Dear Friends,
It seems to me, politics places the individual at odds with the group, moreover, it elevates the group above the individual. Political power comes from people banding into groups, factions, that have a common purpose. As politics becomes more pervasive, and encompass’ ever greater power over our lives and fortunes, we must become more political, to protect those things from politics. Thus politics factionalizes society. Can it be said that a factionalized society is better than a coherent one? Perhaps, but I suspect not. Today, people are centrifugally spreading from the middle to the extremes, to enhance our political power, in ever more politically intolerant times. That is why we have become highly factionalized… because politics has become such a force in our lives.
The individual is the atom of society. The smallest unit that can exist as a political entity. While a faction is a political organization, then city, county, state, and nation are still larger political creatures. Some would even like to see a world government. With each step away from the individual, the atom, the less effect any one atom, (human being) has over the political machine. If a world government was enacted, our democratic check of the elite would disappear, like a fart in a whirlwind. Only on the scale of faction can any effect be made on a political entity two steps beyond the individual. The larger the government entity, the less effect the individual has on it, yet the more people a political machine has under it’s control, the more derived power that organization will claim!
Most people would rather be left alone… but wouldn’t mind running other people’s lives for them. We all have this tendency. As a philosopher once said, (I don’t remember who), we will readily admit another’s superior intellect but never his wisdom, for we see his at a distance and ours close at hand. Many of us look around at our fellows and only see what they are doing wrong… and just know that if we had the power, we could fix them. Never mind our own lives are a mess. This is all well and good, until the busybody gets political office. The higher the political office, the easier to manipulate the masses for, “our own good,” and the less oversight they have. That is when the busybody becomes a danger to liberty, prosperity and innovation… and do it with the full support of their conscience.
As politics becomes more intrusive to the individual’s life, the individual must become more political, else he or she will be destroyed by it. Who gravitates to jobs where you can intrude on other people’s lives with impunity? Busybodies, that’s who. As government grows, it brings in ever more busybodies, who think they know better than you and I, how we should run our lives, based on progressive post modernist doctrine. Not satisfied to ruin only their own life, they set themselves to making the ruination commonplace, so most of us are then forced to engage in politics, if only to hold off the busybodies in government. If the busybodies are two levels above us or more though, in state government for example, we have to coalesce into factions, to effect such a large political machine.
Since the individual is the atom of politics, politicians exploit the number of people, (atoms) they “represent,” as chits in a power game. The more chits under their control the less say any one chit has. Forcing those chits, you and I, to become engaged because if we don’t, we are political pawns. So we form factions to fight for what we want, to be busybodies or to fight busybodies. While most will understand this argument, many will be repulsed at the obvious solution… lower the role, scope and power of government, (politics) in our lives. Only that will stop pitting the individual against factions, intent on spending what we have earned, and running our lives for us. Until that solution is at least understandable, we will continue to factionalize, pitting the individual against the group.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
