When
I tell people my bachelor’s degree is in Political Science, the two most common
reactions generally follow the pattern of, “Man, that sounds boring,” or, “Oh,
so you want to be a waiter?”. While we
could debate the truth of the latter comment all day, or whether, or not I’d be
justified in backhanding all those naysayers for their insolence, let’s focus
on the former comment. Indeed, politics
can be boring, and aggravating to many people; it is riddled with meaningless facts,
and statistics, endless debate, hypocrisies galore, and imbeciles that think
they know what’s best for you, but it can also be invigorating, passionate, and
mind-broadening, if only we focus on the right aspects of politics. The
reason politics is so uninteresting to most people, is because we are overwhelmed
by the complexity of arbitrary statistics, and studies which seem to change on
a weekly basis, but this minutia is distracting from the ultimate goal,
liberty. When we dedicate ourselves with the pursuit of liberty, research the
ideas that support it, and develop the arguments that forward it, we can find ourselves
pleasantly consumed by politics instead of being stultified by it. You will
find that while statistics can help illustrate a point, they aren’t really necessary
to being politically savvy; all you really need is a well-constructed, logical
and consistent political philosophy.
These
features are essential for establishing validity of political arguments, and are
not possessed by the mainstream political ideologies. You will often hear
Democrats, and Republicans champion individual liberty but the Left actively
pursues restricting 2nd Amendment rights, banning hate speech, and
forcing inferior social welfare programs on citizens while the Right wishes to
restrict marriage to heterosexuals, promotes increased surveillance, and
advocates for the War on Drugs. The Parties barrage us with statistics, and
studies to prove their points, but their ideology’s inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and
utter defiance of logic, dissolve whatever strength their research may have
carried, and call into question the validity of the results. The only thing the
Parties seem to do well is to cause voter apathy. These aggravations will never
disappear but if we, as rational individuals, actively analyze our views, and
strive to be logical, and consistent, we will broaden our minds, and lessen the
effects of political ignoramuses, and hopefully, drive them into obscurity.
The
first step towards alleviating the effects of the blowhards that spew ignorance
over the airwaves, is to understand that our government’s sole purpose is to
protect our rights, and consequently our role in this relationship, is to
insure that the Government isn’t the entity we need protection from. To do
this, we have to understand what our rights are, and where they come from. I
will go into this topic further in my next piece, where I will discuss John Locke’s
Second Treatise of Civil Government.
-Zach Adams
Political Analyst
