The Source of Frustration in Arguing Politics

This political season is one of the most frustrating experiences that a person who grasps principles as statements of values can have. The more one integrates his life based on fundamental principles and sees life related to these principles, the more he feels the threat of the constant assault on these principles. So many outlandish, even insane, statements are uttered with so many people, particularly the media, not delving in depth about serious topics, except to perhaps concoct elaborate theories as to the political strategy of one candidate versus another, it is nigh impossible to keep one's head in the matter. When I hear this, personally, I feel like "harumphing" and walking away. I want to yell at them. Sometimes I do.

Intelligence is the ability to act on one's rational thinking integrated to the widest context of which he is capable. If one selects a job, he is more intelligent if he selects it because it meets all of his criteria for selecting the job. If it is something he enjoys doing where he uses as many talents as he can, where he accomplishes career goals, where he earns the money for his current and future personal/family needs, where he is challenged and experiences self-esteem then he is selecting it from an integrated value structure. On the other hand if he selects it to make enough money to live hand to mouth and nothing else, he is not very intelligent.

Integration of all one's values and actions is key and it cannot be done without an integrated philosophy. When a political candidate says that he wants to raise taxes on the rich and create programs to benefit the poor, the integrated person is going to experience an assault on his values. If he is rich, he will experience the fact that his rational choices and actions are to be highjacked for a purpose not his own. His choices don't count except as a pack animal that must carry the poor. If he is poor he experiences the institution of this principle as the undercutting of the value of his rising and being successful. In either case, a future has been cut out from under him.

The unintelligent person doesn't experience this assault. He thinks he is getting a break and doesn't see how it limits his own future, nor does he see how the success of the men of ability are crucial to his own well being.

The intelligent person sees, e.g., that universal health care requires the doctor to be enslaved to a highly income-regulated program where the doctor's ambition and skill make no real difference for his future. Thus the motivation to be a doctor is undercut to the point where the men of ability forego a career in medicine. The intelligent person sees that health care must suffer and decline.

The unintelligent persons sees access to health care that he would otherwise not have and thinks he is better off. He doesn't see the consequences because he does not have an integrated knowledge base.

At this point in time, the country favors the government to regulate and dole out everything. Most people apparently look to government to solve every problem. Given these thoughtless premises, most people issue their opinions like a fait accompli.

To argue against this mess, you have to take a deep breath and get present to basic principles. Establishing those, you can then draw the proper conclusion.

The government is the institution which regulates the use of retaliatory force. That is its only proper function. When it initiates force against its citizens which it does when it forces them to pay for and use their programs, it abrogates the motivation of all individual human beings to make rational choices. Society cannot benefit from this enormous source of creativity and problem solving. Everything gets reduced to a few enforced courses of action. Men instead of being free have to ask permission to act. When force is instituted, choice is eliminated. When force is instituted, rationality is eliminated. When force is instituted, value is eliminated. When force is instituted, man turns from the creative heroic being that is possible for him to a slave - frustrated, whining and demanding. Life shifts from possibility to brutality.

With the politicians all saying how they will initiate force to cause what they want, we all know that we are being assaulted at some level. We are nervous and frustrated and the cause goes beyond high gas prices. The politicans are offending us and they don't even know it.

The answer is not another government program but political freedom. The answer is not a gun but an argument. Focus on the principles and argue away. With this, the frustration will disappear.