Lawmakers confrontational attitude is hurting our society

Yesterday, I was lauding Hau Long-bin for his willingness to work with people from opposite parties for the common good of the people. In the last 6 years, it has been obvious that most politicians have put their own parties first and the real long-term interest of the people last. It may be because their own political ambitions depends on how the party fares in elections, and they think that helping officials from another party, even if it's in the best interest of the people, will be detrimental to themselves.

This confrontational attitude exists across the political spectrum, but it has been especially acute among pan-blue supporters since they lost the highest executive post in 2000. I am very ready to admit that president Chen Shui-bian has many faults and that he has been a less than ideal president, but we must recognize that he has constantly been trying to extend olive branches both to the opposition in Taiwan and to the mainland Chinese leadership. He has made efforts to reach out to the other site, certainly because it was his interest to do so, but the Taiwanese people would have also benefited a lot if that olive branch had been accepted.

It is unfortunate that many people's opinion have been manipulated by biased media to blame the president for everything that goes wrong. Everybody knows that's it's the president's fault if there are so many people who commit suicide!

The Taiwan Association of University Professors is not dupe, though. The professors blame poor DPP performance on the legislature:

The Taiwan Association of University Professors yesterday blamed the pan-blue controlled legislature for the governing party's poor performance, saying that lawmakers wielded too much power over budgets and policies.

The association, known for its pro-independence stance, made the remarks yesterday in connection with the publication of a report on the nation's politics.

Ho Tsing-jen (何清人), the association's president, said that recent polls showed that the public was unsatisfied with the performance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but that in fact this poor showing was due to the legislature being able to dominate other government agencies -- and wield more power than the president.

For example, legislative power far exceeds the power of the nominal Control Yuan, Ho said. That body has been effectively dormant due to the pan-blue camp's refusal to review and approve the president's nominations.

The government cannot guide policies in such an environment, he said.

In order to help remedy this kind of confrontational attitude, I have had a project in mind for a long time which I probably will unveil in the next few months. In short, I would like to reach out to the two sides of any debate, and ask them to make a common statement on what they can agree, on how they are willing to cooperate with each other.

If you are interested in this kind of positive action, please do join us and contact me to share what you have in mind. Thanks.