The Legislators We Need

Yup, here we go, yet another pointless political disquisition...  Off into the wilds, but hey, it's my space, I can do what I want.

It occurred to me the other day that if you are a political candidate who is 100% invested in getting office so you can make sure you "get back at" some group, or seek to make sure those whom you identify with get ahead beyond any other group, you may not be the sort of person who we need in government.

Before you get all bent out of shape, let me finish the thought.

We need people who will work towards making our systems, our country, and our world both fair and workable in the long run.  That means we need people who are going to advocate for the disadvantaged or discriminated groups to come to a level with everyone else, so, frankly, no one is "advantaged" at the expense of someone else, and that if the group you identify with is one that is historically discriminated against, then yes, we need to make a fair system - PERIOD.

I know, there are some folks already frothing - or would be if they read this.  So be it.  The bottom line, the thing I learned very long ago, is that if a system or situation can be set up in order to offer anyone a bigger advantage than anyone else, it's unfair.  If that advantage is because they have more pickles, more hair, more volume, or whatever it is, it's unfair.  And if a system is unbalanced in your favor keep in mind the fact that if you lose whatever advantage it is that keeps you on the winning side, when you or your group become out of favor, you will find that the same bias that made things work IN YOUR FAVOR will now work to keep all of them whom you opposed in a position to benefit just like you did.  

Huh?  Simple.  Let's say you're playing a board game.  Not picking on it, but let's say it's Monopoly.  Now, let's say you "volunteer" to be the banker.  And you ever so rarely, but in those necessary moments, "borrow" a few $500 bills to help things out.  Ya, I know, that's called CHEATING.  But it may be that you're playing with people who aren't aware that, since you're keeping the "bank" on a side table, they don't see all of the slight-of-hand tricks you use to remove that cash and place it on your own pile.  

Or let's say you've decided you don't like how someone is doing something, so you've decided you're going to become their new boss.  Gee, what might happen if, some day, you're no longer in charge, but the people you screwed get together and decide to become YOUR new boss?  Retired, huh?  On a big pile of cash?  Gee, one wonders how far your taxes might rise because folks decided you stole that money from them because you didn't like what they were doing.  

There it is, folks.  It's right there, plain as the noses on most folks' faces.  If you are interested in protecting what little you have and keeping it away from others, then you're looking down.  You're not looking for a way to help everyone get ahead.  Yeah, it might mean that little road ahead of you covered in gold might end up being shared with other folks.  Thing is, more money moving around makes all of us richer.

I've said it before.  If you give one man $10,000,000 or you give 10,000 men $1000, there's going to be an economic impact.  That one guy might go out and buy a new house.  He might spend a little bit of money on furnishings.  Then he'll sit at home and watch TV.  

Those ten thousand men might go out and get the kids a haircut and a new pair of shoes and a coat.  They might take their significant others - or those whom they might wish were their significant others - out for a nice dinner.  Maybe a movie, too.  Or they might do the utterly mundane and buy a new set of tires for the car.  Or pay off a credit card.  Or do something.  

Fact is that money is moving around more than the one guy with the ten million.  That much is just as clear as glass.  As is the growing movements I see around this country where people, upset with something or other, decide to take it out on someone else.  

Prime example number one is Ron Desantis, the utterly unqualified governor of Florida.  Most states need Leaders, and Ron Desantis qualifies nowhere on that list.  The man is utterly interested in avenging any injuries he's experienced.  He doesn't want children to know history, he's terrified that if small African-American people grow up knowing the history of race relations, if they discover their ancestors may have come to this country to be treated as anything other than human beings - well, Desantis is undoubtedly terrified of many different groups.  He is absolutely shrieking terrified of African Americans, because he doesn't want them, or anyone else, to learn the history that is both rather widely available and a matter of public record.  Back when I was much younger, we had a word for folks who sought to censor or prohibit knowledge to protect their power.  We saw it most often under totalitarian regimes which tightly controlled the flow of information, the subjects that the local news program could cover, and the topics that children might learn in school.  There was a word, in fact, for that schooling.  Indoctrination.  Which is a nasty big word that says we're not at all interested in teaching you anything substantial, we wish to control what you see, you read, you learn, and you know, because the only thing knowledge will do is weaken those who control the power and make them vulnerable.

That was what caused the monarchies of Europe to start fearing - and tumbling.  Yes, it did start with the Magna Carta, the English document which took the divine and absolute power away from the hereditary ruler and handed some of it back to the people, through the legislative process.  If we'd remembered the things we had learned in Greece back a whole hell of a long time ago, we'd know that yes, Might can make the rules, but the rules and the might only last when supported by everyone.  If you start separating the society you're in into them that have, and them that aren't allowed to have, then you're just making it all easier to fall.

Do I think this explanation might change the minds of people like Marjorie Taylor Green?  I would have to expect that woman to both have and use a mind.  It's pretty clear that she, and many of the fringe members of the current Republican Party, are using that strongest emotion, fear, to drive a significant portion of their constituents to the poles to vote for them because, well, they're afraid of what these whackjobs profess will be the future.

Thing is, the future is likely to be more of the present - the folks who don't understand how things work, the folks who choose not to learn how things can be made better will continue to press for their advantage.  And they'll bemoan the growth of violence, the growth of crime, the growth of "people taking their things" when the truth of the matter is they never earned "their things" - they stole them. 

The inevitable response to an unbalanced, unfair system is for those who see the unfairness and their inability to persevere and prosper in that system to act out in the only way they can.  Which is violence.  

Is that the reason we have so many mass shootings?  I dunno.  Can't imagine that all of the gun purchasers and ammo buyers are doing it because it's a good investment, it's fun to do, and it's just good business sense.  Violence begets instability, and instability causes assets to lose value.  So gee, I wonder, but I'd bet if the systems we live with were more fair, overall, with the biases in the system working to give those who haven't historically had an advantage gain a slight advantage to catch up with everyone else, well, gee.  I can see it.  God knows there's plenty out there who are just going to keep pressing to live in a biased system because they benefit.  I sure wish it was fairer for all involved.