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Health & Fitness

Politics: Uncouth, Unkind, or the Same as it Ever Was …

Politics: Same As It Ever Was This writing takes a jab at those who believe that today's name calling or political back stabbing is any different than it was a hundred years or so ago.

I have been pondering the interesting developments that occur when people’s agendas and personalities mix.  In the Mideast it is radical Islamic elements combining with groups favorable to western style democratic reforms to overthrow the tyranny of one man or one family.  In our national politics, President Obama is assailed from the left AND from the right seemingly, at times, in concert. 

Locally we have a more interesting and crowded field than we have had in quite some time.  And, thankfully we don’t divide automatically along any imagined or real party lines in council votes or city policy.  So what do we divide over and what unites us?   It is soup to nuts.  Sometimes people unite behind strong personalities or what could be called “winning” personalities.  Sometimes local issues or the opposition to local issues.   Some people are loyal to people they have known for years or their families have known for years.  Some people are more trusting of perfect strangers who look good and sound good because they have less known baggage. 

Candidates and politicians too run the gamut on how they operate.  Some have a mentality that they don’t want to be seen with certain people and some want to be seen with everyone.  Some loudly announce a loyalty to this or that issue and some prefer to remain aloof and undefined in the hope that they don’t get too closely associated with any ONE issue. 

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Occasionally we hear about how bad it is out there in terms of vitriol and so called “hate mongering.”  But really,  this kind of thing has been going on for as long as politics has been around, which is a very long time, at least as far back as ancient democratic Greek and republican Roman civilizations.  In ancient Greece, in Athens, the voting citizenry would choose a male citizen, (women did not have voting rights), who was perceived as gaining too much power too quickly and write that man’s name down on a piece of pottery, an ostrakon, that was cast in a very large pot and the winner who received the most votes was exiled for a period of 10 years. He was ostracized.

In Rome, Caesar’s undoing may have been that he was carrying on too much with that seductive, Greek Queen Cleopatra.  It scandalized his countrymen because they considered it “unpatriotic.”  Plus, his Roman wife had a very powerful family and heaven help a woman scorned, especially a very powerful woman with very powerful relatives.  The Romans considered marriage much like we consider whether or not to support a political issue.  It could save them or dog them in the future.  Marriage was a political union and should be able to yield strong ties in both alliances and money.  Caesar was saved early in his life by his first wife’s family alliance with the warlord Sulla, who was killing supporters of his archenemy Marius.  Marius had been a strong mentor of Caesar’s and Caesar was lucky to escape Sulla with his life.  Sulla had said of Caesar, "I see many a Marius in him."  After Sulla had retired from his position of supreme power, Caesar faulted him for letting it go willingly.

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In our own country’s history, a quick study reveals that political vitriol has been ongoing since the colonies formed a union of their own. For example, Thomas Jefferson had a friend who owned a newspaper.  Jefferson frequently targeted his political enemies through the newspaper in a clandestine way.  For many of them it was the kiss of political death and financial ruin.  Yet Jefferson remained “above the fray” and never had his name associated with any unseemly revelations.  I remember feeling shocked and betrayed at the discovery of Jefferson’s camouflaged attempts to do in the competition.  It offended my sensibilities of what I perceived a “founding father” to be.  And yet he remains an icon of patriotic virtue. 

Thankfully we do not have politicians killing other politicians aside from verbal ideological forays though we still have politicians trying to undo each other via the media.  Sure it gets annoying when people descend to the level that they call each other names rather than analyze each other’s arguments.  But in 200 years of Republican Democracy we have not descended to the level of the Romans or the Greeks.  And though it would be nice if we were a little more civil our discourse reveals our values.  These days we have a high premium on coarseness as a trip anytime thru the mainstream television stations will show. We may be headed in the direction of Rome but thankfully we have a long way to go to get there.

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