Somewhere there must be an honest politician. I won’t search too far because there is little evidence that any of them are honest even with themselves. There is no such thing as winning and being true to a principle. In fact the opposite is often the case. It is necessary to say the correct thing in the eyes of a constituency rather than to express something close to a personal belief. In a society where communication is almost instantaneous and the minds of people have been trained to crave instant gratification, it is all too easy to manipulate thinking by sound bites rather than debating true issues. We form opinions and then tune in to mass media outlets that pander to our predisposed ideas. It is a big money maker to be polarized in news reporting: MSNBC is not an “in depth commentary†and Fox News is neither “fair†nor “balanced.â€
When my parents were teaching me to think… no, make that SHOWING me how to think… one thing that always worked was to consider the source of information. When the bad guys say something it is bad and when the good guys say something it is good. That isn’t so easy today, but tracing the author or the media source is one way to uncover slanted journalism. Blogs and online news sources spout truisms as if they are golden words of wisdom until you consider the source… if it comes from the cesspool it will probably be tainted with crap. I see people that I know to be educated and intelligent posting half truth quotes on social media outlets from sources that reinforce a single point of view. Some are quite passionate to the point of ignoring common sense and falling for carefully laid traps to lure the intellectual or religious person into a false bit of Socratic logic: “If fact 1 is true, then OBVIOUSLY fact 2 must be true.â€
Personally, I find some of the rhetoric labeled conservative or liberal to be laughable. If you are against abortion but for capital punishment, where is the value of that life in question? There are strong biased arguments on either side, but thinking of taking any life as a form of “retroactive abortion†seems to be missing from the discussion. Do some people deserve not to live? Probably, but I’m glad I don’t have to make that call and I’m going to be less than receptive to anybody taking an illogical viewpoint. How is this even a political question in the first place? Personal ethics is in question when common correctness is allowed to override individual freedom of expression. That Quixotic quest for knowledge and truth leaves no well available to quench that thirst.
A baseball urban legend attributed to the late-great Casey Stengel was that he had a rookie playing right field that messed up every play that came his way. So the skipper said, “I’ll show you how it is done, kid†and took his glove to go out and take his place in right field. After missing a fly ball, letting a grounder go to the fence, and missing the cutoff man on a throw to the infield, he went back to the bench after the inning and said, “You’ve got right field so messed up nobody can play it!†The very word “politics†has become a bad word and is so messed up that is doubtful that anybody can do it right. Anybody can be a critic of politicians, but few can step into their shoes. The sad part about that analogy is that we are not losing a game. We are losing the true meaning of democracy.
Image credit: lightwise / 123RF Stock Photo