Not for the sake of arrogance or vanity, I think it's pretty important to this article to briefly introduce myself.
In most ways I'm just an average guy who kind of likes the quiet, or at least peaceful, life. In many ways I am what you’d call an average Joe Six-pack kind of guy.
Where I excel is that I'm, as Yogi Bear would say, "smarter than the average bear." The last time I took an IQ test I scored one hundred thirty-five, which is in the ninety-nine percentile range. So I'm not quite a genius but I do get terribly bored if I'm not continuously thinking about something that challenges my mind.
While I'm not formally educated, I am still quite able to understand things I see in the world around me. Usually, I tend to see things in ways that other people don't tend to think of them. Not having participated in university life I don't evaluate subjects on the same framework, or with the same preconceived notions, as people who are more formally educated.
Now if you are at all like I am, having experienced some good life as well as some bad life, and are at all interested in the world around you, you have to have noticed that the subject of politics in the United States is… well… there's no kind way to put this; it's extremely screwed up.
I got my first inkling of this when I was standing on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk staring up at the bellies of two Soviet bombers. As a young petty officer looking up at those two aircraft I kind of wondered how this situation came to be.
That question led me to a very intense study of history, politics and philosophy, until I reached the conclusion that you've got to have some of all three and be familiar enough with the basics of each if you are going to even begin to approach any understanding of the insanity that the subject of American politics has become.
I could have called this article "Simple Political Philosophy" however the word “simple” suggests things that I didn't want to be expressed. I could have just as easily made this article as complicated as Locke, Hume, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, or any of the other hundreds of philosophers who have bothered to delve into the subject.
That would be perfectly okay except for the fact that if I wanted to talk to them I would have gone to the university, taken the requisite courses, written a book that they all agreed or disagreed with, maybe sold a couple of copies here and there, and we could have all sat around patting ourselves on the back for being so extremely brilliant that nobody but us could possibly understand us, and still solved absolutely nothing.
But I don't want to talk to them. I want to talk to you; and true answers, especially ones that actually fix more problems than they create, are basically simple.
The word "politics" these days most commonly applies to Democrats and Republicans fighting over who will be in charge of everything under the sun.
Many people, because of the contentious nature of politics, tend to avoid them in conversation. The problem is that there is no way to live on Earth without being involved in politics at some level. The subject is much, much broader than that. It doesn't just apply to political parties fighting for power and control of everybody’s lives. It applies as well to your daily struggle to control your own life.
When you really want to enjoy a beer on the couch on Sunday afternoon, watching the big game on TV and your wife wants, in a very demanding way, you to go with her and the kids, to her parent's house to celebrate "Grandparent's Day"—whatever the hell that is because you'd never heard of such a thing before—and you also notice that it's her parents you have to go see instead of yours, you have just become a part of a political situation. In much the same way, if the Democrats win the election there will be certain consequences, and if the Republicans win the election there will be certain other consequences, and it will impact your life either way it goes.
That's what politics are. It doesn't matter if it's two or more countries trying to negotiate to avoid a war or if it's the potential for two married people trying to avoid a conflict. Somebody wins with some consequence and somebody loses with some consequence, or they work it out with a fair and beneficial exchange.
That's what I'm talking about here when I use the word politics. Two or more people or groups of people, each wanting things their own way, with consequences on whether they get it or not.
There is a Wikipedia page on philosophy which starts off
by saying, "Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems
concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and
language." A far more entertaining, and possibly more workable description was written by Douglas Adams in
the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," where he says that it has something
to do with "the Ultimate Question of
Life, the Universe, and Everything.".jpg)
Without all of the big complicated explanations there needs to be thinking people for philosophy to exist. If more than one person exists and they interact with each other, there has to be politics. The less actual thinking there is the less philosophic politics becomes.
There are all kinds of things that can make dealing with other people and their fundamental problems seem complicated. The more complicated the descriptions of these become, the less fundamental they are. You can become bogged down rather easily trying to understand them all even at their most simple level. If you engage in this activity do so knowing that those descriptions have more to do with people describing their own "genius" to each other than conveying any useful meaning to most people as they relate to their everyday lives.
What we are after in this article is basic political philosophy, not as it deals with all of the people everywhere, but instead as politics deals with you.
Political Philosophy, at the basic level is a study of why someone should, or shouldn't be defeated. This, simply put, is oriented more to discovering the nature of personal freedom versus government and the advantages of one over the other.
I've come to the realization that as far as politics go, I'd rather be a political philosopher than a political scientist. The political scientist is always about the party they belong to. Relative truth doesn't matter as long as their guy wins. Principles don't matter as long as you have your own personal faith that "your guy" is the right guy for everybody and it doesn't matter why; he just is.
Obama can be the best president ever and say immigration is out of control and needs to be fixed but when Trump says the same thing he is a Fascist. Obama can be the worst president ever because he's for tariffs but when Trump does them he's the best president and a brilliant political strategist. See? There are hundreds of issues where the same thing has happened. Relative truth doesn't matter as long as what you're saying about the issue is some contribution towards the defeat of the other guy.
That’s what makes it complicated. There is no underlying standard of values on which you can base the simple decision of “right” or “wrong.”
When a person is thinking along the lines of Political Philosophy, tariffs are either good or bad, and they stay that way no matter who the president is. Border control is either good or bad and remains so no matter who the president is. An out of control and unconstitutional budget is either good or bad, and remains so, no matter which political party occupies the White House or Congress. If a careless politician mishandles classified information it is bad no matter who did it.
In Political Philosophy it is the truth that matters, not the politician or party. For some reason, the truth is important to me. I can't bring myself to believe that the truth isn't important to the vast majority of people.
It is one thing to discuss what the Republican's theory is and compare it to what the Democrat’s theory is. It is something else entirely to fit those things into your life in a way which directly relates to you.
There is a practical answer. It's one that I think many people have a tendency to forget because it is so basic to your life it is taken for granted when there is so much of a temptation to get involved in the many complications involved in defeating the other guy.
Let's say that you are a guy who has done fairly well in life. You are sitting out back, sipping a tall cool drink next to your newly installed swimming pool when your teenage daughter comes out dressed in something that makes you wonder a bit if you should talk to her about getting a one-piece swimsuit rather than the bikini she is wearing. Hmmm… maybe a brief talk with the wife first, you know, just to see if she'll take the uncomfortable burden from you.
As you sit there pondering your course of action you can't help but notice the teenage boy who lives in the house across the back yard with his face firmly pressed against the window and his mouth hanging open. Maybe you're not so much bothered by the boy as you are by the father in the other window.
Yeah, she’s drawing a bit more attention than you are comfortable with. So you pick up your handy laptop and start shopping for a privacy fence. A brief walk around the yard and a few measurements of angles later you calculate that a seven-foot privacy fence would be the right height so as to keep the neighbor's eyes off of your daughter.
There is a problem with that. Your city requires you to have a special permit for any fence taller than six feet, signed off by your neighbor as well as any other applicable city officials, one of which suspiciously refuses to sign off on it. Six feet won't block the view of your pool from the windows the neighbors are looking through so it would render the entire expense and effort useless.
In the short term you decide that maybe your rifle needs to be cleaned so you set up a table and start field stripping your AR-15.
Being somewhat ambitious as you are, you go down to the weekly city council meeting and kindly point out that the regulations regarding the building of fences on your own property, with your own money, for the protection of your own family from the prying eyes of your testosterone influenced neighbors, are kind of insufficient to the required task. Also present are several people who will be running for the council seats due to be vacated at the upcoming election. One says it's unjust to have such an unwarranted restriction of privacy fence height, and if you vote for him he'll allow you to have your seven-foot fence. The other approaches your neighbor who is also at the meeting speaking out against fences because they block his view…of the scenery…and tells him that if he gets his vote he'll see to it that no fence is ever built anywhere more than six feet tall. In fact, he might even restrict them to five feet tall as sometimes they can be quite the eyesore and cause property values to go down.
As the campaigns roll out one of them says about the other that he obviously doesn't care about the protection of children and leaves them to be spied and preyed upon by the prying eyes of perverts. The other one responds that it is in the rights of property owners to protect the value of their homes from the uncaring actions of those who would engage in political mudslinging just to get their own way. Furthermore, there is obviously a tendency toward anti-social behavior on the part of those who want to turn their neighborhoods into fenced up fortresses for gun-wielding maniacs and maybe what they are really doing behind their big and tall fences is running a prostitution ring and growing marijuana.
Somewhere in the background, the Libertarian candidate says, "Oh yeah!? Well, I think a person should be able to build a fence right up until it becomes so tall it poses a navigational hazard to low flying aircraft and there's nothing the government can do about it."
So there you sit, next to your pool, sipping your beer, cleaning your rifle and watching the guy and boy gawking at your daughter, who is still in that damned bikini and soaking up the rays as if all is right in the world. Realizing the inherent difficulties involved in putting a bullet through your neighbor’s eye your greatest temptation is to involve yourself in the fight between the politicians as they engage in their battle of political science to see who can best the other in a fight.
Those are all relevant questions to the issue of the fence but the arguments of the politicians who are vying for power are all oriented around the question of what they are or are not going to allow you to have. All of this misses the point that you’re just trying to protect your daughter.
Basic Political Philosophy only has two relevant questions at the personal level, which both have a tendency to fall through the cracks as soon as the first politically motivated salvo passes the muzzle of the intellectual guns. The first being, "who rightfully should be in control of this portion of my life?" The second being, "who is in control of this portion of my life?"
Certainly, there are things a federal government should be in control of. Certainly, there are things that a federal government shouldn't be in control of. Certainly, there are things a state government should be in control of. Certainly, there are things a state government shouldn't be in control of. Certainly, there are things a local government should be in control of. Certainly, there are things a local government shouldn't be in control of.
Certainly there are things that you should be in control of.
It would be ridiculous for the federal government to be in control of how high your fence should be. It would be ridiculous for the local government to declare war on a country halfway around the world. The trick to government power is to put all of the different kinds and levels of powers in the right place and keep them out of the wrong places.
For me, it all seems to sort itself out at the personal level. What parts of my life should I be in control of? And am I in control of those parts of my life?
Should the federal government be in charge of what I eat? Or my medical care? Or my retirement? Or who I decide to vote for to represent me at that level of government? Or what medications I put in my body? Or what car I drive? Or how much of my money they take from me to give to someone else? Or where I go? Or who I talk to? Or what I say? Or what I believe? Or how much money I make? Or what I spend my own earnings on? Or how many children I have? Or how they are educated? Or what I own?
By what standard and what right does any other human being ever spawned on Earth have to make these kinds of decisions for me?
The Basic Political Philosophy answer is none.
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