Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Why you should vote, and also politics are poison.

In honor of Election Day, a post about something I despise: Politics.
Politics are a means of social change, but also power. There is a certain personality type in this world that craves power. They need it, like an addict needs a needle. And just like a junkie, they will go to any lengths to gain it. I have seen more elected officials with this trait than without.
These few words encompass all that I’ve learned throughout the first election season I’ve worked. I have witnessed fear and anger and desperation in the faces of suited men and women literally BATTLING each other.
Politicians that campaign for honest, morally sound reasons, like, uhm, making a government that works for everybody (BECAUSE ISN’T THAT THE POINT OF THE WHOLE SYSTEM?!)….rock. I just wish that they were the rule, not the exception.
Technically, we live in a Capitalist society, so people taking advantage of anything for personal gain is accepted behavior. Why should the Government be any different?
I am aware that things can be worse. MUCH worse. I know there are countries where governments are killing citizens and turning little boys into murders.
I am also aware that no political system is perfect.
But I am an idealist. A government is a man made system of rules and regulations intended to avoid chaos on a global level all the way down to personal level. Am I wrong ? Why else does it exist?
Not for individuals to take control and create a society that caters to only them, or their tax bracket, or their religion.
I realize I am completely jaded on the subject. I do. I hope my mind gets changed soon.

Some  ideas:
If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress. -[Barack Obama]

Thinking about profound social change, conservatives always expect disaster, while revolutionaries confidentially expect utopia. Both are wrong. -  [Carolyn Heilbrun]

The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it. [Edward Dowling 1941]

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
-[Eleanor Roosevelt]