NeoNote — The nature of politcs
❝❝Ever notice when someone picks a scapegoat, it's because they think the scapegoat can't fight back?NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
I agree with you that politics is a source of great evil in the World.
I disagree that the Trump and the Republicans are the cause. Or even most of the cause.
One annoying thing about politics is that people are willing to overlook the misconduct of "their" side even while slinging wild accusations against the Enemy. The accusations may or may not be accurate. But you can count on the Enemy not being quite the Ultimate Horror Unleashed on Mankind. And you can count that your side is not quite the paragon of virtue and self-sacrifice that they claim.
Politics is about controlling the other. Never you, always the other. When government is involved politics is about control backed by force.
Politicians are never on your side. Even as they stand wrapped in the flag clutching holy writ promising that they will be your bestest friend ever no matter what.
I'm sorry, but I can't agree. Obama used the IRS and Justice Department against his enemies, among other things. And the Democrats looked the other way.
Rather than get into a long and pointless discussion of who did what worse, I want to point out something that most people overlook.
The politicos NEED you to blame the other party and never question the wisdom of your party's decisions. It's always the other party that is doing things Too Terrible and always your own party that promises to Save The Day. When you buy into that, you perpetuate the system. You're always going to be victimized and you're never ever going to be saved. If you were saved, you'd have no reason to vote the party line.
I know I have my political critics on this site, but believe me when I tell you that there are conservatives who are just as threatened by the Democrat leadership as you are by Trump.
Too often today, people make excuses for what their side does by trotting out the disasters from the other side.
I want less government. I think government is a terrible danger to liberty. I think politicos and technocrats complicate things because they don't want you asking questions and they don't want you changing the status quo. They don't want you understanding what they do.
So when I see someone insisting that this flavor of politico is slightly less objectionable, I tell them they are wrong.
Accurate, as far as it goes.
*sighs* Look, I know that other pagans think I am simplistic and partisan when it comes to politics. And believe me, I realize how ironic it is for me to denounce mixing paganism with politics while having a political blog called Pagan Vigil.
Politics is one of my darker passions. I'm better at it than any amateur has any right to be. I understand the temptations and lusts because those are my temptations, my lusts, but for a bit of discipline and some promises I made. There's a line from Doctor Who, “Good men don’t need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.” These days I try to use my abilities and urges in a good cause. Mostly I succeed.
I've said that politics is about controlling the other. It's literally "power over." All the processes, all the carefully defined rules to protect democracy, all the blame exists SOLEY to keep people from looking too carefully at "the sausage being made." To keep people from asking how much freedom they are "supposed" to sacrifice for "the Greater Good." To keep them from asking themselves why expecting the other guy to sacrifice and compromise is GOOD but they themselves aren't supposed to sacrifice and compromise. To keep them from accepting that POWER OVER for their principles just might not be as as effective as power with based on things we all share.
Smashing the opposition just makes more pieces that can regrow.❞❞
Comments
NeoNotes — scapegoating "whites"
Wednesday - 19Jul2017 Filed in: NeoNotes&Morality & Modern Life
❝❝And yet scapegoating is alive and well.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
Pardon, but for all the talk about what Trump and his supporters did against "minorities," there was much more done against Trump's supporters.
I am not conservative. I am also not a liberal.
I am a writer.
I'm the guy who wrote “We need solutions that don't exile people politically.”
And “When it comes to religion becoming the law of the land, the devout don't need it, the non-believers don't want it, and the politicos will corrupt it.”
And I wrote this:You are not entitled
I didn't say anyone here now shamed me, I said I wrote that.
I don't know what you did or did not do as an editor, I have only your say so for that. Until I have reason to disbelieve, I'll take your word for it. What I do know is that you were lecturing about the failures of "Whites" above. I am not defending anyone. No one group and certainly no "race" is without scoundrels, and no group is composed of saints.
As it happens, I believe in many American ideals and I think on the whole we get more right than we get wrong. I don't need to defend those ideas, they speak for themselves. I will say that not all ideas labeled "American" have much to do with liberty.
I started on this thread by writing about scapegoating. From what I see, this article does that.
"Control of the system" IS the problem. Fighting for "control of the system" is also the problem. The only known practical solution is to make government smaller than absolutely necessary.
Zinn's book is seriously flawed and way overhyped.
I'm not complaining about skin color. I'm complaining about being blamed for things that happened to people long dead long before I was born because of skin color. And I am complaining about the "sins" of one skin color used to explain All That Is Truly Wrong In The World.
I've said it before and I will stand by it. There's only one "race" and it's human.
I've got something I call the Practical Grudge Limit. It’s not practical to hold someone responsible unless they were there, of age, and participating. I'm responsible for what I've done and what I've said. No more, no less.
“…we have to create a system that is not about trying to control things and keep the controlling the hands of the wealthy and powerful.”
You can't have a system that is about not controlling and controlling. You want to make the distinction between the rich and the poor, but in the past it's been skin color, gender, religion, and ancestry.
Any system that sets up an inequality will always be exploited. And I am not talking about the inequality between rich and poor. You spoke of payback before. Any exploitive system will be about control and payback.
Unless it's inherited, one acquires wealth by exploiting people OR providing value to one's neighbors. There are other ways, but they are minute examples. If someone earned wealth by providing value to neighbors, that means they are doing something right. Especially if happens over time. You don't want to use a plumber who cheats you, or a grocer who sells spoiled food, or a bank that charges negative interest on your accounts.
That's when wealth can reflect character and commitment and honor.
If someone is in business, if they provide what was promised at a fair price, if they pay for their purchases as expected, if they treat people well, all of that makes a pretty decent measure of character.
That's what the Founders were interested in. Not a government of the rich for the rich, but a society of people with proven character.
Let's take a modern example. Before the law was changed, you could only finance a house by coming up with a down payment, usually ten percent of the price. This wasn't done to keep the poor unhoused. It was because you wanted people buying houses if they could afford it and were willing to work for it. The down payment also represented character and commitment.
When the law was changed for "compassionate" reasons, people could buy a house without "skin in the game." If someone couldn't pay their mortgage, the bank would take it back without any risk to the buyer. Since the mortgage payments were usually less than rent, there was no incentive to keep the house if that someone couldn't pay.
Meanwhile, banks and loan companies couldn't profit. People didn't put in down payments and walked away. Housing prices skyrocketed even as there was a glut of housing. So their solution (made with government encouragement) was to split the loans into what was paid and what was owed. Whoever got stuck with what was owed without any income lost big time. But banks got "too big to fail."
So a change in law to benefit the poor actually made things worse for nearly everyone. All because the rule of law was no longer uniform. It could be exploited. And it was.
It wasn't because of the divide between rich and poor. It was because politicos saw something they could tell voters was a Major Problem. It was because the changed law no longer rewarded character and hard work.
I have to point out that many of the people screaming about race relations are profiting either in terms of money or power. Not all and not most, but a significant number are making noise because they benefit from the problem and can't allow it to be solved.
I really don't want to start another long involved conversation about guns. I will say that libertarians call gun control victim disarmament and leave it at that.
Did you know that many housing projects were a direct result of Great Society programs? Those same programs encouraged the destruction of existing buildings (with low crime rates) so the projects could be built. Most of these projects were dilapidated and crime ridden within a decade or so. Some were rebuilt two or three times with the same results. I have to wonder how many of those problems were caused by the projects and the public housing policies that made them possible. Differences and problems may have been made worse by government action.
It wasn't skin color that gave the ghettos their reputation. It was crime. And the crimes may have had roots in government compassion.❞❞