Politics is like philosophy, it’s often propagated from the gut. Nietzsche, to name drop and old college buddy of mine, was the eternal spoiler of the credibility of philosophers. He denounced and derided his own profession, claiming that philosophers conceived in the metaphysical gut and placed their arguments after the fact. In other words, you believe something for whatever-the-fuck random reason and then painstakingly post-process the arguments that will prove you “right”. And such is the majority of the world of political discourse. Few people actually consider issues, in their own right, without latching on to some bias of affiliation. Just take your typical internet discussion forum of choice and watch the discourse devolve to ad hominem abuse. People simply have opinions, like they have tastes, like they have desires. Like they have feelings, like they love some people and hate some people. Take your typical self-proclaimed “Republican” or “Democrat”, the type person that adheres fervently to the cultish “truth” of the party. These extremes manage to take all the effort out of informed decision making. Whenever there is something to have a comment on, whether it may be war on Iraq or tax cuts for the rich, these lackeys will vehemently cling to their said party’s rhetoric and prejudice. Then they will read what other people have said so that they can regurgitate it to friends, family and co-workers. Surely accompanied by trivial fact and statistics mongering…

There is this jackass republican guy that I used to work with. It really makes no difference that he was a Republican or Democrat, but for the record he was Republican. This guy was all over the “issues” before they were practically out of his party’s mouth. Dangerous person. The kind that gets ALL of their information from conservative AM talk show zealots. You know the kind. You turn on the AM radio and there’s some obnoxious voiced bigot talking about the right for babies to own guns or something. The type that wouldn’t even read NYT because they couldn’t find enough right wing hate and propaganda for it to be quotable. The type that anytime you said anything remotely in support of a “liberal” idea would jab at Clinton and start spewing numbers and percentages and fiscal plan bullshit.

Give me a fucking break. If there is ANYTHING that the stock market crash and this recession or “period of negative growth” should have taught ALL of us its don’t trust numbers or the people that manipulate you with them. Numbers are for hire. Anyone can find some lame statistic to support anything…and they do. Economics? Come on. In reality its like Vegas meets Voodoo.

The point is simply this: what with all the rush to make decisions and have an instant opinion on everything? Did your mother never teach you to sit quietly with your mouth shut until you have analyzed both sides of an argument with an open mind and heart?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 27th, 2002 at 1:27 am and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.