Personal Politics ?!

In response to a libertarian post by Ali, Dr. Lenny waxed philosophical. As i reread, i felt i wished to edit, so i decided to recreate the response here.

I watched some similar things happen in my run with the reform party. Before the '96 election, there was the American Party of Oregon. Karen Shilling, an ultra-sound technician from Roseburg ran for US Senate against Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith - the two sitting senators from Oregon. She was included in the debates, and encouraged by the system players, who each saw her as being to their advantage. The Perotbots had cut and run to UWSA and the grass roots folks formed the party.

But the in-fighting over bylaws and the extra time required to bring people from all over Oregon together for political action led to anger, animosity and individual discouragement with the process. By the time the Perot folks strong-armed the leadership into changing name and focus, the liberal vacators from the Democratic circles were in the Klinton camp and long gone, while the remaining local grass roots submerged into the larger national organization.

Maybe people were not meant to govern each other - just to govern themselves. I have been asked several times to be a proxy vote for another member of a committee and i always feel uncomfortable wielding more than an equal share of power. Was it Lord Acton who said "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"?

I prefer to have dictatorial power in my own business affairs, but i play by the ridiculous rules as does everybody else, because we are not willing to pay the price of civil disobedient action in that neck of the woods. But as i grow more familiar with personal familial relations, i realize that my hard-ass unchangable beliefs drove off some very good friends, who did not see the world in the same forms as i did. Over the years, relationships come and go, and perhaps i was overly hard, not only on them but also on myself. Moral judgment is personal - my morality does not have to agree with your morality. To each his own. But ethical judgment is accepted to be a common shared belief. Why so? Shouldn't ethics be personal also, and judgment be allowed to use discretion in associating with whomever you care to associate with?

So rather than support the libertarian party, or the now hopefully extinct reform party, or any other party (except of course for the party party), let's support independent people thinking for themselves with no preconceived party alignment and support people to run on the strength and merit of their moral and ethical positions.