| | One explanation is that we're mostly idiots who do not even know how to choose our own preferences, but other explanations exist and likely explain even more of the outcome than the simple explanation that people are just dumb. It's really a pretty enormous task to explain a 94% re-election rate against a 9% approval rate. It's more likely that other causes are in play: The most likely explanation for such a grand disparity is that incumbents rig the system, using whatever power they have to hold onto future power, come hell or high water.
Now, you can still say we are dumb (for letting them get away with it), but it is they who are corrupt -- not us. We are merely gullible and do not want to believe that politicians are such morally corrupt individuals. It's a hard pill to swallow that they are mostly just a pack of very terrible human beings. After all, we see them on TV smiling, and they always talk about how they want to be of such great help to the people of the nation. But then we get lied to. And the lies don't stop. And each time, we want to believe the new lies.
Sometimes I feel like we are the parent of a teen-aged drug addict, not wanting to admit there is a problem -- or at least not one big enough to require an intervention. The early stage involves denial or wishful thinking that the problem will go away on its own. I want to stress that an intervention can be completely non-violent, as it is in a family intervention on a relative who is an addict -- and that is the best way to have an intervention. Sometimes there is still pain, as there is when you take crack away from a crack-addict. Sometimes there are still threats, as there are when you take crack away from a crack-addict.
In keeping with this analogy, what we need is a 12-Step Program to wean ourselves off of bad government ...
Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/26, 7:31pm)
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