September 26, 2005
Why I’ll never hold office…
Numerous people, knowing that I’m so heavily into politics, ask me whether I’ve ever considered running for office. And the answer is yes, I’ve considered it, but then dismissed it immediately. I’m not the kind of person who excels at that sort of thing. Despite being a heartless bastard of a libertarian, I don’t have the ruthless temperament necessary for politics.
Of course, like any human, I have a few skeletons in my closet (I can hear JimmyJ now, ready to chime in with “Remember that time…”, as he was probably there for at least a few of them)… But if our President can get away with being “young and irresponsible”, I’m sure I can survive that. After all, I’m a libertarian, so I’d campaign on making most of the illegal things I’ve done in my life legal anyway 
But it’s a much deeper thing. I simply have no desire to rule over people. Sure, I’m egotistical, so I think I can make better choices for most people than they could make for themselves. But even if I can, I don’t think I SHOULD. As I’ve pointed out many times, I know that there are a large number of people in this world who think they can make better decisions than I can. And I get angry as hell every time an elected official trys to coerce me into the decision they choose. I don’t care if you think it’s immoral for me to buy beer on Sunday. I think as long as I can find a willing seller, you’re an ass for stopping the sale. I don’t care if you think I should wear a helmet on a motorcycle. I think so too, but dammit if I want to be hamstrung by force of law. I don’t have any desire to rule over people, so my only justification for obtaining public office would be to fight those who think they deserve that power.
But even more important, I think of people on highly egalitarian terms. I do not cede others’ moral superiority to myself, nor do I consider anyone to be “beneath” me unless they earn that distinction. It’s a fundamental nature of my being. I don’t consider my bosses, all the way up the chain of command, to be my “superiors” in anything but a work-related environment. Outside of that environment, as people, I view (and treat) them as equals. I do this, because while I see that they have roles within the company, and have the power to make decisions at a higher level than I do, that we are both simply doing our best to fulfill our roles within the company. Even if I cede the fact that they are earning more money based on their roles having a greater value to the company, that value is based upon job function and competence at that job function, not based on worth as a person. And people underneath me in the chain of command receive the same treatment: as an equal. While I may have authority in the chain of command over those people, that does not make me “better” than them.
Fundamentally, I don’t have any “disrespect” for authority, as much as I have a lack of reverence for it. However, when dealing with people “in authority”, this can be a problem. To me, I look at people like cops as decent people, doing their job, not as people riding in from on high demanding obediance. Most cops I’ve ever met consider themselves to be doing a very important, honorable job; protecting the citizenry and ensuring general compliance with laws necessary to civil society. A few, however, take a different approach. Some of those cops become cops to get that power over others that they don’t have in their own life. They are a small subset of the police force, but a big component of negative feelings in a community. It is a sad fact that power attracts people who shouldn’t ever wield it, like moths to a flame.
Nowhere is this more true than in politics. I think in most local politics, there is enough turnover and differentiation between people that individuals with nefarious goals, much like in the police force, will be overpowered by those whose motivations are more virtuous. My father is a member of his town’s zoning board (or planning commission, or something of the like). Why? Because he’s an architect and he thinks he has a valuable contribution to make to that debate. He has no higher ambitions to national office, because he desires to help to make his local town better, not to rule the country.
But local politics feeds into state politics, which feeds into national politics. As the chain of command moves up, the positions are held by those with greater and greater ambition, ruthlessness, and interest in gaining power. The people that make it to the top don’t consider themselves equal to us plebes. They’re willing to do everything under the sun to ensure not that they do right by us, but to ensure that we revere them, look up to them, and feed their egos. During the course of this, they cease to hold honest beliefs about what will help the country most, and starting holding honest beliefs about what will help their next campaigns. The level of compromise of principle and self needed to grow ones power in that manner would make me feel far too much like a whore to make it anywhere in politics. The desire to treat people fairly and honestly will put me at a distinct disadvantage against people willing to lie to others for their votes. Frankly, the only people that I could count on to vote for me are those people more interested in having an elected official that they trust to make good decisions in their interest, but the vast majority of voters are those who want an elected official to make them feel good, or to protect them from imaginary evils.
The very mechanism that makes me absolutely disgusted to have the limited choice of “lesser of two evils” when I am in politics would destroy me. I know that there’s no chance for me to make it in politics by the very fact that there’s nobody in politics I would want to vote for. I’d like to think that national politics is a place where honest, fair people can prevail. But the little experience I’ve gleaned over 27 years has shown me that it’s not worth the effort to try and get inside the establishment to change it.
I may one day aim at higher things. Currently, that looks like eventually writing op-ed columns or books. If I can’t get inside and rip the guts out of the system, I’d like to shape the debate from the outside to force the influence-peddlers in Washington to do it for me. As long as we still keep freedom of the press in this country, I’ll do my best to drag them, kicking and screaming, back to caring about good governance and away from playing victim politics. I have a fundamental philisophical problem with forcing politicians to vote in any particular way. But I have no problem shaming them and convincing voters to oust them from office.
technogypsy linked with Carnival of the Vanities 159
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Carnival of the Vanities 159
Welcome to the 159th Edition of the Carnival of the Vanities, a weekly listing of the self-selected best posts by a variety of blogs. I had a bit of a hard time deciding what to do this week.