manipulation. Our elected leaders operate from bad management theory. Ignorance means most solutions will make matters worse.