politicsTheir warts aside they did give us a wonderful gift, which we're squandering like so many spoiled brats who don't know the good thing they've got. It seems that Madison was probably right that political parties aren't a good thing. He finally gave in, resigned to the fact that they were going to exist, and so must we it seems. Unfortunately loyalty to the party (and personal advantage/power) seems to be out weighing loyalty to what you think is best for the country and the people. Some of this is going to be unavoidable, but it sure seems like the pendulum (I hope) has swung pretty far away from its ideals.
I'm always filled with conflicting emotions whenever I stop and think about this country. On the one hand we do try to help a lot of people around the world, though perhaps not enough (I know we give more money than anyone else, but we also give a smaller percent of our money than they do). I'm filled with a naive hope that we'll be able to return to the ideals laid out at our country's founding and which Lincoln fought for, that a "government of the people, by the people, for the people" should thrive here. The bitterness of the personal attacks by members of both parties tends to thwart those hopes though.
Such negativity engenders more despare and hopelessness among the people that it's no surprise to me that we have such embarassingly low voter turn out. Who can get excited to participate in such a hateful undertaking? Add to that the perception (probably accurate) that special interest money really determines things in the capital and that our votes make little difference, and you've got a recipee for failure. Of course, we get the government we deserve. If we all just grumble about the system being broken and then walk away from it, nothing's going to fix the system. I have no answers right now about how to fix the system, but I sure think it needs to be fixed.
We need to do something to give us all more confidence that the people we elect are really going to try to do the things we want from them. We need to do something to get people excited about the political process again. We need to make people care again.
Perhaps this battle is already lost. This whole post may well be moot, but I'm still going to get my rant in anyway. Expanding on my discussion from yesterday about semantics and the meaning of one word in particular I want to look at phrase that is used almost exclusively incorrectly. It seems as though almost no one knows what “begs the question” means any more. Journalists equally misuse it which reinforces the misuse in the rest of us. It does NOT mean that a question naturally follows or must be asked as a result of the previous statements.
It is in fact a type of logical fallacy in which someone asks a statement (it doesn't have to be a question and usually isn't), then assumes the correct answer in order to prove that they get the correct answer. Wikipedia provides an example from a 2002 murder trial: “If these people are guilty and have shown no remorse for their crime, this can only mean that they are bad people, and this strengthens our conviction that they are guilty.” In this argument at the beginning it assumes that the people are guilty, and uses that assumption at the end to offer more “proof” that they're guilty.
Begging the question is basically a type of circular logic, and should be avoided. Thinking that “begs the question” means the same as “prompts the question” or “raises the question” is just wrong and should also be avoided.
