Our society is saturated with exhortations that we vote and get involved in the political process, and yet you probably know people who refuse to vote and who want nothing to do with politics. They see the corruption and the name calling and they observe that the state of affairs never seems to get better. Why then should they get involved at all? I believe this is an entirely fair question.
First of all, let me start off by saying I am conservative. The conservative viewpoint is just the point of view that makes the most sense to me. However, people of all political viewpoints should be able to agree that things would be much better if politics were more honest, more positive, and more focused on what can be done to improve life for all of us. That is what I mean by ethical politics.
Nonetheless, while most people would already agree with this intention, why yet are politics not better and what can we do about it? Is creating ethical politics even possible given the brokenness of the current paradigm?
Yes. It is possible. But it might not happen tomorrow.
… But if we want things to be better eventually, we must take responsibility for the situation at hand now to ultimately create a better state of affairs.
At the moment, much of our collective political attention is focused around the two party system and the finger pointing that goes on between the two parties … the party system is like a sporting event with two opposing teams, the red and the blue teams, and these two teams engage in a never-ending shouting match.
What then must we do in order to make a change for the better?
The answer is that we must recognize that because we live in a representative democracy, our politics is in fact a reflection of the state of our society, our groups, our families, and ourselves. It can be better. But the political dynamic is not occurring in a vacuum.
If we can help one another achieve our goals in life, reach out a hand of help and of friendship to one another, and rededicate ourselves to caring, not only will our lives be better personally, but things will start to get better around us — even our politics.
Eric Eisenhammer is Founder of Dauntless Communications and Legacy Defender Insurance Solutions.