Politics is a Poor Career Choice

It is the time of year when many young graduates are entering the work force and choosing a career path. Many have stars in their eyes that the world can be saved if only they can get enough power to enforce the ideas they have been taught. Youthful ambition is a wonderful thing but in the world of politics it’s a disaster.

Unless a student has questioned his teacher and rejected most of the answers being provided, he is prepared to perpetuate the growth of government, wrangle over non-essentials and promises to end up with a worse world than he inherited. How this happens is the subject of this article.

Many students are taught that man has harmed the planet with industrialization. The technology that has reduced emissions is given a secondary role to the laws that have required industries to comply with dictates and standards the government has deemed necessary. This message gives impetus to the young mind to be a government hero and pinch those industrialists harder. The fact that without industrialization the student would be reading by candle light from stone tablets isn’t a consideration. It is not innovation and creativity that is accentuated, but the discipline and rigor of repetition and rote that floods the student mind. There are exceptions but they are not the majority and a majority vote calls the political shots.

There is no discussion of the proper role of government and why government must be necessarily limited for a free society to exist. Would you expect such a discussion from a government school? Government is portrayed as the benefactor and it is never mentioned that government was created in America to protect the individual rights of the citizens and now violates most of them. A student without this understanding is a vulnerable future politician.

Voting is described as a civic duty. When there is no choice (as we are witnessing with the melding of the two party system ) what good does it do? If you are voting for a frick-n-frack candidate ( i.e. indistinguishable) you may as well stay home. You will notice totalitarian regimes have huge voter turnout to bolster the dictatorial regime’s leader with a show of participation and contentment. In reality the voters in these countries have no choice and voting is just one more duty of obedience. This is what the current crop of potential politicians has to look forward to.

When Rush Limbaugh talked about the need for the Republican party to win and by solidarity ( and duplication of Democrat’s promises ) institute conservative ideals he miscalculated the results. The spending binge the Republicans latched onto displayed they were no longer interested in limited government but simply being a majority party. This was no different than the current and past agenda of the Democrats. The Republicans better served the nation as a minority party applying brakes on government growth .

The Liberal label is now passe’. It vanished when the Conservatives decided that entitlements and spending and regulation was a vote getting platform as long as you decried it in public but performed it in office. That facade is over. And the new politicians coming on the scene will talk smoother, learn from their elders and emerge as a new hope for better government. There will be no voice for less government in the halls of Congress. Encouraged by a media enamored with access to political “news” the new Demopublcans will banter endlessly from crisis to crisis about bipartisanship, compromise and reform. The bottom line will be more taxes, more regulation, more intrusion into individual lives, more foreign aid, more inflation, more entitlements, more debt and with a wimpy no win war policy, more wars.

This is the future of a political career in America today given the ideals evident in the political arena. Either you seek power or you stay out of politics. If you seek power, you will be part of the back biting accusatory faction looking for a scapegoat after every crisis brought on by too much government. When the medicine delivery is late there will be a doctor to prosecute. When the price of gasoline is unpopular a station owner will be made an example of. When a school fails there will be a need for a special school investigation committee to hold hearings and chastise a principal on TV. This is what is probable given the state of political knowledge in America today. And this is why anyone thinking about a career in politics needs to look at history and the proper role of government before ever immersing themselves in this no win “service” to the public.

Current politicians haven’t done their homework on the proper role of government and have spent their time organizing and fund raising ( most of which goes to the media ) to get the job without a speck of knowledge what that job should consist of and what they were going to do once they obtained it. The crisis of constituents fills their day when they aren’t soliciting more voters to keep them in their opulent status.

There will be those who contend politics doesn’t have to be as portrayed in this column. They will jump headlong into the fray in the blind belief they can make a difference. They will make government be the true benefactor of humanity and they will make the air clean, the waters pure, the jobs abound and the ordinary American happy whether he likes it or not.. This is the nature of wide eyed youth. A basic component of the politician’s soul is a dream of “saving the world”. The world is to be conquered and a difference will be made. This is a noble objective. It just can’t be done in politics.

Politics as practiced today excludes any knowledge of the proper role of government. When you reduce government to its essential nature of protecting individual rights this knowledge excludes the practice of violating these rights. When you observe how many politicians pass laws and advocate laws that violate individual rights you see there is no knowledge of the proper role of government. Those contemplating entering the profession need to be aware of the nature of government. Speaking up for this nature of government may not be productive in political support. This makes the choice of a political career in this culture without a proper understanding of what one is in for, a poor choice.