My daughters should expect no less

There's good reason the masses are revolting

It is so funny and sad watching politics, this season. Every season. This season. Every season.

What none of the largely good faith and still too often bad faith major players in this tired, tragic great game of power can quite fathom, the American President included, almost identical to his predecessor, is that a politics that beats the life out of each another encourages all sorts of self-and-that-other-guy-deception. And ignores the bountiful unintended consequences of serious policy decisions. It is the very thing that Democrats and the American left keep engaging in up to the bitter end, and the very thing that lost their right-wing predecessors the U.S. Presidency and both houses of Congress, and is exactly what independents and citizens in my fair country, more broadly, are voting at odds with.

It is the most seriously disheartening fact of 21st century humankind. The most seriously disheartening fact of every century humankind. The will to overpower. The endless feuding. The impulse to dominance. The fear of a world without such obsession. The pride that animates it all. And the imitation it inspires among more repressive members of the species. And the countless dead and oppressed and too-terribly-frightened it leaves in its wake.

The great irony of the viciously partisan, and hence much more seriously self-enamoured and self-deluding, political and media wars of the early 21st century liberal democracies (not to mention the regularly pious political, cultural, and media manipulations of the illiberal world) is that it is average folks, or at least independents, in America, at least, who are deciding elections, these days, by and large, who have the least distorted outlook on questions of governance, in my all-too-distorted estimation, and the all-too-learned-and-self-important political intelligencia who are feverishly defending their very serious mistakes of policy, to anyone not defending them and their mistakes.

And the saddest fact of all, right now, is that various partisans, left and right and of every flavor and variety, have become so self-consumed that they would rather the other guy fail and their side and its policy positions be defended, right or wrong, without serious reservation - that they would rather watch American governance fail, in the broadest strokes - than to humble themselves and get honest about their failures.

All the while strong-arming the rest of us to become more responsible for the world.

It's all kind of mind-numbingly, still yet forgivably, and terribly, abundantly self-centered, after awhile.

And there is no amount of words that will ever talk us out of the wreckage.

The very impulse that drives partisanship - a failure to seriously consider that you and your side just might be wrong about any serious policy matter - is exactly what is sinking both American political parties, their ideological wings, and all-around confidence in government and the culture of politics as professional wrestling, at this moment. And for good reason. And will the next round. And the round after that. And the round after that. And the round after that. And the round after that, too.

The British Empire, similarly thought, after World War I, that it could coax and bully its way out of disgruntlement with the grabbing of British spoils following the First Great War.

They, too, thought that might would make right indefinitely. They, too, believed, cynically, that no new ideas about the world - self-determination and liberal democracy and freedom, more broadly, namely - could trump the force of military arms.

And they, too, were terribly, pitifully, tragically wrong. And failed miserably to maintain their overwhelming might. And much of the politics of the world, today, is a function of that very cynicism both during the height of empire and its various democratic corollaries, internationally and domestically, that were practiced following World War I and World War II.

And those democratic fellow-travelling power calculations are now falling apart, as well. And people begin to see the lie for what it is. And grow disillusioned with the ugly consequences.

Lord Acton knew what he was talking about. Power corrupts. And it does not matter if it is your side and you are convinced of the rightness of your cause. You are not original, in that thought. That thought has animated power and its wielding since the dawn of homo sapien as a social, political animal. And, by and large, though intentions have often been good, in limited ways, they have also been bad, in vastly more corrupting ways, long term.

Hence the skepticism of power in modern liberal democratic societies. The strongest societies in the world and the history of the world, in case you are keeping score. For good reason. Because power is used, more often, to hinder progress than to encourage it. So says honest observation.

And the early 21st century is but one additional iteration of that foolish, failed, perpetually self-unraveling notion.

It does not matter how much governments fight this reality. The impulse and need for freedom and self-determination for people to self-govern their lives is more basic and fundamental than any government could ever be. All governments can ever do is frustrate this need. They can never meet it. And hence why people perpetually find ways around masters and governments that frustrate their own real learning, growth, and development.

The Chinese government must liberalize, as the only means to face a failed and stagnating economy. There is no doubt that it was the freedom of the Chinese people, granted a bit more daylight when a Chinese government begrudgingly lifted its repression, that ultimately grew the Chinese economy and lifted 500 million people out of poverty. Mao's government had killed between 40 and 70 million people to establish its power and, in consequence, stagnate Chinese political, economic, and cultural development. Just as it is the repression of the North Korean communist government that is responsible for the starvation of its people. And the power machinations of the theocratic Iranian regime that has strangled its economy and halted its serious cultural development. And the opportunistic dictatorships in Zimbabwe and Myanmar that shut its people away from the light of the free world. It is liberalization, not Chinese totalitarianism, that created the strong growth we see in China, today. And it is liberalization that will be the genuine march of progress in China, North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and in America, the land of the free, from here until the end of human history.

Because liberalization is the only and single possible direction for honest progress. Nothing else actually produces or leads to real progress. And every ounce of evidence in free and unfree countries points in this direction.

It is not the evidence that is the problem. The evidence is in exponential abundance. It is the agendas of those who seek to defend their favored policies and ideological commitments, left and right and otherwise, that is the most serious obstacle to real progress in America, in China, in North Korea, in Iran, in Zimbabwe, in Myanmar, in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, in North and South America, and in the rest of the known world.

Thankfully, our progress does not depend on any person in power, no matter how educated or not. Our progress has always and always will depend on our own self-determined efforts. No matter what anyone who happens to be in charge of the government at any particular moment has to say about the matter.

That has always been the case in America and the world.

That is just on stark and fast-forward display right now.

And no amount of talk will make it go away.

And thanks go to the Americans and people all around the world who are making that fact plain enough to their governments and governors, today.

No matter how much they might deceive themselves otherwise.

This is the most fundamental strength of liberal democracy.

What we are witnessing, right now - a country turning over its government as many times as necessary and as it takes to get us in the direction of more honest and liberalizing progress - is what living in a free country is all about.

You might thank Baron de Montesquieu and James Madison for that, when you get a chance. They are quite dead. But they still deserve your thanks.

Real progress does not need permission. What it needs is freedom. And and love for one's neighbor. And a more honest appreciation for the fact that the one goes quite naturally with the other.

If you are still not quite sure of that notion, you might take a moment to consider something. You might consider your daughter, for a moment. And just how, exactly, you want her to be treated. By the man, or any man, she falls in love with.



You might ask yourself. Do you want that man to be one who will bully and control and attempt to scare her into submission? Do you want a man who will intimidate and hurt and cower her in fear? Or do you want a man who treats her with love and respect for her, her life, her choices, and her heart.

Because if its good enough for your daughters, then, perhaps, you might consider that it might be good enough for the rest of us, too.

And if you are the type of parent or man who would bully or control or cower your wife or children into fearful submission, perhaps they should be doing exactly what they, generally, will end up doing, most of the time, anyway, regrettably. Sometimes not-so-regrettably.

Looking for someone else to love them. As soon as the opportunity arises.

What each and every single one of us should be doing in all of our relationships in life, if we cannot find the courage to turn back from that dark path.

Matters of power and governing being just one more minor variation on that eternal and eternally human theme.

I am looking for someone who loves and respects and cares about me, my life, my choices and my heart. I'll be looking for the same for my daughters, one day, I hope. And I just as surely will be looking for the same from my government. And choosing as many times as necessary until I find one that will.

That sort of choosing is what real progress looks like.

My daughters, I will hope, should expect no less.