All of Life is Politics

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The Merovingian from the Matrix trilogy

My apologies for being away so long, I have a tendency to go through periods where I simply don’t feel like writing. Coincidentally, or maybe not, my break coincided with our internet going down for about a week during the Christmas holidays. With family visiting it made it even easier to get out of the habit of writing.

Usually these down times are accompanied by periods where I read voraciously and this time was no different. Aside from studying the Book of Matthew, I read five books and bits and pieces of others. Emerson postulated that a true scholar reads for inspiration to stimulate his own thinking and then expounds upon them with his own writing. Prior to my extended break I had been in a period where I was writing quite a bit although much of it was for my own edification, perhaps I’ll share some of it at a later date once I’ve codified my thoughts.

Interestingly enough, it was an article in the Washington Times which referenced one of my posts that spurred me back to my keyboard.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about philosophy especially as it relates to politics. The two are so intertwined it’s hard to actually separate them. I like to think of philosophy in its simplest terms which is essentially how a person thinks and perceives the world around them.

Personally, politics has become much more than those that govern using their power to influence us to their way of thinking, which is their philosophy. Politics pervades all aspects of our lives; there’s marital politics, office politics, club politics, and so on.

One of my favorite movies is the Matrix trilogy. These movies brilliant weave politics, philosophy and religion together. One of the characters is the Merovingian who has many brilliant quotes but one of my favorite is “choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without.”

Think about the last few years of federal politics. We have politicians voting for legislation without reading or having any earthly idea of what it includes simply because they agree with a certain philosophical bent. Even though polling showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans didn’t want Obamacare to be passed, those with power tried to make us think they were listening but in the end, it was an illusion and they simply crammed it down our collective throats.

All of life has become political. Our government and media have colluded to dumb down the population so that the common person cannot answer the most basic questions about current events. If you ever listen to Sean Hannity’s Man on the Street interviews, where he interviews random people on the street, you will be blown away at the ignorance of the general population. Sadly they can probably tell you all about the latestHollywood gossip or the scores to last night’s game but they can’t tell you a thing about what’s going on in the country.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge sports fan too, I ranked in the top five-percent picking NFL games against the spread on ESPN’s Pigskin Pick ‘em the last two years. There’s nothing wrong with having other interests outside of politics but it saddens me that so few people are involved in the process. Hundreds of thousands of men have died to provide us with freedom and it is an insult to their memory not to exercise your most basic duty as an American… Be informed and vote.