A couple of nights ago, a friend pointed out what he saw as a key difference between myself and Ray McBerry, and I think he was spot on.
He basically said that Ray sees government as “out to get him”, while I see government as more of a stupidity/ignorance/greed perfect storm.
To me, that typifies our differences perfectly. Ray pushes his “States Rights Bills” – aka “War Bills” – because he thinks the Federal government is actively going to come and grab your guns from your home. He thinks that the federal government is actively being evil by enforcing their laws, and therefore he will throw its law enforcement officers in jail on felony charges. I simply actively oppose the Federal government where I see it as being wrong by working to convince other people that I am right, by actively talking to various officials, and by supporting court challenges to laws I see as unconstitutional.
I don’t see our problems as any kind of malevolence, as Ray does. I simply see them as ignorance at best, possibly greed, or stupidity at worst. I even choose to believe John Oxendine, who any reader of this site should know is not exactly someone I’m very fond of, is a nice, decent guy in his personal life – and even in his electoral life, I simply see him as completely greedy and stupid. I don’t see any true trace of malevolence there, even when his thugs actively try to threaten me.
Ray is preying on an uninformed populace who is afraid that the government is actively “out to get them”, and he is trying to parlay that fear into electoral success.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the population that is actually somewhat rational knows that there is little genuine malevolence in the world at all – particularly in politics and government. Instead, most bad decisions and policies boil down to the greed of a person or group or someone or some group’s ignorance/stupidity.
I can’t do anything about the greed, and I can’t do anything about active stupidity – choosing to ignore facts or choosing to believe something that has been proven false.
I can, through my private activism and this site, do something about ignorance. I can build a team of authors dedicated to discussion of the various political issues of the day with a focus on facts and truth, which is what I am attempting to do here. I can work to position this site as a place where honesty is valued above all else, and where political discussion is free, open, and by and large uncensored.
I can encourage everyone to come here to discuss the politics of the day, not just liberty lovers, but truth lovers. Not just people of SWGA, but people of Georgia.
I can do these things, and I do. Will you?
I agree about it mostly being stupidity. I’ve found that 99 times out of 100, when trying to find a reason someone did something, that the answer is something that person considers good and noble. Rarely does someone do something wrong for the sake of doing wrong.
Ignorance is surely the main problem with most politicians. They follow the well worn paths of Keynesian economics and “bringing the bacon home” to the voters. Never stopping to ask who will pay for it all or how it affects the population in general.
They know that something is very. very wrong in our country, but don’t know any other way to be. They are so locked into the system that have known all their lives that it has become impossible for them to even think of another way of governing.
They also lack the moral courage to tell voters that the government is not going to help them solve all their problems.