Yokoso!
Why is that professional politicians, regardless of country, treat the rest of us as their subdits? Politicians think we are schmucks ignorant on politics that we deserve no respect, and they forget who pays their bills.
Certain politician from the USA said in a video shot in August that, ” there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into a something terrific, or great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay for the next kid who comes along …”
But h ow can we take serious a politician who talks like that?
Here is the point. We have yet to know a country where that statement is false. Since before the Greeks ‘politika’ things work that way. An investor, maybe the grand-master in turn, puts his money where his mouth is and, if the idea sticks, makes a load of moolah. And in his way to join the filthy rich club the investor consumes too the resources we all pay for: roads, police, health services, etc. Isn’t that more so in the free world?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fair deal that the rich pay proportionate taxes, but what is wrong with modern politics is that the pros have mastered political prose and turn it into rhetoric. They tell us what they will do without saying WHEN and HOW they will fulfil their promises. They ask us; simple mortals, to blame the rich and powerful –a group politicians belong to– for our lack of things. Although it sounds important as a political statement; if the rich and powerful are the guilty ones, WHAT a politician will do is meaningless without specifying HOW and WHEN he is going to do it.
Yes, politicians tell us WHAT we already know in a obscure way so it sounds politically correct.
In every country in the world the working class hands built the roads. We know that. The Axis of Evil workers do it. We know that. The free world workers do it. We know that. Anybody can testify that king’s castles, parks, parties, event he clothes he wears are made by the subdits. We know that. And you can look everywhere and find no rich worker hands. What? I did not know that.
We should demand politicians sign a written contract, as oppose of an underlying social contract, where they specify WHAT they are going to do. HOW they are going to do it. WHEN they are going to do it. And as an added value WHERE they are going to do it. The WHY is as obvious as the essential truth that the power belongs to the people, so we can spare them to answer the reason for doing it.
Ok. I admit to have an archaic view of politics. But politics by definition are the rules of engagement, rules of resources use, juridic and linguistic codes, and institutions which value better be implicit and explicit. Politics is the art of control the power and the powerless. And I believe politics is not reserve to the professional politician, but it belongs to every citizen including yours truly.
At the end I also admit that politics is necessary but damn complicated.