Politics and progress (and opinions and assholes, it's all the same thing, after all)

I am convinced, at this point, the more I watch politics, and the utter failure of any political partisan to ever acknowledge any real failure, at all, that most progress in politics happens largely despite ourselves.



Despite our egos. And our stupid pride. And our failure to ever admit failure. Because we think by doing so we make it go away. Or, at least, not our problem.

Which explains most of the problems of liberal democratic politics, right now.

And, for that, we have only ourselves to blame.

What I know today that I did not realize more than 20 years ago, when I first started following American and international politics, is that political leaders are often the farthest thing from an example or role model for life that one could want. For one's children. And for anyone, for that matter.

Because political leaders so consistently fail to do the one thing that anyone would want out of a role model.

To admit their mistakes.

To themselves, at the very least. And to others, when they feel comfortable. A fact we make far less likely by making anyone, nevertheless those in politics, afraid of doing, for fear of the repercussions, even though it is the surest route to facilitating willingness to giving our mistakes up. So that we can move on and stop making them. The failure to do so being about the most damn fool way to live life possible. Because failing to admit your mistakes, of course, by any objective criteria of judgment, does not, in fact, mean that you are not making them. It just means you are repeating them. For as long as it takes for you to admit them.

Says the man to his mistakes.

There is no one in politics, these days - no one, not even one - person I look up to for this purpose. Which is how it should be, I suppose. Since the man I should be looking to for that purpose is myself, of course.

And if there is anything I have learned from politics in 20 years it is that there is so much to be learned, of any substance, from those in politics is of the variety of negative example. Sadly. And, these days, that is a more serious problem than I have ever witnessed it in my lifetime.

If you are looking for anyone to save you, outside of yourself, you are damned fool, is the bottom line, if you look to these people. They can barely take care of themselves, nevertheless you or your loved ones. And, after a time, if you are still looking to them to be a better judge of your life and what is best for you more than for yourself, you not only are a fool - because they can't do so, no matter how much you might wish differently, and, typically, are barely able to sufficiently do so in their own lives - but you really have no one else to blame but yourself for that foolishness.

Because there is no politician who is ever going to come down from on high and tell you:

"Most of the time, we're just doing our best to think of something and get elected. The truth is, we haven't thought nearly enough about this stuff, either. We have strong opinions. Just like so many of you. But just like so many of you, that really doesn't mean jack shit, in the real world, is the truth. Opinions are like assholes. And there's an awful lot of those, too, doing their damage in this tiny little world, now aren't there?"

It's the most profound thing I have to say on the matter, these days. Because I am so fully convinced that these idiots will never say so themselves. So someone has to say it.

The most important thing I have for my kids, for any kids, and for anyone in life, at this point, I'm convinced, is my example.

And the most important example I have to offer, right now, I'm convinced, is that if you want to be an idiot in life, it is all yours. Enjoy it. Because it's going to hard to enjoy anything else, given the mess you're likely to make of your life.

Says the man to his mess.

But I don't want to make a mess of life. And I know, without reservation, at this point, that the surest way to a tidier, self-respecting life I might love is to be the best man I know how to be. The best father. And husband. And son and brother. The best man I know. And to let the idiots have their idiocy. And to live a life I'm genuinely proud of.

Like opinions, anybody can be an asshole. Doesn't take much, frankly.

And anybody can have the damn fool life that comes with it.

I'll take something with more real love, myself.

And I just won't be settling for anything else, at this point.

No matter what gets laid on the table.



And that's the only kind of progress that could ever be worth anything even approaching anything real in my too short a lifetime.

In any lifetime, for that matter.