Thread: Pro-knife/Anti-knife?

Originally Posted by faesce

I don't like how you pieced that reply together and I don't much like how you admitted you may have been unclear in your original criticisms of politicians after five giant paragraphs. The ENTIRE purpose of my original replies were in that you were misplacing blame.

I'm not sure what you mean by "how I pieced it together", but no, I am not admitting that I may have been unclear initially. If you look at the very first part of those five giant paragraphs, you will find that I pointed out that I had already been clear about blaming the public as well as the politicians, even in the statements you quoted to illustrate that I was allegedly overlooking the public's share of the blame. I said I hoped that my long post would clarify my meaning because you seemed to have misunderstood my meaning, not because I thought my meaning was unclear before that post.

Originally Posted by faesce

You can't blame the politician for doing what the public or the Lobbyist groups tell them to, because as you've stated it yourself, they're being funded & supported by them. They exist politically solely because of them. That's basically the point I've been illustrating from the start--the politicians are puppets for the public, and to blame the public and what influences the lobbyists/public instead of the politicians. While I agree it's somewhat ridiculous to push for something you know little to nothing about, that doesn't change the fact that they're in the public eye ONLY to represent another entity or group.

I can't blame the politician for doing what the public tells them to do, but what the lobbyist tells them to do is another matter. As I said, I'm not anti-lobby, but there are degrees of receptiveness to lobby pressure, and I feel that at a certain point it's possible for a politician to cross a line in that spectrum and behave in an unprincipled fashion. To me, a politician who introduces and strongly advocates legislation that he himself does not understand has crossed that line. The fact that they hold their office in order to represent their constituents does not make that kind of behavior any less unprincipled or reprehensible. A politician cannot excuse outrageously unprincipled behavior by saying "Hey I'm just here to represent my constituents", especially when the behavior in question is obviously not driven by the demands of their constituents. Again, I feel that elected lawmakers do have a few responsibilities beyond just voting in accord with the views of their constituents, and one of those responsibilities is the responsibility to understand the issues they are voting on, especially the issues that they themselves are personally pushing. I think that failure to do so is a failure to behave in a principled fashion, and I find it reprehensible. If you think that they have no such responsibilities and that this behavior is therefore not reprehensible, then that's your own business; you are, of course, free to have whatever opinions you like about the responsibilities of lawmakers.

Originally Posted by faesce

I don't feel disturbed that we have politicians who act as puppets, as this has been going on since the conception of government. It's scummy, granted, but it's reality and is a large part of how government works if not on such an obvious scale as the example you posted. If anything, you and me both should place our concern into the public's interest.

Well, you call it "scummy" and I call it "disturbing"--these terms actually aren't too far apart, I think. Again, I'm not saying it surprises me, or that I'm shocked that it goes on. I agree that it's definitely been going on for as long as humans have been organizing governments. But that doesn't mean we have to like it, and it doesn't mean that no-one should point out especially egregious examples of it.