The more you see the antics of politicians the more you recognize there is some underlying similarity that places them in a distinct category of humanity. In today’s world with the influence of government schooling and a predominance of socialistic premises in our institutions of “higher’ learning the overwhelming preponderance of “clones” is clearly evident. The fact that voters complain there is no one to vote for verifies this observation.
So what is the element that makes a politician? What is that ingredient that spurs a future politician to seek office? The virtue they lack is a proper concern for their own welfare. Notice how every politician to some degree talks of his concern for others. Through law, he or she intends to redistribute wealth from the earners to some other group that will support his election. A politician today will waver and weave from any stance if he perceives his new stance will persuade others to vote him into office. What he sacrifices is his integrity and it is this sacrifice that brands him in a separate category of human endeavor. Now there is a vast difference between being stubborn and maintaining integrity. Integrity proceeds from a concern for truth whereby stubbornness is simply a mind fixed on a notion that is not be supported by evidence.
For what does a politician in today’s environment have to offer to be elected. He must project himself as a proponent of government financial aid for some recipient that will entice a large enough group to support and vote for him. The campaign trail is rife with questioners that want to know what will the politician do for them or for some group or cause or some faddish cause such as the environment. The politician accepts that something must be done by government no matter what the issue and formulates an answer that he thinks will satisfy the most voters. This is why so many politicians get into office and have no idea why they are there. They have not formulated any principles centered around the proper role of government. To today’s politician anything that will garner votes is fair game. Evading this fundamental concern( i.e. what is the proper role of government ) leaves the role of the politician with a wide open unrestricted path to pursue power to control and retain control. The dictator utilizes terror, the politician utilizes a con game which consists of promises that are expendable , i.e. fraud.
A politician that was properly concerned with his own welfare would recognize the sacrifice of his integrity would be short sighted. He would realize that making promises he could not keep would brand him a fraud. He would recognize that the sacrifice of trust is a sure road to failure. No matter how much he “obtained” by force , fraud and/or manipulation the fear of being found out would prey on his mind. The only choice then is to pretend and continue with the assumption that maybe I can still get away with pleasing the most voters and all else is secondary. This places his values in the choices of others and the primary emphasis on satisfaction of whatever the loudest group demands. HIs life is not his own. His life depends, by his own choice, on what are the concerns of others that will perpetuate his reign.
This selflessness negates holding convictions particularly regarding the role of government. The Republicans proved this. The Republicans ran on the platform of limited government but when they became the majority party they emulated the Democrats afraid that they would be replaced. The reform they promised in the early nineties collapsed as they bowed to traditions demands for more government instead of the limited government they had promised. En mass they demonstrated the politician’s lack of integrity that could be thrown out at the first clue that power was slipping away.
The term politician in the most broad sense would include those who acted on principle regarding their convictions regarding the proper role of government. But there are too many that are sure they could only be elected if they succumbed to the popular demand for more and more government in more and more areas of individual liberty. The priority of election versus commitment leaves us with no one to vote for except the person who ultimately will expand the role of government and weaken individual rights. For the more the government controls and does for and to you, the less you can do for yourself.
An honest politician would recognize this trend and see that the battle for individual rights is much more important than expanding and propagating the growing menace that must necessarily end in some form of a police state. But we have no honest politicians and therefore we have no one to vote for. The trend does not change with mobs of shared premised scamps vying for whatever position of power they can attain.
The soul of the politician is a mush pot of evasion and anticipation that power will not evaporate, that rebellion will be dampened and that his reign will last as long as possible. The current politician has no desire to reverse the mistakes that have placed government in the impossible role of being involved in much more than it can possibly accomplish. There is not one politician that proposes their power be limited or the scope of their pursuits be curtailed in any way. Yet this is exactly what they do to the private citizens who are paying their salaries. They promise tax cuts but only for those they believe are worthy ( and constitute a sufficient number of voters). They mask these tax cuts in redistribution schemes that appear on the surface to have something for everyone. They know they are doing this but they also know there is safety in numbers and they can stand with the taxpayer and point to their opposition as culprits and they are only a small fish in a large pond unable to convince the “others” that where they stand is unique and irreproachable.
When you hear a politician spout his concern about the country, the taxpayer and the various causes he understands to be current fads, ask yourself what is in this for him except another term to add ballast to the lumbering vessel burdened with debt, waste and incompetence. The government does not need reform it needs limitation and if you ask him where he stands on such a movement you will see there is no plan to move in that direction at all. He has no legislation to introduce in that regard and as soon as he can get out of your range he will revert to the same old path that is creating far more problems than even his vision of government power can even address, Poor countries can evolve from too much spending just as any other organization or individual. Swelling the power of government to the extent it restricts individual innovation and consequently prosperity is not in the politicians interest for in the long run he has nothing to rule or confiscate and must resort to the cheap corruption that appears in such cases. Thus we see the limousines with no roads, no gas stations and government exceptions that favor those with the most guns. We see an Iraq on our soil created by grubby politicians that have sent aid to all but those who provided the funds. This lack of national interest stems from the lack of regard for personal interest based on long term values , survival and prosperity demonstrated daily by our current crop of politicians. Accountability for this must rest on those who enable these misfits. The hammering of a need to restrict government to its proper role is necessary and must be reiterated whenever the same old song of expansion is sung. To give a politician the benefit of the doubt is all they ask for as does the seller of snake oil.
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