Why is it that talking about politics is almost always so polarizing and usually divisive?

After my last post I received some feedback from someone whose ethical and moral grounding is, for me, beyond reproach, but we seem to disagree on some points about politics and Politian’s. I was going to let it go, but as you know I don’t seem to able to that, for whatever reason, I could probably blame that on something from my childhood if I needed to. My friend and I have known each other most all of our lives and I respect her on so many levels it makes this somewhat difficult to write about. She has been in the political arena for over 25 years and will be running for elected office herself next year and there is ZERO doubt in my mind that she will excel at it and bring respect to the office. I wish her all the luck in the world and know she will do well, someone so grounded can do nothing but succeed.

One of the points she made was “I feel you can be part of the problem (complacency and ignorance) or part of the solution and that she tries to be part of the solution”. I know she does and has been part of the solution, as have I in my adult life. I have been an engaged voter, studying issues and learning about the people I cast my vote for, whether for local Sherriff to our Governor to the President of the United States. I was too afraid to ask if she considered me to be part of the problem because I ranted on about Politian’s. I well understand that a good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers or following polls. Words like complacency and ignorance are very strong words that leave little room for even the possibility that some other opinion might be viable, let alone thoughts on how things could be done differently. I feel when a judgment is made like that by the politico’s about the voting public – especially when we as Americans have the right to be both complacent and ignorant, is a BIG part of the problem. Basically at its heart complacency is a lax state of mind that exists only in retrospective, for it to be truly understood its grip on us has to be shattered, it is one of the hardest things in the world to recognize complacency in one’s self. I am no longer talking about the voters here but the votee, there is the possibility that a bit of complacency has crept in on the part of the people we are voting in to do the countries business that has yet to recognized. Sometimes they may need reminded, a fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool, I believe there might just be a lesson there somewhere, whaddyathink?

Another comment that stuck me odd was “The government is a result of decades of voters not being involved”. I know that turnout is poor for most elections but that is an unbelievable arrogance, the Politian’s, who are actually running things, blaming the small percent of the actual voting public for the problems! It is like burying ones head in the sand, one might even say they hold a blind faith in the system and the governmental processes, in this case I would define faith as - not wanting to know what is true. As one who has been involved in the political process, not nearly as much as my dear friend, I understand that nothing strengthens authority as much as silence, from us the people of the country. I have no sympathy for those who do not vote, I will not listen to them complain, if you do not vote you really have no right to complain. They do though, have every right not to vote and in some way I understand why they don’t, look what we have created. A system based on the false morality, based on relative emotional values, to me it is a thoroughly vulgar concept which has nothing do with what this country was built on. There is blame to spread around for that on both sides, voter and votee alike but I assure you it is not a one sided thing – NO WAY! We need to remember that there are very few constants, or universal truths in this life, so for the most part everything we hear is someone’s opinion, not a fact. It also makes everything we see a perspective, not the truth – don’t believe everything ya see on TV! Most of our elected officials should realize that the creation of, and resolution to the problems are shared and that they need to own a bit of the problem themselves before we can make actual headway, I think anyway. Anybody who fixes things knows the first part of problem resolution is problem recognition and then it is nothing more than collaboration between folks dedicated to working it out, we could be talking about the busted washer, broken car, busted tax collection system to busted economy, the principle to fixing it remain the same.

There does seem to be an apathy hanging over our country when it comes to the government. I am not smart enough to know what the answers are but I can tell you, as stupid as I am, that more of the same old attitudes and more of all the other stupid bullshit that goes on, voter and votee alike, is NOT the answer. We all need to take breath and aim above morality, we need to try to be more than simply good, we need to be good for something. Another thing that truly stunned me coming from my friend was the comment “There is a saying in the political world, never underestimate the stupidity of the voters. Sad - but statistically true.” I am not sure where that self-important statement got started, I have heard it before, but it makes me wonder - what does that really say, we stupid voters put them in office so what does that actually mean, stupid voters pick stupid votee’s? I do however think that holier than thou sentiment right there is a BIG damn part of the problem. Maybe, just maybe we are not so stupid as the Politian’s, on their high, mighty and obviously unbending perch, might think we are. We do not have ANY meaningful dialog at all, let alone good and meaningful dialog about the issues that plague, and I do mean PLAGUE our country and that sentiment is but one of the myriad reasons. When looking at things from that perspective one has eliminated even the possibility that any other opinion, other than the one they hold, is wrong and when one conducts an argument by appealing to authority (office holder) they are not using intelligence they are just using their prepared talking points from memory. I think we will probably agree that faith in the government is being tested, as Friedrich Nietzsche said, “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything” and that may hold truer than we care to admit. I am sure that for every example of stupid voters my friend can point to I can name an example of a stupid Politian. That is another part of the problem, finger pointing at each other, us and our elected officials. We are so busy blaming each other that we are getting bogged down in the blame game. I find it counterproductive, boring and disgusting because it does not solve anything, too much effort is being exerted trying to explain why we think we are right and not nearly enough time is spent on trying to solve the actual problems we face.

The last comment my friend made that I want to comment on was that “I find it shocking really that politicians are considered scum by most - yet the politicians are the ones running our country.” I can hardly believe that ANYONE in the country, other than a Politian, could find it shocking that they are considered scum. When you hear some new story every day that this guy was busted with 90 grand in his fridge or that guy was busted cheating on his wife or that guy used favors from contractors to build a house how could we not feel that way. In fact Political corruption is so rampant that I wonder why they don’t even try to hide it anymore, do they think because we stupid voters keep sending them back that that makes it OK? And we do, keep sending them back for some reason. Has it become expected, the corruption has been allowed to be so normal in politics that most people don’t and won’t care or do anything about it. Socrates once said “I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.” Could it be that they knew in 425 BC that politics could ruin good men? I purposely did not say men and women, no women in politics back then. I, on this one occasion, agree with Henry Ford when he said “Don't find fault, find a remedy” because in all honesty that attitude is what will finally get us out of the mess we are in today.

As Mark Twain said “A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation” and if you listen to most of the current crop of national officials they seem to hold themselves to be just a little higher than us common folk. I was told once that “If you ignore the process, you allow an opening for dirt bags to become candidates and then elected officials, I do not agree and here’s why. I believe that all Politian’s start out like my friend, good hearted, ethical and well intentioned but once sucked into the system it is too easy to get lost. I believe our founding fathers knew this all too well, serving in government used to be a thing you went and did and then came back home. It was NOT something you did for a living. If the terms were shorter, folks would not be able to become entrenched and to use the recent addition to the vernacular - become too big to fail. I mean how effective do you think someone is who was born in 1917 and has been in office since 1959 actually is? DAMNED effective I say, damned effective at how to manipulate the system in ways it were never intentioned and for other than pure and honest pursuits. The biggest pisser is I do not think there is any chance in hell to change it, the ones making the rules are running the place. Folks may run and get elected with the intention of cleaning it up, you hear it all the time during campaign seasons but I am convinced, once they actually get on the gravy train and realize how great it is they stay, for 50 years in one case. To get them to change things like term limits or even stop voting themselves raises will NEVER happen, it is a gravy train with too big of a lure, big enough to corrupt people who were once probably held in very high regard and beyond reproach. They appear to quickly learn how to use that gravy train to enrich their personal lives in unimaginable ways for most of us normal folk to understand. I can imagine that that kind of power has to be more additive than crystal meth, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

Like I said, I do not know what the answers are but more of the same from voter or votee is NOT it.

Like I said I do not like talking politics or religion so I promise I will refrain as long as possible.