What We Really Need For The New Year

We don't need a leader whose specialty is passion, not reason (sorry, Maureen). And we don't need ridiculous, arbitrary rules that frustrate democracy, rather than giving it free reign (sorry, Ross).

We need to have faith in the power of reason, freely expressed in an orderly fashion. That doesn't happen in societies where leaders lead by affection (or fear, or both) rather than with votes. And it doesn't happen when rules are put into place (i.e., the filibuster, term limits) that exist solely out of a lack of faith in the power of votes.

I am not making an argument for reason over passion. I believe that reason and passion have somehow become divorced in our society, and that fact goes a long way toward explaining the dysfunctionality of our political system. Let's hope that 2010, and the Teens in general, are a year, and a decade, of kissing and making up. The alternative is something that no one, including me, wants to contemplate.