The Problem With Politics is US

 

Well, here we are in yet another quadrennial, “silly season,” also known as a presidential election year .
Every four years we go through this crazy season, with the idea that, somehow, politics and our beloved pet candidate (and his managing party) will save us from ourselves. More than that, even, is the fact that we likewise forget for several months that the problems we endure are caused by the very people we choose every silly season.

Underscoring these blind spots in our mental state are several glaring fallacies under which we seemingly LOVE to labor....

1. The fundamental fallacy we cling to is the flaw of all democratic systems: They always depend on the dominant culture, regardless of whether that culture is bad or good.

Democratic systems are incapable of steering a culture away from its own errors; they just maintain the prevailing cultural drift through averaging....yielding average results at best. They are really quite gutless when it comes to effecting catalytic change
Our constant, silly-season rhetoric of, “democracy over all, and one person one vote” is OBVIOUSLY not the recipe for changing what has clearly become a declining culture. But, still, we trundle it out each season, as if it is the only salvific we have.

2. The next huge fallacy we hide behind is that of making everything “government political,” reducing all to “the vote” or the “democratic process.”
This blinds us to the benefit of intermediary institutions – bodies which might actually do some good for the society, the economy, and even the spiritual welfare of the culture. Rather, we fall for the cheese on the governments mousetrap, manipulated into believing that only more government and the rule of the party can help us.
We forget that grange associations, trade unions, schools and universities, villages and towns, business associations, guilds, churches and the Mother Church have all done more good for ordinary people in ordinary communities than any bureaucratic, “department” of the State.
Our ability to overlook this obvious reality during the silly season is legendary.

3. The next looming fallacy underlying our American silly season is that politics is the only way to build a “good” society. Never mind that the only standard for “good “ is almost always our own opinion.

Here again, if you look at modern history, it's hard to understand how anyone can accept this notion, when faced with the massive evils that are perpetuated under the influence of political ideologies.
As smart as we claim to be, you think we could figure out there is a better way to build a good society - but we never do.
The failure here is that we utterly and deliberately avoid giving credit to God, and we don't follow the plan that he gave us, through Jesus Christ.
If we did that one thing, we would achieve the ideal society we crave every silly season. But noooo... we labor under the same old illusion that we ourselves can create this ideal society – if only our people only get the chance, THIS TIME.

Now, I'm gonna break one of the rules that we hold dear during the silly season and say that the best way to create the ideal human culture is through the lessons taught by Jesus Christ.

Wow! I dared to trample one of our dearest political white elephants: the separation of church and state.
But that is more rhetorical than anything nowadays, as we use the fallacies already mentioned to give politics a near-religious quality of it own.
But that separation is about preventing the State from imposing its own chosen religion upon its subjects – which is a VERY different thing than the subjects themselves adopting the lessons and message of the one saving thing we find in religion - Jesus Christ.

To put that another way, as Socrates observed a very long time ago, the biggest problem with politics is US.
Do you want better politics? Then change YOU.
Do we want better politics for our society? Then change US.

This means it is far more important to devote ourselves body, mind, and soul to developing our internal and saving connection to Jesus Christ, rather than thinking we can dump Christ in the waste can and fix the outcome of presidential elections with our “vote.”

I know it is easy to get caught up in the saber rattling of a political season. But unless we devote our time and energy embracing and living Christian virtues over the political dice game, we will change little.
We will just stay mad, or feeling superior to someone else, until we stagger like drunks through dark, political alleys, looking for the next silly-season gamble.

The fact of the matter is, NO political process will outdo what the Creator has revealed to us. The fact that Christians are afraid to publicly say that, should they be branded as “fundamentalists,” is just another sign of how far we have let our culture slide downhill.
Like everyone else, far too many of todays Chrisitians kneel before the modern belief that religion is just a personal feeling. They don't want to make waves, so they avoid pushing conversion for themselves and others in the name of Christ Jesus.

But the first rule of forming a good culture is accepting reality… and we are enduring a huge fantasy of political secularism.
No healthy cultural change will come from that.

So please, this year, I would beg of you to give up this ridiculous grasping at political straws, hoping to “change” America through yet another largely useless Presidential election. Face it - messianic politics do not lead to glory.
The way to escape the quadrennial silly season in our politics is to recognize what the Creator has revealed to us:

- First accept His Natural Law and Order.
- Second, accept His specific revelation of Christ as Savior, guaranteed by signs and wonders.
- Third, realize that these are far more beneficial than the modern secular State.

Period.

Yes, you have to do the best you can in your life, but the two-party system in America is not the source of our redemption.
So dampen your political aspirations....
Keep away from political euphoria....
Focus your main energies on Christian conversion in yourself and others....

That is the only key to our problems, both here and hereafter.
For only Christ saves us.

Based on an articel by Dr. Jeff Mirus found here: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/dont-be-fooled-successful-politics-depends-on-good/