Politicians

I.
Let's assume that humanity is comprised of two elements: the Angelic, and Demonic. Let's define these elements in the most broad, agnostic way possible, ie. with angelic representing 'desirable behavior' and demonic representing 'undesirable behavior'
Positive theories of government inherently assume that anarchy hurts the public good. They assume that the Demon-part of humanity is substantial enough to create chaos, unless a benevolent 'Big Brother' exists to sustain order. It assumes that the act of murder must be punished, or other potential murderers will kill without fear of reprisal.It assumes that banks must be regulated, or money will be misused and placed in inappropriate hands in inappropraite amounts.It assumes that the chaotic part of humanity exists as a substantial force to occasionally override the Angelic.

Yet, if the Demon-part of humanity is substantial enough as a force, then the government--the 'Big Brother'--cannot be trusted as we would trust as a benevolent, omnipotent God. People make up governments, and therefore pollute that government with their flaws.
II.This all sounds pretty damn obvious. But we like to knock our politicians, or put them on pedestals. No middle ground. No acknowledging that 'They are who we would be in their situation.' The public, generally, paints their politicians as either Angels or Demons. The problem with this stems from the fact that 1) if we consider them angelic, we overlook their flaws. Democracy requires the public to be active in the government. Therefore, if the public official makes a mistake, the public should rectify this mistake. He is not God. He is only a man. And any one of us (of both sexes) are capable of doing his work about just as well. Indeed, if we can choose a good leader, and recognize the leader's good traits, then don't we have the potential to also having those traits?

2) If we paint the official as demonic, then we risk overlooking our own demons. We overlook that possibility that 'They are who we would be.' Again, you may disagree, considering that you are unlike the guy who spends $80,000 on hookers. But what if you were rich? What if you were tempted to do something that could damage your standard of living, your marriage, your life...and you had the chance to get away with it? You could cheat on your spouse, and never get caught. Would you do it? Did you do it? You could steal $1 million from the bank, and pay your way through college. You could cheat on the exam.

Again, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The only thing worse than this is when a little power corrupts absolutely, and in the case of some, this is true.

Opportunity, power. "They are who we would be' Ignorance to this fact, is like a tapeworm. And when we pull that fucker out of our ass, it's gonna hurt.

It's gonna HURT. So, it takes courage to acknowledge and battle our personal flaws. It takes the ability to look at what's happening, and choose righteousness. Rather than allow righteousness to choose us. Because if we wait for a situation to arrive that allows us to display our angelic side, we often fall into a demonic state. The demonic state is more vigorous than the angelic in choosing us.

III.
In 1963, Stanley Milgram tested people's obeidience to authority. Look it up, for your own benefit, but I'll give you a summary. A subject is deceived into thinking he will be the 'teacher' while one of the experimenters pretends to be another subject, a student. The real student, the teacher, is told by the main experimenter to ask the student a number of questions. The teacher is to give the student an electric shock for every wrong answer provided, and each subsequent shock will be more powerful than the last. The student will get questions wrong on purpose. At one point, the student will feign a heart condition, and ask for mercy. (In the classic application of this experiment, the teacher and student are in separate rooms, and they can only hear each other's voices.) The experimenter simply tells the teacher to continue the experiment, no matter what the student cries out. Finally, the student stays quiet, and the teacher is unsure if the student is still alive. The experimenter urges the teacher to continue, and shock the student again if the student fails to answer.

An average of over 60% teachers, in the many reproductions this experiment, continued it to the end: where the teacher will administer the maximum shock of 450-volts three times, despite quiet from the student all three times. This is how I interpret the results of this experiment: to be good people, we must take an active stance. We must acknowledge our temptations, and we must be ready to accept any discomfort. For the sake of rightheousness, we must be a sort of masochist. We must be ready to boycot a racist bus system. We must be ready to be arrested. We must be ready to disagree with our friends. We must be ready to be totally embarrassed. Otherwise, if we don't, then we are hypocrites when we declare our love of goodness. Instead, we would rather be comfortable in our own evil.

IV.
Many want a democratic president, a 'liberal' president because they are very disgusted with the actions of the current 'conservative' president. They--both the supports of the Democrats and Republicans--are caught up in a gang-mentality. But true Democracy rejects the gang mentality. It assumes that people make up their own mind. It assumes that every individual is a separate political party.

I am leaning toward Barack Obama for the upcoming election. He seems like a smart, strong man. I enjoyed his racism speech, and his speech on religion a few years back. I need to do more research on him before I can say I truly want him for president. (By the way, where is the love for our local politicians?) But, even when I do this research, I must acknowledge that this research falls short of knowing the real man. Falls short of what he might do in a stressful, compromising situtation. If we have lived at all, we have had experiences where the actions of others surprise and disappoint us. Our parents, our friends. They do things that shatter our positive, angelic perception of them. We, too, have performed acts that suprise others. We ran into a compromising situation, and fell in danger of choosing the greater of two evils. And often times we did choose that evil.

It's 2:07pm, and I've got to go somewhere. So let's wrap this up--Choose well, not just in the election, but in life, period. Choose the choice that you know is right. Not the choice of our parents, or our society, necessarily. Choose the choice of righteousness. Choose even though your heart will break. Choose though your feet hurt. Choose though the world sneer at you with its beastly glee.