Real Reforms

As we rapidly approach yet another election cycle, the prospects are dismal and depressing. The political process has clearly broken down in the United States, and what is broken must be fixed. It might be tempting to offer radical solutions. For example, perhaps it is in the very nature of politics in the abstract that all actual political systems eventually become gridlocked. If this were true, it would require an entirely new set of basic assumptions corresponding to a system of government free from all politics. Note that this is not the same as totalitarianism, which exists strictly within a political framework. Even if a totalitarian state is capable of destroying all actual opposition, it still acknowledges a world in which such opposition might exist. Thus, when totalitarianism makes the claim of having rendered government apolitical, this is little more than a cynical ruse aimed to engender an aura of authority. A truly apolitical government would, by definition, need to be global in scope. Thus, to suggest such a reform is unrealistic in the short term.

No, the types of reforms I wish to suggest are far more pragmatic - and achievable. One of the key failures in our ostensible democracy is the fact that the phrase "public servant" has been reduced to a grotesque euphemism. Even ignoring the convoluted mess which is the electoral system, the fact of the matter remains: Find me a politician who is not interested, first and foremost, in his or her own personal power, notoriety, prestige, wealth, ego gratification, or other gain, and I'll show you Sasquatch dancing Swan Lake on the head of a pin. The fiction which is perpetrated on the masses - that we live in a representative democracy - is a hoax, a mean-spirited, bullying hoax which preys upon the majority who are held in deliberate ignorance.

What we have, in practice, is a two-party system in which the two parties are ever more alike. What we have in place of a representative democracy is a plutocracy, the agenda of which is determined by brokers of power (i.e., politicians), brokers of wealth (i.e., industry), and middlemen (i.e., lobbyists). There is no incentive for our "public servants" to serve the public. Public service should, rightly, be one of the most supremely selfless acts imaginable. Vonnegut was correct when he identified volunteer firemen (and women) as the model of selfless public service: they rush to the home of the most hated man in town and give their lives

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