Politics is.......... (Lesson One)

I spent the first two years of college at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, before moving on to complete my BA and MA in Communications Arts and Sciences, Radio & Television, at Michigan State. I remember quite a bit of what I learned in my Electrical Engineering studies (my first major), but only two things stand out in my other, 'required', non-Engineering courses. I learned both in Political Science 101. One of those lessons I will describe in a later 'Art of Conservatism' essay. The point this time is the definition of politics itself. And yes, it is germaine to the discussion of why Conservatism seems to be constantly playing catch-up in the competition of ideas.

Simply put, the political science definition of 'politics' is 'war by other means'. Humph. Not exactly what turns We the People on, is it?

Maybe so, but it doesn't make that definition any less true, either. And that explains a couple of very important points, or factoids, if you will.

First, it is a war. And, as with any type of war, it has the effect of wearing on people. Since the second decade of the twentieth century, wars using bullets and bombs and brutality have been an almost daily part of the world's existence, especially in its reincarnated, efficient, mechanized form, each one much more frightening than the one previous. People get tired of war in that sense. Hey, here's some news that isn't--- people are tired of this form of war as well. 

 

But then there are the long-drawn out 'campaigns' which politicians call war but which are wars without gun, bodily casualty or prisoner in the usual sense: They call these the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs---you get the picture. Never mind that the turf is different. It's still a contest for the mind of We the People, especially those of us who vote, to make us believe that we are into the noble fight when the fight is only against the symptoms of the enemy to be fought, and not the cause.. And, don't look now, there doesn't seem to be much winning going on there, either. It's enough to make us all weary---and it does.

So, what of politics as war? Well, again it's the war for the minds of We The People; it's also a war of two ideologies pitted against each other, the war between two sides who believe that they know what's best for us here in Flyover Country, when only one side has it right. It's the war between security and freedom, of self-reliance vs. government dependence and its brother, government control; of seeing the best in people vs. seeing people as sheep. It has ever been thus. And it's not just in America. It's world-wide.

Make no mistake, politics is a form of war, with skirmishes being fought almost daily in all 51 capitols of this land, including and especially DC.

But, and here's the second point: there's the dirty little secret: One side fully understands the concept of politics as 'war by other means', and those who fight on that side are in it as a career. They use their longevity to attain positions of power and influence, to force the other side to capitulate to their concept of what they think the country should be like, instead of what the country was as originally founded. The popular name emerging for these folks is: the political class. And, because these member of the political dclass have usually never have worked within the producing class---read that 'the private sector---they don't understand it, and they show that misunderstanding by trying to bend it to their will or destroy it, just as they try to do it with people.

Then there's the other side, where We The People are. That's the side that believes that government should not be a tool of the political class. Those of us who are there prefer to work hard at our passions, to produce what the country needs and wants and be rewarded for it, and want to be simply to be left alone by the political class. Meanwhile, the Political Class feels it their calling to disrupt those who produce every time they try to accomplish anything. For their efforts, the ruling class showers contempt on them for their efforts, and for even trying. 

 

In short, the end game of the two sides in this 'war by other means' is vastly different for each side. For the political class, their goals are both forcing their unbridled power on We the People, while at the same time obtaining great wealth for themselves, by defining your bank account, your wallet, and your personal property as their piggy bank, using that money in turn to bend the mind and the will of the rest of us to believe in that power through gifts from said wallets and piggy banks. For the rest of us, the end game is simply to have the political class leave us alone.

That attitude on our part isn't enough anymore. Frankly, it is seen as passive by the political class, and they scorn us for it. That's why We the People, the ones who would rather work and produce and live and let live, to love our country and not subjugate it---rather, it is we who have to change our ways of seeing politics as someone else's job. We have to be as We the People had to do be back in 1941: go and fight the good fight as our grandparents and parents had to do to win World War II. We have to mobilize again, take on this political class, and defeat it. And, once we've won, and we have done what it takes to make America the safer from the re-emergence of the political class, then we have to leave that seat of power which has the hallowed name of Washington that it doesn't deserve---and return to our homes and our passions. We have  to thus resist becoming tempted and co-opted into that which we seek to defeat, to say 'no' to the inevitable temptations of the political class to 'just take the course of least resistance'. Instead, we have to trust that someone who is as altruistic as we are take our place there, for just a little while as we would, and then repeat, after us, to become productive Americans living their passions again. Better yet, we must train them ourselves to do as we fought to be able to do---to run America better, rather than into the ground. That's how the war of politics should be fought.

I know. The prospect of doing all of this is still enough to make anyone war-weary. That's the reason that wonderful people like my own wife are so turned off by politics, who instead are willing to let someone else do that---which plays right into the hands of the political class in the first place. From now on, that's how the battle is going to have to be fought..

For Art of Conservatism, I'm Art Reis