Abraham Lincoln and JC

mooosey88 wrote:

I have said on more than one occasion I am not a massive follower of politics, certainly no where near as clued up on it all as you and Ge.

Yes, you’re not a massive follower of politics if you think that Ge is all clued up on politics

misterq wrote:

To be honest….Politics is one of the worst things to discuss…..people can get very aggressive and fanatical…..just look at all the wars and problems in he world…

No one persecutes any one over opinions….just all involved forcefully putting their views across……they often ban discussing Politics in work places as it brings out the argumentative and aggressive side of people.

Politics is also about numbers…..i’ve got more influence than you so i get in power so to speak….Politics is generally a power game….

Yes, much of politics is about power – that’s not necessarily wrong. If you want to do something, you have to build support to get it done.

But otherwise, mister q, and with all due respect, I have to disagree on two counts at least.

First, as citizens of a community, we have the right and the need to discuss things which concern us all – and that means discussing politics. If you do nothing, then some pretty nasty things can happen – think of the rise of the Far Right.

Secondly, politics is much more than a power game. When I was in my teens, I was very impressed with the saying of Ralph Waldo Emerson that “if a single man plant himself on his conviction and there abide, the huge world will come round to him”. Unfortunately, the real world tends to disprove that saying, but sometimes, sometimes, something happens. In my lifetime, Martin Luther King  stood up against injustice, and a black community faced with police clubs and bombing won their equal civil rights. There is still injustice and racial violence in America, but the segregationist violence which saw one black veteran have his eyes gouged out by cops for daring to vote is now a thing of the past.

Even if the effectiveness of talking truth to power was impossible, it would still be necessary. There were Germans who stood up against Hitler, though they knew that death would result (Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one such). Those people are as much part of politics as the hustlers, dealers and psychos who are normally associated with it.