Shelby County Police Chiefs meeting

The 6th Congressional district candidates were invited to the Shelby County Chiefs of Police Association meeting yesterday.  This is my selective recapitulation of discussion which took place.  The other 6th district candidates are invited to leave comments on this entry, or to email me comments which they wish to be added to this entry, and I will add them.

In the meeting, the candidates put forth ideas and  policies for governmental actions to help address serious problems facing the country.  My campaign platform is that, in Washington DC, there is not government "of, by and for" the people, and the causes of that condition are also causes of Congress being dysfunctional and unable to do its job properly for the American people.  With respect to the ideas and policies that 6th district candidates propounded at the meeting yesterday, there is a significant problem if a dysfunctional Congress is incapacitated from passing laws implementing good ideas and policies.  This means that primacy must be put on diagnosing why Congress is dysfunctional and coming up with how to try to fix that.

After the candidates spoke, a question was posed about party leadership controlling independence of junior members advocating positions different from the leadership, such control being wielded, say, by how assignments to Congressional committees are doled out.

I expressed to the meeting that I think there is excessive top down control.  I suggested this was part of how the political class in Washington, for its personal benefit, exploits and exacerbates "us against them" political divisiveness.  With that going on, the leadership has little use for junior members weakening the efficacy of the "party line"  for keeping the voters on your party's side riled up against the other side and turning out to vote.. 

Another question raised after the candidates spoke related to what to do about the U.S. military being extended beyond its limits, and near exhausted, in the deployment that has been made of the military in the recent time, and how can the same military stance be kept up by the country.

I limited my response to my theme about the political class in Washington DC exploiting and exacerbating "us against them" political divisiveness, and that this is carried over to the conduct of foreign affairs and wars and can result in very wrong decisions, that is deplorable; and thus it is important for the country to reduce the "us against them" mindset in domestic politics to help prevent it from carrying over and resulting in errors being made in the conduct of foreign affairs.