William’s comment on the classified documents issue reminded me (again) that when evaluating a politician we have to force ourselves out of “the narrative.” (I dislike that phrase, but it’s useful here.)
Politicians want us to evaluate them by their stands on issues, implying that they’re principled people who are trying to be true to a philosophy or a cause. No matter how many times their behavior shows us that isn’t always or even mostly true, we fall for it again and again. They use an appeal to an issue to get the power to do what they want to do, which is to get more power and more money.
I’m not claiming that every politician is just a power-hungry sociopath who uses his office to line his pockets, but that tendency is always there to one degree or another, and it’s most certainly a major part of the system they work within.
Our attitude towards politicians should be about the same as the attitude of a prison warden towards the very talented prisoner who does the accounting. He has useful skills and is doing an essential task, but you’d be a fool to trust him. You have to have systems in place to keep him from cheating you.
A problem we face in America today is that many of those systems that are supposed to be keeping a wary eye on these snakes have themselves become part of the system. It’s like the police in the areas of Mexico that are controlled by the cartels.
Jefferson was a bit of a hot-head when he said all that business about nurturing the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants, but there’s a kernel of truth in it.
A benefit of thinking (according to some guy that Jordan Peterson often quotes, whose name escapes me) is that our ideas can die rather than us.
We need to apply that sort of logic to all these alleged checks and balances, which get corrupted from time to time. We need to shake them up, change them, break the system and recreate it with new checks and balances. Otherwise the mafia/cartel/swamp will simply find ways to make those things part of the system.
QUOTE: We need to apply that sort of logic to all these alleged checks and balances, which get corrupted from time to time. We need to shake them up, change them, break the system and recreate it with new checks and balances.
Agreed! The problem is, the ones with the power to make such changes won’t because it limits their power. So, they’ll make noise about it, but won’t voluntarily relinquish their death grip on power. As Douglas said, “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did. It never will.”
It seems the only way to change the system is to change the people. But, “we the people” have become too invested in keeping the partisan dog fights going to oust the offenders. As long as that’s happening, things don’t change and they can continue to reap the benefits of the corrupt system.