Supple Cow

Perhaps I'm not reaching my target audience here in TFPolitics, but I just had a thought about my love-hate relationship to politics.

It seems to me that one major aspect of a government is to provide some kind of consistency for its constituents through its institution of policies, even if it is only in theory.

Politics, in this sense, is when people in power who have differing ideas compete over what exactly should be a consistent part of policy.

That being said, Emerson would point out that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," and I would tend to agree.

Now there are obviously a million reasons to be interested in politics ('even if you don't take an interest in politics, it will take an interest in you'), but I'm just wondering if most of the people who are interested in talking about politics all the time just aren't as bothered by the things that bother me. I participate and stay relatively well-informed but, frankly, politics feel bad and I'm often disinclined to enter this particular forum. I wish I could find a more eloquent way to say that.

Am I just giving a different name to the disillusionment with the state of world affairs that most others are feeling?

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"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)

seretogis

YES I DO!

THANK YOU FOR ASKING!

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Scipio

People seem to look at politics and wonder why they just don't come to a consensus and do something that matters.

The reason, of course, is that politics is what happens when that doesn't work. Moreover, politics is the way we do business here. In my mind, if you try to get rid of the politics, you wind up with an authoritarian scheme of some kind. It might be a benevolent despotism or oligarchy, but it wouldn't be a democracy.

I'll make one qualification. Participants in the political process must enter with honest intentions and respect for the process. The process is competitive by design. Each side makes the best case they can for their policy, hopefully persuading some of their colleagues, and then a vote is taken, with the defeated minority respecting the majority's decision. Political parties and elaborate issues complicate the process, but the idea is still intact.

The thing that frustrates me is that the political process has become too focused on power, campaigning, and fundraising. We elect these people to govern the country, not cover their own asses. It's an unfortunate situation, and hopefully a visionary legislator will fix it some day.

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"Erections lasting more than 4 hours, though rare, require immediate medical attention."

hannukah harry

i don't hate politics. i hate political party ideology and blind adhearnce to them.

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shabbat shalom, mother fucker! - the hebrew hammer

tecoyah

I feel the political arena is what guides part of my future. Thus it has a serious effect on my life, that is why I pay attention to it. I do dislike aspects of politics, but that is the very nature of the beast. I simply cannot ignore that which will guide my country, and in effect my wellbieng in the next ten or twenty years....let alone my kids lives.

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

Supple Cow

This is precisely why I'm so disillusioned with politics. I took 3 political science courses last year, thinking I might like to be a political scientist major, but I learned little more in theory than that the goal of any smart politician is to have power. What are the nuts and bolts of the theory? To campaign and fundraise in order to gain and retain that power. I have to say that I was much more enthusiastic about politics in general before I knew that all the dirty stuff I hated about it was standard political theory.

__________________
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)

elfuq

I am utterly fascinated by politics. May have liberal views myself, but I'm interested in all sides, all the mechanics, all the wheeling and dealing. Can't stay away. I'm a politics junkie.

mml

I truly enjoy politics, hell I spent 5 years of college studying it, so I hope I like it. I often hate what individual politicians do, but I love politics as a whole.

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Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
-Douglas Adams