I have been thinking about the ramifications of a US debt default.  People worry that it will harm the US credibility in the rest of the world, and may threaten our dominant position.

Given the current dysfunction in our political system, maybe it is time for the US to be knocked out of our dominant position.

Other countries like China and India seem to be able to adopt policies that improve their countries rather than policies that only adhere to long held ideological positions.  The same is true of many countries in South America.

It is the USA and European Union that seem to want to hold onto their ideological positions despite the evidence that their policies do more harm than good. They also want to drive these positions into the policies of countries in the rest of the world.

So what do we have to teach the rest of the world, when we are so dysfunctional ourselves?  Perhaps we need to be knocked from our pedestal, and then have to earn our right to be put back there if we can.

The message to the world will be especially vivid if we manage to knock ourselves out without any help from external forces.

Maybe we progressives ought to work with the Tea Party to help with the self-inflicted blow that will finally straighten out the world order.

I introduce this blog post on Facebook and Google+ with the comment:

The progressives might want to try the political equivalent of jujitsu.

I think of jujitsu in the way described in Wikipedia.  Jujitsu represents manipulating the opponent’s force against himself rather than confronting it with one’s own force.

If progressives said to the Tea Party that they were right about having the US default on its debt, would this be the political equivalent of throwing them and pinning them to the mat?  If it  did not work out in that way, perhaps what I said above about deserving default would justify it anyway.