Politics, like other forms of ignorance, leeches upon human vulnerability for distorted means. The ignorance on both sides appears to need emphasis, so it can aspire to become more philosophical. The philosophical aspect is where positive results appear to flourish.TimLear wrote:Politicians are salespeople. They only do what it takes to make the sale. Its the people they throwing the pitch to that determines what pitch they throw. If a politician is in charge of a nation full of ignorant people who preferred to being lied to, then they will lie to get the job.cynicallyinsane wrote:To gain political power, a person must lie, cheat, and manipulate people. Are politicians inherently bad?
If a politician is in charge of a nation whose population is full of integrity and prefers outstanding results over lip service, you will end up with outstandings leaders.
It not the leaders at fault, its the people below them.
Are politicians inherently bad?
- Aristocles
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
- Hereandnow
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
- Ormond
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
Politicians are a mirror of the public. We look in the mirror, don't like what we see, and then yell at the mirror. Politicians are inherently realistic.cynicallyinsane wrote:To gain political power, a person must lie, cheat, and manipulate people. Are politicians inherently bad?
- Aristocles
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
Our obsession with mirrors appears to lead to disingenuousness; politicians survive feeding off our psychological vulnerabilities.Ormond wrote:Politicians are a mirror of the public. We look in the mirror, don't like what we see, and then yell at the mirror. Politicians are inherently realistic.cynicallyinsane wrote:To gain political power, a person must lie, cheat, and manipulate people. Are politicians inherently bad?
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
To make a long story short, the typical meeting involved many members of the public making adamant statements!!!! on behalf of the cause regarding how "somebody" should do something!!!, but um....
The "somebody" was never them.
300 people would show up for the public meeting. Smile for the TV cameras!
3 would show up to do the work the meeting was intended to organize.
In other words, generally speaking, the public is full of you know what. The politicians know this from long experience, and so they tend to talk to us like children, for the simple reason that we typically act like children.
Of course it's surely true that some politicians are slimy. They get elected, again and again, because we don't really care what happens, we just like to whine.
We the average person are the owners of our country (assuming democracy).
The buck stops with us.
Everything is our fault.
Politicians are just employees.
- Aristocles
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
- LuckyR
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
So to answer the OP: no politicians are NOT inherently bad, but the current political system encourages/requires politicians to cater to special interests, thus a majority of them are bad.
- Scribbler60
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
This is my experience as well.Ormond wrote:... the typical meeting involved many members of the public making adamant statements!!!! on behalf of the cause regarding how "somebody" should do something!!!, but um....
The "somebody" was never them.
300 people would show up for the public meeting. Smile for the TV cameras!
3 would show up to do the work the meeting was intended to organize...
Politicians are just employees.
I spent some time as a contractor working with a local mayor, helping him write speeches, organize events etc etc. And I found this to be exactly the case.
One event was a public input session on tax rates. During the event, members of the pubic were adamant that they would not stand for a tax increase. But at the same time they insisted that, for instance, the library be open extra hours, they wanted faster snow removal service, they wanted use of the public pool to be free and a whole host of other demands... and they also insisted that there be no deficit.
Needless to say, when the budget was finally presented, some (not all) members of the public were outraged at the property tax increase (I forget the amount, I think it was under 2% but I can't be sure).
What I found most interesting about the whole situation was that it was those who really should know better - the wealthy, and business people who have to deal with the realities of budgets all the time - that whined the loudest. They wanted all the extra services but balked at paying for it.
To paraphrase Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, "The fault is not in our politicians, but in ourselves."
- Hereandnow
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
Now, of course, it does strike me that there is a problem with the above: a politician as such, in so far as s/he is a politician, is in the power struggle, a predator of sorts looking to pounce, connive, cajole, win in a zero sum game. But as a servant of the people, it is quite a different game. Hmmmmm I guess it goes like this: Politicians ARE inherently evil because the political process itself is an evil competition. Government officers can be good if they don't yield to corruption and carry out the mandate of the constituency. But a third thing, the ideology, stands apart: social and economic agendas vary, and whether one is good the other bad is a matter of endless argument. I, for one, am a flaming liberal, but a realist: Bernie could never get elected.
- Sy Borg
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
The system benefits more from extracting productivity from them than giving them the information they need to make an informed decision. In the end, of course, the rich - including politicians - are the same as the rest of us. History is full of toppled regimes being swept away by "the new broom" but, once the honeymoon is over, the people find they've installed a new group of exploiters in power.
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
It is at its worst when it deludes us into thinking we have all the answers for everybody else.
Archibald Macleish.
- Ormond
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
Speaking only for myself, I was not discussing their shortcomings, but their realistic appraisal of those they serve.Hereandnow wrote:But Ormond and Scribbler60, you're talking about politicians' shortcomings.
- Aristocles
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
I see the realistic aspect only stemming from the more humane philosophical aspect of humans. Sure, a given politician has this capacity, but they are rarely encouraged to use it.Ormond wrote:Speaking only for myself, I was not discussing their shortcomings, but their realistic appraisal of those they serve.Hereandnow wrote:But Ormond and Scribbler60, you're talking about politicians' shortcomings.
I understand a politician may have taken on an entirely different connotation in Aristotle's day, and Plato appeared to attempt to capture a good politician could only be a philosophical one....
If you look at pre-Jacksonian America, you notice the less political aspect in the early presidencies. You see less decadence and abuse of human capacities, aside from killing the English, French, natives, etc. Once the borders of America were more secure, then political parties began to illustrate the more inherent inbreeding/conflict of "civil" issues accelerated, seemingly hand-in-hand with the industrial revolution affluence disparity. Really, anything that aims to segregate humans, without emphasis on the more important human similarities, leads to bad things. Politicians appear to be the vehicle of the less mindful, the barrier to more rapid philosophical harmony.
- Hereandnow
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
Dangerous? A little, iof you consider how it plays out politically as a promotion of a single set of cultural values that should dominate and those who don't have it not quite good citizens.
- Aristocles
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Re: Are politicians inherently bad?
No. Philosophers, promoting humanism would be best. Nationalism is odd. Humanism would not dominate and lessen others, etcHereandnow wrote:Sounds like you're saying, Aristocles, that politicians who are promote nationalism are the best. The divisive ones the worst.
.... a promotion of a single set of cultural values that should dominate and those who don't have it not quite good citizens.
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