I'm probably not the only one who's ever had the thought, "Maybe politicians have missed the point." In fact I know I'm not, because it comes up over and over again in Bertrand Russell's "Political Ideals". Russell asserts that "The aim of politics is to make the lives of individuals as good as possible."
When I first read that I thought, "What a ridiculous notion." I couldn't imagine why it would be a politician's aim to make my life good. I thought that these kinds of things were only part of liberal ideology. Then, upon giving it further thought, I realized that, in theory, every political ideology is geared at creating that group's idea of a "perfect" world. The problem is that somewhere along the line they forgot about us, the people they represent. They started representing ideas, causes, institutions, and/or industries instead.
Now think for a moment what it would be like, if we were to take the most reasonable, feasible ideals from every party and rolled them into one. Imagine if we had a small government with low taxes, yet we had private charitable programs as a last resort for the poor. Imagine a world where Social Security meant having a family to care for you when you grew old, but there was help
for those without families. Now admittedly this is idealistic, and there would be some level of logistical difficulty, but imagine if our politicians were more bent on creating the best USA possible rather than holding onto their jobs, and beating the other party. What if they stopped playing games and got to the point?
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