Opinion: Taking Down the World of Politics
Personally, I’ve never understood the allure of politics; rather, government officials and their system has always appeared to me as wholly negative. It’s for this reason that I never strayed into the world of activism, or helped out with local campaigns.
Politics is a cycle, a world of intrigue revolving around a set of issues that swing back and forth relentlessly. Immigration, abortion, healthcare: these are hot topics that grace the headlines of newspapers almost daily.
A solution to such polarizing issues will never be found in the halls of legislature. Why? Because as long as our current form of government persists, there will always be two or more sides battling each other. Each side will prevent the other from implementing a solution. Conflict— it defines politics.
And day after day, the governing bodies of our country debate endlessly over “fixes” that will be reversed as soon as party majority switches. It’s fruitless. Only the politicians themselves benefit from the endless recycling of major issues, receiving the benefits of revenue — and power.
Power is the ultimate motivator for government representatives at the end of the day. Every single one of them, consciously or unconsciously, desires sufficient control to implement their measures. This control is exerted through the very cycle mentioned above, unnervingly similar to the Orwellian slogan: “WAR IS PEACE.” The constant fight over such issues establishes stability, and therefore a basis of control for politicians. We, as a citizenship, are the subjects of this control. We are the endless experiment, the battered punching bag, target practice for the political elite. America isn’t the land of the free; it is the land of the perpetually provoked.
Politicians perpetuate problems, rather than solve them. This is truly a massive problem, and such problems require a radical solution to rise to the challenge. Here’s what I propose: eliminate the First Amendment right to protest.
Erasing the legality of protest accomplishes two things. First — the government loses all publicity. If no one is legally allowed to protest, politicians become fully secure. This much is a given. However, this security is much different than the kind we discussed earlier — it is artificial. Instead of being achieved through control, officials are totally secure without having to lift a finger. This means they have no motive to establish control, and thus the issues that they utilized to exercise control effectively fade away. We, as the public, cease to be bombarded with controversy.
The second point encompasses this: by not protesting, we as a public learn to ignore politics. We turn a deaf ear to the endless headlines, to the mudslinging campaigns. We learn to focus our attention on local, more pressing issues — the ones that matter. Activists, formerly yearning to join the governmental cycle, take up instead the support of common moral ideals.
For those of you worried about the loss of freedom and the resulting existence of an all-controlling state, it’s time to realize that the issue is no longer about freedom. It’s about influence. The United States has little room for improvement in terms of personal freedoms, and what now matters most is the impact others have on those freedoms. This solution provides the perfect remedy: in our hands is the power to ignore, to eradicate negative influence.
Although the solution may at first seem preposterous, it is bounded in logic. A government that continually invades our lives with noise must be met with ignorance. Since our country would never willingly do this, it must be made law. Seemingly a sacrifice, the loss of a fundamental right becomes the gateway to the future and an end to the toxic influence of politics.
