Philosophy over Politics, Part II

I find politics infuriating! Wouldn't it be amazing if we could somehow resurrect Jefferson or Adams or Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt and show them Facebook and a few blog articles from "both sides of the aisle" (another phrase that is infuriating). Wouldn't it be interesting to see their reaction to the modern political cacophony of posturing, preening, pedantic idiocy and accusations of idiocy.

It is as tired an allegation against old people as any that they are tired and out of touch. Perhaps they should be! I'm only fourty-... eh hem, and I can remember simpler times. When I read my history books, especially the founding documents of the country, I find an elegant simplicity to it all, like the laws of physics. Simple equations with broad, deep and rich applications, just like the Ten Commandments or the Constitution.

Today we have anything but elegant simplicity. Today we have increasingly complex laws with increasing complexity of parsing by lawyers and judges, with a corresponding decrease in good and wise people. In fact, often it is the good and wise person who loses today, who is snowed under by the ("globally-aware" "pluralistic" "statistically-imbued") complexity of insight of the modern liberal university graduate. Complex and convoluted argumentation on one side is answered with equally vigorous complexity on the other side, thereby stalemating all argument and making Occam turn over in his grave. No one can appeal to principles that transcend statistics. There is no answer, no destination; their is only the endless swirling vortex of bull----. Once you are in, you will never get out, and you will end up lost. A simple question to make my point: Ask the modern liberal university graduate, committed to liberalism, if America has improved or not in the past 50 years and then hunker down for a dizzying presentation of the various "studies," and the various "scholarly opinions," the endless utterly compelling statistics.

And the news programs with their "equal representation" of both sides are equally infuriating. Our educational system, which expelled God years ago, produces ample rhetoricians and few men and women of virtue. We have statistics, studies, sample groups, polls and communicators and manipulators of words. What we lack is leadership, or any unifying convictions. This is perhaps one problem with the deterioration of democracy, as Plato warned; it becomes an affair of the appetites of the masses shaping the convictions of the leadership and not the other way round.

Here is a brief list of some of the things making me crazy in modern politics:

1. There is never an end to election season.

Perhaps the greatest evidence that Plato was right in his criticism of democracy is our current election process. Candidates spend what seems like most of their time fundraising among the rich in order to buy enough ad time to manipulate the rest of us simpletons in the American populace, whose education is badly compromised by, you guessed it, religion (and perhaps public education, or perhaps both), to vote for them. It would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic. You have candidates speaking in sixth grade English to the masses, promising that they will improve the educational system if elected. Each cycle says the same thing, with equal parts convoluted and still dumbed-down langauge. As evidence we have Obama, who is engaging but not remotely profound where once we had Lincoln, who was not engaging but was profoundly profound.

All it would take for any candidate to lose an election in this country would be for him or her to read a three paragraph excerpt from Lincoln, particularly any of his Christian stuff.

And so we hear nothing of substance from candidates, ever, on anything. We hear slogans, catch phrases, promises of great things, glowing stories of success and vitriol against the other party.

2. There is no principled democracy.

Where are the men and women of wisdom and substance and moral conviction? Such people don't seem to be able to get elected. We elect men and women of compromise in a pluralistic society, thus leaving us with the lowest common denominator, or at least bright people who set the lowest common denominator. Our politicians don't bring disparate cultural niches together; they merely traffic superficially in all of them long enough to pander for votes.

The age of the politician driven by conviction rather than the polls might as well be the cretaceous period. Technology has set the process of mass extinction to fast forward. We now have performers where we once had true political philosophers. We have replaced the humility of Socrates with the an endless parade of cocksure sophists.

3. Everybody commits logical fallacies all the time.

Nancy Pelosi recently claimed that the supreme court was meddling with a woman's right to contraception. Even liberals recognized that she was, well, simplifying the Hobby Lobby case just a tad.

Republicans over-reach when they make claims about Obama's hatred for America. Perhaps he is merely unimpressed by it. He says all the right things, so perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt.

There are so many examples here of dreadful red herring, straw-man, ad hominem and other fallacious arguments, that it is nearly impossible to know where to begin, or end, in exposing them. One almost feels that the entire political landscape today has become one obtuse reality show. It has reduced to off, off, off Broadway theatrics and little more. It is either a monumental movement exalting emotion or the end of human reason concerning the topics that matter to us most, or both.

4. Government is too big for anyone to manage.

We get upset when FEMA messes up and then blame the executive branch. When something goes wrong in the IRS, we blame Obama. And while the connections should be examined, surely there are a lot of moving parts in the massive government we have constructed for ourselves. If that is the case, then perhaps it is unrealistic to think that one person, or even several, can have seamless control over every aspect of the machine.

Now if that is true, then perhaps government was never really supposed to do as much as we now expect it to do. In fact, perhaps we have it all in reverse. We are supposed to build society from the bottom up and not the top down. It is more manageable for me to provide for my three daughters and my wife than it is for me to provide for other people's families. The context of happiness and personal achievement are in small unions of people, not in massive collectives. Government of course has a role in this fallen world, but it's primary role is to support the bottom-up creative energy of ordinary people to construct for themselves a good society.

5. Government promises too much.

Do Presidents really create jobs? Should they promise that the jobless rate will be lower under their watch? To listen to candidates today, one would think that every one of them can provide us with healthcare, quality education, protection from all evil and middle class prestige and success. Can they really control such things? They might as well promise universal peace and unicorns for all the children.

We now have a government that seems to be suggesting that things like "healthcare" and "education" and food and shelter and even entertainment are the rights of citizens. (I put healthcare in parentheses because it is getting difficult to know what that even means anymore. Perhaps it means birth control, medicinal marijuana for subjective pain, acupuncture, all manner of drugs for various "ailments" or psychological distresses, etc. And I put education in parentheses because it is also difficult to know what that means today. What should the quality be? What should the content be? Should government ensure college education? Should they be taught a certain set of social "norms?") These are not blessings. They are to be expected. More than that, politicians promise these things in exchange for votes.

6. Politicians are never wrong, even when it is obvious that they are wrong.

Harry Reid recently suggested that the border is secure, and he did this right after a period of surging numbers of people coming across the southern border of the country illegally.

Other people can be wrong. Your doctor or politician never get to be wrong. And when the politicians are wrong, they always find a way to "reword" things so that they can be right again. Low level mistakes can be admitted. And by "low level," what I mean is a mistake that won't cost re-election.

The simple point here is this: If no one is never wrong, then clearly there can be no progress in any direction.