Blogs, Politics and Blather

This blog, like most, does not cite references and there is no review process. So, like most blogs, it is almost useless blather. Almost. It’s only functions are that it just might contain a point of view that you haven’t encountered before or that it might be written in an entertaining style. There is not a lot of point in reading only material which is perfectly aligned with your current point of view. It gives a feeling of security and belonging but it reduces your mental agility and adaptability. I am about to tell you where my politics lie. This will immediately categorise me for those of haven’t already worked them out and anything I might have to say will be filtered through their opinion of those politics… That is an interesting phenomenon. All I can say is that good ideas have often sprung from people whose other ideas were without value. You never know what you might think of if you press on. If anything I say stimulates an interest, then you can chase up people who actually know what they are talking about on the subject. For example, I was going to write something on the “right to bear arms” at one point, but I went to Wikipedia and saw my points all covered in much greater detail by experts. I won’t make that mistake again; everything I discuss will be in the same boat so research will simply remove the desire to write at all. Best to keep the mind untrammelled by confusing wisdom.

I have spoken earlier about our ancestors and their habits. An entire field of biology addresses the nature of selection as it acts in such groups. This is the root of politics. We are all acting in the best interests of our own DNA, but sometimes its best interest lie in what is best for our group. This is the foundation of our political balance between left wing and right wing. The right wing inclining towards the individual, the left towards the group. A billion years or so of evolution equips most individuals with the inclination to act in their own interests. At least 200,000 years or so of natural selection acting on individuals acting as part of a group, encourages the individual to consider whether their best interests may be served by taking the interests of others into account. To me the result is obvious, the centre is the place to be. You act in your own interests all the time, a billion years will not be denied; but from time to time you take actions which will benefit the group so as to benefit yourself in due course. We exist in a society. If we watch it collapse then we will “be standing alone and naked in the middle of the plains of Africa”. Not a reassuring place to be.

To be plain then, many of my political positions would label me as a right winger. But before they claim me I can lay out many others which would have me shunned as a foul socialist…

I am a swinging voter.

I pay my taxes reasonably happily in the full knowledge that some will be wasted and that the war against this wastage is perpetual.

I know a portion of my taxes are spent on supporting some people who simply do not have the willpower to support themselves but could. I see this as a tragedy in their lives but I will not cut off that money and see others, who cannot support themselves but would if they could, suffer. I expect some of my money to be spent encouraging those who could support themselves to do so. That too is perpetual.

I am frequently appalled by what I consider to be the foolishness of the extreme right and the extreme left. I consider that they both have the same failing, neither understand people and their fundamental motivations. (Of course, my piece of arrogance is that I fancy I know better than they do.) If our basic nature springs from our hunter-gatherer forebears, then the rest is nurture. For the first few years of their lives children absorb the reality that surrounds them like a sponge – without filtering. It is very difficult for people to transcend the things that are learnt at that time.

It is very difficult to reason someone out of something that they weren’t reasoned into in the first place. (That comment’s not original. Swift apparently. Damn, and I was determined not to do any research)