The Death of Politics

[Demosthenes]

The Death of Politics
Demosthenes

The upcoming election on Thursday leads me to write this piece, although I rarely get political in my writing and normally remain ideological; however, the totally ignorant assumptions and speculations I have been hearing on a daily basis and the death of politics in this country calls for the prophet to speak. I want to stress that I am not in the pay of any political party, nor am I affiliated or even known by name to any of them. What follows is pure observation and logic, no spin.

The bane of this generation is that we are in a post-ideological era, politics having intellectually burned itself out long ago and the public have become ignorant to real politics. A hundred years ago, politics was a great intellectual game, whereby a particular ideology following a particular line of thinking battled it out with the other ideologies and tried to convince the public why their way of thinking was better or made more sense or their interpretation of philosophy was true and everyone else’s was false, such as when the followers of Hegel split to the left and the right.

Sadly today politics has declined into a petty argument, a childish pastime whereby one wins the most votes by slurring the other party’s leader through personal insults and anecdotes, which have nothing at all to do with politics. And sadly, the desensitisation of the public by the media is the greatest loss. The people who truly have the most power in any given “democracy”, are not the leaders of the government but the people who own and direct the media. Government officials at every level are scared to pass any legislation or make any suggestion for fear of what the media will make out of it and what they will dig up about his or her past. This culture of low backstabbing is absolutely disgusting, as we all make some mistakes in our private lives that we wouldn’t want the whole world to know, but we are perfectly happy to read in the newspapers everyday about what any given personality has been up to the night before. This, I think, is one of the main causes of the death of politics, and in Thursday’s election this will play a part. Indeed, the only way most of the general public even know who or what the candidates stand for is the media, the most prolific embodiment being the three debates.

The three candidates who are standing for election; Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. They are specifically put in this order. Nick Clegg seems like a nice chap. That’s why he has so much support. But, philosophically, he is an atheist (or so the media have reported – I am also a victim of the bigoted media), which means that he cannot accept or believe that there is a Higher Being which runs and controls the world. That means that he will structure his government and rule the country the way he believes and runs his own life; that he is in complete control, and that there is no force greater than mankind; and that why his government is doomed to fail, as it will not be able to handle something unexpected, or unexplainable, or, as according to his belief (or lack of it) there is no such thing as something unexplainable.

David Cameron is the very embodiment of the media-lackey. It is he who will be the one to give real politics the final bullet. He hasn’t run his campaign through philosophy, honesty and a will to make the country better for everyone to live in. Rather, he has based his campaign around slurring and backstabbing Gordon Brown, and when asked a question he doesn’t like, will not give you a straight and honest answer. He makes sure the whole world knows that he makes supper for his kiddies and he goes on charity runs, but will he tell us with full honesty exactly what he intends to do if he would become PM, or exactly what he will try and do? No he won’t, and that is because he doesn’t actually want to make the country a better place for everyone to live in, but rather to make the country a better place for himself to live in. Conservatism is a ruling class ideology; its pragmatism will let it hide and conceal it but at the end of the day David Cameron is not working for our interests; he’s working for his own interests and the interests of the people and class he represents. And dialectically, what always happens when there is a ruling class ideology in power? The classes which are being excluded will rise up with discontent and frustration, being the antithesis, which will lead to the synthesis of the far-right fascist parties gaining power. I predict the same will happen for Nick Clegg’s government should he ever come to power, as since his government will not stand as I have explained shortly before, dialectically this will elicit the same response.

The answer is Gordon Brown, of course. He might be blind in one eye, and he might have erred and he might be a bully, but he is honest and clear and tries his best and is not afraid to admit when he has done something wrong. Britain, and the world, has been through the worst economic crisis since the Wall Street Crash and Britain was the hardest hit. Yes, we know Gordon Brown said Britain would be the one who would not be hit hard, and he did his best to make that happen that way, but he erred, as humans do, but he did not stand down from his responsibility and accepted all the blame. If we rip off the sunglasses of superficiality from our minds we will collectively realise that behold! Here was a great Prime Minister!

[Citizen Smith]

The Death of Politics
Demosthenes

Nick Clegg seems like a nice chap. That’s why he has so much support. But, philosophically, he is an atheist (or so the media have reported – I am also a victim of the bigoted media), which means that he cannot accept or believe that there is a Higher Being which runs and controls the world. That means that he will structure his government and rule the country the way he believes and runs his own life; that he is in complete control, and that there is no force greater than mankind; and that why his government is doomed to fail, as it will not be able to handle something unexpected, or unexplainable, or, as according to his belief (or lack of it) there is no such thing as something unexplainable.

You are joking?
Maybe he cares about people, not being in a fanatical cult that serves no purpose.

[Demosthenes]

I see I have touched a raw nerve. My point was not that he cared. My point was that his government will not persevere.

[ryoden]

The Death of Politics
Demosthenes

The three candidates who are standing for election; Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. They are specifically put in this order. Nick Clegg seems like a nice chap. That’s why he has so much support. But, philosophically, he is an atheist (or so the media have reported – I am also a victim of the bigoted media), which means that he cannot accept or believe that there is a Higher Being which runs and controls the world. That means that he will structure his government and rule the country the way he believes and runs his own life; that he is in complete control, and that there is no force greater than mankind; and that why his government is doomed to fail, as it will not be able to handle something unexpected, or unexplainable, or, as according to his belief (or lack of it) there is no such thing as something unexplainable.

So in essence you are saying that due to the fact he doesnt believe in an unproven deity his government wont persevere? I suppose you think that since Blair was such a devout believer that going to war was a jolly good idea as well? I may have misunderstood since you used the phrase "philosophically, he is an atheist" but the rest of the paragraph indicates that he lacks a belief (in god) system.

Personally I would prefer someone who runs the country to not rely on chatting with a higher power before making any serious decisions.

[fubar]

total and utter bull sh-t

[fubar]

The Death of Politics

Demosthenes

If we rip off the sunglasses of superficiality from our minds we will collectively realise that behold! Here was a great Prime Minister!

this quote should go down as the quote of the century for one of the most evil men along with Tony Blair and Adolf Hitler and Lenin as you only have to look at how poor we are though the implemtation off higher taxes that make the poor poorer and the rich richer to realise that he has done so knowing that this would be the case.you dumb ass.

[Demosthenes]

My argument about Nick Clegg is following merely a philosophical line of thought. If you don't understand philosophy, don't comment. My point is that dialectically a victory for either the libdems or the conservatives will result in a disaster, either because of the the absolutist government approach, or because of other reasons publicised by the media (which I did not want to originally quote), such as the lack of experience or his youth. If the libdems or the conservatives had been in Gordon Brown's shoes during the last few years, the country would be in a much worse state than it would be now.

[Midas]

My argument about Nick Clegg is following merely a philosophical line of thought. If you don't understand philosophy, don't comment. My point is that dialectically a victory for either the libdems or the conservatives will result in a disaster, either because of the the absolutist government approach, or because of other reasons publicised by the media (which I did not want to originally quote), such as the lack of experience or his youth. If the libdems or the conservatives had been in Gordon Brown's shoes during the last few years, the country would be in a much worse state than it would be now.

A highly subjective and very one sided opinion in my view.

[Demosthenes]

I acknowledge that my argument about Nick Clegg is weak, yet from a philosophical point of view it is the one of the only things in which he is flawed. Realistically, he has a lot of strange and pointless ideas, such as electoral reform; as I said in Britain's False Democracy, our voting system is not democratic, but changing it to something more like America would result in the Prime Minister becoming more Presidential when he already has too much power, as if we were voting directly for a personality he would have the direct mandate of the majority of the population, which would be disastrous for this country where corruption has already taken its toll. My main argument, however, was directed at David Cameron. Refer to the order in which I put them. Clegg is still second choice, due the the lack of strong evidence that he would be unable to hold the job.

[rinks]

This is not a time of radical, revolutionary politics. Not yet. Unrest, riot, dissent, and chaos notwithstanding, today's politics is reactionary. Both Left and Right are reactionary and authoritarian. That is to say, both are political. They seek only to revise current methods of acquiring and wielding political power. Radical and revolutionary movements seek not to revise but to revoke. The target of revocation should be obvious. The target is politics itself.

Radicals and revolutionaries have had their sights trained on politics for some time. As governments fail around the world, as more millions become aware that government never has and never can humanely and effectively manage men's affairs, government's own inadequacy will emerge, at last, as the basis for a truly radical and revolutionary movement. In the meantime, the radical-revolutionary position is a lonely one. It is feared and hated, by both Right and Left – although both Right and Left must borrow from it to survive. The radical-revolutionary position is libertarianism, and its socioeconomic form is laissez-faire capitalism.

Libertarianism is the view that each man is the absolute owner of his life, to use and dispose of as he sees fit: that all man's social actions should be voluntary: and that respect for every other man's similar and equal ownership of life and, by extension, the property and fruits of that life is the ethical basis of a humane and open society. In this view, the only – repeat, only – function of law or government is to provide the sort of self-defense against violence that an individual, if he were powerful enough, would provide for himself.

If it were not for the fact that libertarianism freely concedes the right of men voluntarily to form communities or governments on the same ethical basis, libertarianism could be called anarchy.

Laissez-faire capitalism, or anarchocapitalism, is simply the economic form of the libertarian ethic. Laissez-faire capitalism encompasses the notion that men should exchange goods and services, without regulation, solely on the basis of value for value. It recognizes charity and communal enterprises as voluntary versions of this same ethic. Such a system would be straight barter, except for the widely felt need for a division of labor in which men, voluntarily, accept value tokens such as cash and credit. Economically, this system is anarchy, and proudly so.

Libertarianism is rejected by the modern Left – which preaches individualism but practices collectivism. Capitalism is rejected by the modern Right – which preaches enterprise but practices protectionism. The libertarian faith in the mind of men is rejected by religionists who have faith only in the sins of man. The libertarian insistence that men be free to spin cables of steel, as well as dreams of smoke, is rejected by hippies who adore nature but spurn creation. The libertarian insistence that each man is a sovereign land of liberty, with his primary allegiance to himself, is rejected by patriots who sing of freedom but also shout of banners and boundaries. There is no operating movement in the world today that is based upon a libertarian philosophy. If there were, it would be in the anomalous position of using political power to abolish political power.

[stevectaylor]

bump..