Broken politics - Issue #335

Here's a quote, attributed retired Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank: "Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together." The attitude behind that quote has caused all manner of mischief, but I think the sentiment is reasonably construed as a way of understanding the political process. When the people who earn the most votes make some decision, we can reasonably describe the political process as achieving some kind of consensus. Politics is a way of deciding to collectively do things.

But some people invert the telescope: politics becomes for them a way of living life. You've seen them: they're the people with perennial bumper stickers and yard signs. That's a silly example of a more serious issue: political opinions creeping in to someone's entire ethos. In the third link below, we have a doctor's story of a parent invoking the pro-abortion slogan "my body, my choice" as a reason to not have her daughter say "ah" for the doctor. That's a very troubling political inversion.

When everything is political and all of your opinions belong to your political team, you don't have much maneuvering room left. Maybe that's why some of the youngs have abandoned the real world and feel much more comfortable online. The second link below is a really insightful "wakeup call" essay by Freddie DeBoer.

But the best of the three links is the first one: a Slate columnist finds his hometown at war with itself over some proposed new zoning rules. It becomes an fascinating juxtaposition: some of the folks most-oriented towards the poor become the loudest voices against lower-cost housing. I wonder if this sort of fight, writ large, could be the thing that breaks and reforms our broken politics.

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