Some Knowledge

I voted today.  After some morning coffee and a bit of news on TV, I got in the truck and drove up to the local school.  There were plenty of parking places.  There were very few people waiting to vote.  I had to fill out a form to apply to vote and show picture ID.  I filled out the form wrong, printing my name where I should have signed and signing where I should have printed.  It was early in the morning, about 9:30.  I had to fill out another form.  Then I had to wait in line behind two people to get my ballot.  One of the election workers said there was a big crowd between 7:30 and 8:00.  People have jobs.  People like to vote before they go to work.  This is why I waited until after 9:00 to vote.  There was no crowd for me.

It took a while to fill out the ballot.  The felt tip pen ran out of ink.  I had to black out the ovals with a ballpoint.  There were a lot of candidates running unopposed on this ballot.  What is wrong with politicians?  Don’t the different parties want to win elections?  Maybe they just could not come up with a person to run for the different offices.  Maybe they did not want to go to the trouble of getting somebody listed on the ballot.  Perhaps it costs money to get your name on a ballot.  Perhaps the whole political system is corrupt and the only reason to vote is to let the people think they have some say in who is running the country.

It took me a total of 45 minutes to vote this morning.  I know a lot of people will have to wait in line for hours.  If everybody who didn’t bother to vote actually got out and voted today, maybe candidates from third parties might actually win against the billion dollar media PR campaigns of the ruling class.  All I know is that I registered my opposition to the political machine that runs America by voting for somebody who has no chance to actually win.  Maybe if more people like me voted we wouldn’t have so many problems.

I live in America.  America is a great country.  In America we choose the most popular person to be our leader.  For some reason, the people who founded our country thought that the best person to lead a nation would be the person who got the most votes.  This was not an original idea.  They got it from the Greeks, who also had a democracy in ancient times.  For unknown reasons, this has worked out fairly well.  The same person can not lead America for more than eight years.  Perhaps they chose this style of government in an attempt to give political power to the people.  At least that’s the story you learn in government class in highschool.

The most popular person might in fact not be the best qualified person to run a country.  People don’t cast votes for the person they think is the most qualified.  They vote for the person they like the best.  This is human nature.  So, we have a president that most of the people like.  Does that mean he or she knows anything about how to run a country?  Does that mean they are responsible enough to know when to push the button on the nuclear weapons.  Hell, most of our presidents can’t even pronounce nuclear, let alone know how the things work.  We’ve even had actors elected to office.  The most popular person is nothing but the most popular person.  They are not necessarily the person who knows how to do the job they are applying for.

Is there a better way to govern a country?  There must be.  We don’t let students graduate from school unless they pass a test.  Shouldn’t there be some kind of test that a presidential candidate has to pass before they can run for office?  This would weed out the candidates of obvious morons.  Morons are dangerous.  Maybe there should be a test they could design that would select our leader as the person best qualified to make executive decisions.  Unlike many Americans, I have no religious belief in the soundness of our political system.

Then there is the question of money.  It seems political candidates are allowed to beg for contributions.  If I go out in the city and ask random people for money, the police will come along and arrest me for panhandling.  Why are politicians allowed to beg?  They spend this money on TV advertisements in an attempt to make themselves more popular.  This is annoying.  It’s bad enough advertisers are trying to brainwash me into buying stuff, now they are trying to form opinions on who should lead the country in my battered mind.  The whole situation is ridiculous.  Whoever has the most money from begging will fool the most people into voting for him.  This is how we select our leaders?  No wonder they’re all crooks.

I’m not sure who I am going to vote for on election day.  I generally pick the least popular candidate.  What I should do is hire a private investigator to investigate all the candidates and tell me what they really want out of the election, but I already know.  They want power.  Money and fame are not enough for these people.  They want to send soldiers to foreign countries to kill people.  They want to spend all the money in the world on their pet projects.  People who want to lead like to tell other people what to do.  This is just the kind of attitude that should disqualify a person from ever being elected.  Of course, I am just one person and only have one vote, so what I want is meaningless in this great country.

All we seem to get in the news these days is a lot of talk about politics and politicians.  I think this is the biggest waste of time and resources imaginable.  All the millions of dollars politicians spend in their attempts to get elected do nothing to benefit the people.  In fact, they take this money from people who are dumb enough to contribute to a political campaign.

People have been playing these games since before recorded history.  There is always some group of people who want to tell the other people what to do.  In the cave man days, it might have been the strongest member of the tribe who seized power.  In the age of empires it was the strongest families who ruled through force.  Now, with democracy, we have rule by popularity.  It’s still rule.  Why do the people of every country feel they need rulers?  It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Politicians are real good at telling other people what to do.  When they are not making up a lot of pointless or perhaps useful laws for people to obey, they are causing problems with other rulers and groups of people by perpetrating wars.  There are so many different governments operating on this planet that it is no wonder the world is in the state it is.

Anarchy obviously won’t work.  There has to be some mechanism to protect people from the members of society who use force and violence to get their way.  Is there some reason that the laws of one country should be different from the laws of another?  People are still people no matter where they live, and they all need some kind of safety.  Do governments provide safety for people?  Most governments take advantage of people and annoy them.  Why are people so interested in politics?

Perhaps it is all the lies politicians tell to get elected that makes me distrust them all.  A politician will say anything to get himself some votes.  They pay people to study opinions and then form their platform to appeal to the majority of people.  Once they get elected, they do whatever they want.  This popularity contest is a stupid way to pick leaders.  Sure, you will end up with the person that the majority want to be leader, but what if that person is a complete moron?  What if their true opinions on things are different from the opinions they bragged about in their election speeches?  You have no guarantees with politics.

In any civilized society you need rules to govern the behavior of people.  You can not allow people to go around shooting each other for no good reason.  You can not allow people to just take whatever they want, even if it belongs to another person.  This is why laws are made, to keep the peace.  Why would anyone think that the winner of a popularity contest, played out with millions of dollars of advertising, knows anything at all about how to keep the peace?  They make doctors pass a test to get their degree.  You wouldn’t go to a doctor who got his job by getting elected by a bunch of people who knew nothing about him.  That would be stupid.  The only qualification that democracy has for it’s leaders is that they are citizens, are at least a certain age, and that they are popular.

And now with the mass media everywhere every time you turn on a TV or radio or try to read the news, you can’t avoid the nonsense these campaigns spew.  So some politician chose who he wants to be his running mate.  Great, the most popular person has picked his successor.  There is no assurance that this person knows anything about running a sane government.  There is nothing to prevent the president from sending the army to invade any country on earth, now that they’ve thrown the constitution out the window.  So, we get to choose  between one of two people picked to lead us by the two political parties.  Where is there anything in the constitution about allowing political parties?  There is nothing about any two-party system in any documents that this country was founded on.  It was convenient for gangs of people to get together and pick our leaders.  Not only do we run a popularity contest to pick the head of state, we allow people to gang up and select the persons who will appear on the official ballot.  Anyone else in this system just does not count.

So, I’m writing about politics today because I’m sick and tired of hearing about it.  I’m sick and tired of the way our government leads us all into waste and poverty.  I’m sick of our leaders sending our children off to die in foreign countries just to make those countries hate us even more.  Maybe instead of electing the most convincing liar as our leader, we should elect a person who has some sense of responsibility and some idea how to make the world a better place.  That person could be just about anyone who lives in this great land.  Maybe it’s time people stopped rubberstamping the idiots chosen for us by political parties and voted for a person who could change this government for the better.  Maybe tomorrow I will wake up in a perfect world without war, hunger, disease and poverty.  Funny, I just don’t think that is going to happen any time soon.

Here’s a link to the video Paris Hilton did in response to the John McCain ad featuring her likeness.  Apparently, Paris has a solution to the energy crisis, and she thinks McCain is old.  Well, I must say the thoughts expressed in this video are pretty obvious.  Still, it’s good to see young people trying to do something positive for the country.  I don’t think she’ll make it onto the ballot, because she isn’t 35 yet, but probably some people will vote for her anyway.  She seems to have more common sense than the other candidates.  In any case, at least this political ad is interesting.

What causes perfectly peaceful people to take up guns and shoot each other?  War has been a feature of human behavior since times far before recorded history.  Even now, in primitive cultures, different tribes of people still fight it out with rocks and spears.  Why do people behave in such a destructive, unkind, and unproductive way?

People have probably been asking this question for as long as fighting has been a part of human behavior.  Animals fight for territory, food, and mates.  Animals, however, do not have complex language that enables them to cooperate.  War is a very cooperative effort.  It takes organization and the assignment of leadership to facilitate warfare.  Without the ability to communicate it would be every man for himself.

Warlike behavior is almost inseparable from the development of weapons technology.  The human body is not equipped with very effective natural weapons as were the Tyrannosaurus Rex.  A weapon can be as simple as a rock or a stick, both naturally occurring objects.  Chimpanzees have basic rock and stick technology, and sometimes engage in raiding competing bands for food.  Chimps, however, have long canine teeth and do not use their tools as weapons.  Monkeys also do not have complex language.  Their groups do have clear leadership hierarchies, so they do have some cultural aspects in common with humans.

Modern man has far more advanced technology than primitive man, and has vastly more complex leadership structures.  There are also a lot more humans on earth than there were in ancient times.  Having the technology to fight organized battles and the social structure that separates one group of humans from another, all leads to a high potential for combative behavior.  The central question I have in regard to war, is:  Why is murder tolerated on a large scale by humanity, but punished when perpetrated on the scale of the individual?

No sane person would desire war.  It is bad enough when houses and buildings are destroyed by natural catastrophes.  To deliberately destroy property and life with explosive devices is beyond criminal.  We have to look at who is perpetrating such destructive acts.  Sometimes individual persons contrive bombs and destroy some things.  We tend to call these kinds of persons terrorists.  Yet, when a soldier, under orders from a government drops bombs on some city, we call that person a hero?  Why is there such a dichotomy between the perceived character of persons perpetrating what is basically the same act?

It all boils down to the diverse governments of mankind.  Individuals do not start wars.  Individuals may commit acts of violence that precipitate a war, but it is governments which organize and perpetrate war.  Right now there are something like 142 separate governments on earth, each with their own laws and leadership.  Not only are humans categorized by what area they live in, there are many different languages, customs, and religions which alienate one group of people from another.  With all of these different countries supporting some sort of military force, ostensibly for defense, there is vast potential for conflict.

What are the sources for conflict between whole groups of people?  There are differing claims for territory.  This is one of the most ancient sources of dispute.  One government may claim sovereignty over the same area of land as another government.  This is the main dispute between India and Pakistan, the disputed region of Kashmir.  At many times in history, a country has decided to completely take over neighboring regions.  The quest for power over large numbers of people is what motivated Adolf Hitler to start the second world war.  Invasions like this are orchestrated for political reasons.

Different countries might have differing philosophical outlooks.  Capitalist countries are diametrically opposed to communist countries.  Because of these different political systems, these countries place themselves in competition for control of the wealth and resources of the planet.  The differences in how these countries are administrated was the cause for many of the wars of the twentieth century.  Korea and Vietnam were examples of wars caused by politics.

Differences in religious belief also causes some international conflict.  One has only to look at the histories of the muslims, jews, and christians in the middle east to see this cause in action.  When people assign political leadership to religious figures, this can cause conflict with leaders of regions who have different religious beliefs.  People will fight to the death for no better reason than a difference of esoteric ideation.

In a world that is so technologically advanced that one person can grow enough food to feed a thousand others, why do we still have such idiotic customs as warfare?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to apply fair laws and political systems to all persons of the earth regardless of where they happened to be born?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to settle international disputes in a court of law, like personal disputes are settled, rather than to duke it out on the battlefield with weapons of mass destruction?  Wouldn’t the people of the earth be better served by governments who spent tax money on ways to help people, rather than on research into better ways to kill people?  Isn’t it time for the nations of the earth to get together and discuss ways we can live in peace, rather than to fight about who has the right to rule over which areas of lands and peoples?