Standing in the way of progress today is....

...the American political process.

After one-on-one with Obama, McConnell vows to slow White House agenda

So it seems that the only way we can get things done is to be completely obstructionist.  I've always been a staunch liberal, and I'm sure that has come across and oozed from every political post that I've ever put up here, but when it comes to Congress simply stonewalling, and halting progress, it doesn't matter who is in charge in the houses of Congress or who is presiding in the White House, partisan politics only hurt the American people.  If you switch the name Obama with Bush, and switch McConnell with either Reid or Pelosi, it would have been the same story for the previous administration.

The ultimate goal of congress seems to be to bring the wheels of progress to a grinding halt.  They are not properly representing their constituency and they are not earning their paychecks by simply being obstructionist.  The only thing that both parties seem to agree on is that we need to spend more money to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  So far the two campaigns have cost 1.06 TRILLION  dollars, which nets out to about 7500 bucks per taxpayer(link), and while the Iraqi campaign seems to be winding down, it doesn't seem like we're ever going to stabilize Afghanistan. 

Meanwhile, we have never fully emerged from this recession, and the jobless claims have been less than encouraging.  During the Bush administration, I remember reading calls from Republican members of congress and pundits to support the president or be branded a traitor.  Now that Obama is facing this same struggle, some of these same voices are urging anyone with a conservative voice to stonewall the president, giving no more chance for the "liberal agenda" to be brought to fruition.  With the emergence of the Teabaggers as a veritable voicebox, and a force for fringe militant conservatives, there have even been calls for the assassination of key democratic figures, for doing little more than arguing their opinions on Capitol Hill.

How about we reassess our priorities a bit and see things less as conservative versus liberal and instead look at the problems that the face the American people right now, and moving on in this relatively new century.