Comment 62231

By mystoneycreek (registered) - website | Posted April 14, 2011 at 06:33:12 in reply to Comment 62225

Politics is warfare with words and strategies and alliances of convenience and practicality. It involves debate, discourse, compromise, and sometimes means standing on principle.

Aye, therein lies the rub.

At the heart of all discussion about 'government' is the oft-ignored truth that there is a difference between 'politics' and 'governance'.

You may accuse me of splitting hairs, of performing semantical gymnastics. But when a word becomes so loaded that every time it's mentioned there is a decidedly biased reaction, then we've got a problem on our hands.

Don't you think there's something wrong with our construct when so many people see 'politics' and 'politicians' in so negative a light, even when a controversy isn't in question?

Think about it: can you imagine if teachers were seen the same way? That the knee-jerk, visceral reaction most people had at the word was one of distrust or anger or revulsion? Don't you think we'd want to actually do something about the situation, instead of merely shrugging and continuing the tradition endlessly without finding some remedies? Or at the least, how we frame our perspective?

'Politics' has become a sport. A partisan, no-holds-barred sport...played for the self-absorbed, self-involved, self-referential participants, not the spectators. (My apologies for the weaknesses of my analogy.) It has very little to do with governance these days.

http://mystoneycreek.blogspot.com/2011/0...

As I have been yammering on about for a long time now, I believe we need a better relationship of engagement between residents and representatives. But maybe before we can accomplish this, we need to rethink the very references involved. Such as the word 'politics'.

Comment edited by mystoneycreek on 2011-04-14 06:36:57

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