The Golf Links (Sarah N. Cleghorne)
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.
A Politician (e.e. Cummings)
a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man.
Of Treason (Sir John Harrington)
Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.
Sadly, they'll bounce off the unicorn's shield... just sayin...
ReplyDeleteSigh.
ReplyDeleteI mean the following in the nicest possible way, of course, but... I grow tired of the great American pastime of ragging on politicians.
Our republic is not Plato's and our rulers aren't philosopher-kings. They're drawn from the general population on the basis of vote-getting ability; there's no reason to expect a congressperson or senator to be any more upright than the used car dealer across from the mall. That's the system Our Founders, bless their hearts, bequeathed unto us after rejecting hereditary monarchy out of hand.
One may think a system in which leaders rise through the ranks on merit would be better but I have yet to see one of those in practice. I've worked for some of the largest corporations in the world as well as some of the smallest ones and my experience has been that talent is not nearly as career-advancing as knowing what to kiss and when. Want to move up? Make sure the guy or girl in the big office down the hall gets a warm glowy feeling when you walk into the room.
So what w're really railing about here is human nature and that's certainly rail-worthy, but unfortunately it's all we have to work with.