Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.
One of the biggest drawbacks of our democratic system is that it encourages politicking.
This is a problem because whenever a major issue is before the public we get bombarded with opposing points of view. It’s bad enough that we have left vs. right, but we can’t even agree how left the left parties are, or if in fact they’re secretly right parties.
This can all get rather confusing, even to someone like me who follows the sport. It makes me yearn sometimes for a North Korean-style system, where there is no debate, and where we just accept what the Dear Leader says.
Under such a totalitarian system I wouldn’t have to spend hours of my life digesting arguments, debating online with cranks, and writing blogposts denouncing my enemies. I fact I doubt they’d even let me have access to the internet.
If I were governed by a despotic terror regime I would probably spend more time with my family, rather than play my part online in the battle over the future direction of our country, unless of course the state had sent me away to some distant gulag for thought crimes. I would also have more time to spend reading a good book, although my choice of reading material would be somewhat constrained, and I would probably end up eating the book for nourishment.
I’m not cowering under the oppressive yoke of a brutal dictatorship, so I should probably stop worrying so much about what goes on in Parliament. Things are happening that I don’t like, but they probably won’t result in a tyranny. People will say stupid things in the House, but it’s probably not because they’re evil. Bad laws will be passed, then a new government will come in and change them, and that new government will then go on to make its own bad laws.
So let’s all just take a deep breath, dial the rhetoric down a notch or two, and learn to celebrate the common things we all share, rather than focus on difference, dispute and division.
What we need to do is find love.
Dr. Martin Luther King once famously said:
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
How wise he was. We all know that Dr. King ended up being shot dead, which was a rotten shame, but he had a point. Why must our politicians squabble and fight in the House, and call each other rude names?
Love is all around us, even in the House. Surely I can’t be the only person who thinks that the thing Judith Collins needs most of all is a big hug. Maybe Andrew Little and Trevor Mallard could begin the healing process by throwing open their arms and offering to embrace her into their bosoms.
What about the fact that the government on a daily basis displays incompetence and arrogance in equal measure? I’m sure that all John Key and his fellow MPs really want is love. And what of the opposition parties? If you listen carefully to all the squawking and carping coming from the opposition benches, you will realise that what you are hearing are cries for affection. These cries continue to go answered.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Forget about left and right, and about red and blue and green. We are all the same colour inside, except for those unfortunate people who have vast yellowy-brown cancerous tumours growing inside them.
Fellow denizens of the internet, the blogosphere and the political world, hear my words: We must learn to love each other! If I could embrace each and every one of you I would. Even you, Martyn. Even you. We are all in this together. We must unite together and combine our formidable strengths into one powerful force for good.
And when that happens and you’re casting around for someone to lead you, I want you to remember whose idea this whole love thing was. I don’t seek to lead, but if the people of this nation were to call upon me to do my duty then I would most certainly obey, provided I could have tanks and a uniform and guards.
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