Evan Bayh's Announcement

The decision by Evan Bayh to decline to run for re-election says a lot of things about the state of American politics. I took it for what he said. Based on his standing in Indiana I do not think he was in any real jeopardy even if former Senator Dan Coats did announce. His father was swept out in the 1980 election by Dan Quayle but from all that I read Senator Bayh was not facing a real challenge. So his comment about the climate in Washington was on target.

Some commentators have tried to put a partisan spin on the announcement blaming either the President or the GOP. I do not think that is what he was saying.

On Facebook there were lots of comments about how do we make this right. One commentator suggested we get back to some core values (she specifically said not religious ones). That got me to think about what those core values would be, and indeed because we our values spring from Judeo-Christian I think they are fundamentally religious although not tied to a particular religion (remember the First Amendment has two parts - free exercise of religion and no establishment of a state religion).

As I thought about it there are two core values which neither party seems to think about. The first is the Golden Rule. The second is self-reliance. A good part of the political debates of the last decade from my view have ignored both rules. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is extended by many on the left to suggest that we should do for. That is not the point. But the principle of self-reliance is often mis-interpreted on the right by saying that governmental assistance is never justified.

If you take those two principles - the size and shape of government would be a lot smaller but it would also in those core functions encourage individual initiative.