Politics is the socialization of conflict. It’s that simple. For you low-church conservatives, when I say “socialization” I don’t mean “Socialist”, but merely conflict resolution without violence. There are no rules other than that when it comes to such things.
But narrative is pretty cloudy these days. Most of the time, the truth is rarely ever used when it comes to political discourse. Here are some truths that I have discerned over the years:
- Whether a politician is Republican or Democrat, they both will more than likely support corporatism (or fascism or crony capitalism). Sure you have a few true believers in Socialism or true capitalism, but they are usually never given much power. The very nature of corporatism allows for the favored politicians to reach the top. When you are voting, you are simply voting between two factions of the corporatist elite. Kind of like choosing Coke or Pepsi.
- Nearly every law and regulation that is passed by Congress is designed to eliminate as much competition as possible in the private market. Obamacare is a great example as it clearly only benefits large insurance companies. Smaller ones could not charge the same rates and turn a profit. All Federal regulations on commerce are about securing corporate interests, not consumer safety. All foreign wars are about securing resources for corporate interests. Or protecting existing ones.
- Despite the fact that the anti-corporate Left is correct about the corporate elite, their solution is incredibly stupid. Allowing the State to run everything only secures a corporate monopoly, it doesn’t eliminate it. But then again, most Leftist gave up on rational thinking, if they ever practiced it to begin with.
- The conservatives do not want smaller government, merely a government that enforces an unsustainable military with social conservative values. Most of conservatism, in fact, is measured by the level of support for social issues, not fiscal ones.
- Libertarianism is a broad spectrum of anti-government views. This is largely why they are unable to gain any kind of political foothold because they have such a huge range of diversity on several key issues. While I won’t go into them, understand that just because someone calls him or herself a libertarian, it doesn’t make it so. Or it does. It just gets confusing, which is why I don’t consider myself among their number despite having the closest affiliation to them.
- Voting in any Federal election is utterly pointless. Your vote for any official, be it House, Senate, or President, is so diluted by the representation ratio that you are nothing more than a drop in the bucket. Federal “public” officials know this and would like nothing better than to keep it that way as it allows them to escape accountability, except in rare cases where they royally screw up.
- Most politicians are puppets and figure heads. In actuality, the USA is run by a aristocracy which is operated by a corporate and bureaucratic elite. Most of the bills, policies, and executive orders are written, proof-read, and approved by these people. Corporatism in action.
- The government is all about eliminating competition. It does not understand the concept of profit and loss or how that brings about better results in the free market. This is because it takes its money by force from the productive. Ergo, it does not suffer the humiliation of bad policies because it does not go out of business in a peaceful manner.
- There is a public reason and a private reason for every policy. The Drug War, for example, is publicly about saving citizens from substance abuse. In actuality, it is about creating unnecessary scarcity of a product in order to drive up its cost so that the corporate elite can benefit from the money laundering and the government can benefit from gun sales. In fact, there are so many private reasons for keeping the war on drugs going, that it would probably take a book to go over them all.
- Anarchists are just as bad as Statists. Both sides believe that human beings are inherently good and will do good once their particular form of governance (or non-governance as it were) is implemented. In fact, human beings are inherently evil (or sinners) and will do the wrong thing once certain boundaries are eliminated. Anarchism, while good on paper, is really only economics as morality. And economics is never a good way to go when it comes to morality.
- There are no good solutions. Even the hard solutions are not good ones, they just happen to be better than the easy ones. Regardless of what happens in this century to the USA, whether there is a collapse or a dictatorship or things stay the same, none of these things are a desirable outcome for anyone. It’s best to just enjoy the ride and live your life in as much mediocrity as you can. You’ll stay healthier that way.