That’s me in the corner

[madbaker]

It's been interesting debating politics with scendan, as our views differ on a number of subjects (although by no means all). It made me think last night, and I'm undoubtedly not the first to come up with the following analogy:

 Politics as Religion

I don't mean born-again Christians voting for Bush or Jews for Kerry. It's more the sense of "I'm a registered x, and my party’s beliefs are the One True Way." People can't compromise or persuade each other to change their views, because the party line came from On High. Politics today is a matter of faith, not reason - it is not subject to debate.

Moreover, because the other side is Heretical, any method of vanquishing them is justified. A fairly obvious example of this is the Texas Republicans re-districting to brazenly grab more Congressional seats, and the Democrats' craven response of fleeing rather than engaging in actual debate. More obvious yet was Florida in the last election. It's not enough to win; it is vital to win by enough to meet what I'll call the "margin of litigation". Both sides will swoop down on any hint of real or imagined impropriety to harangue for their candidate, because the Defense of the Faith warrants anything up to and including jihad and suicide bombers - metaphorically speaking. So far at least. (I'm not picking on Islam here, so feel free to substitute "crusade" and "Kill them all, let God sort them out".)

Where do I stand among all this? Let's twist the wheel on this analogy's torture rack further. In a nation of Christians and Muslims, I'm a Zen Zoroastrian. I share some principles with all but all with none. As the True Believers slaughter each other in the name of their True Deity, I stand on the sidelines shaking my head sadly at the stupidity of it all.

I'm honest enough to admit that if a party suddenly converted to my views, though, I'd probably be cheering on the ensuing auto-da-fe with the rest of the crowd.

Comments

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I'm not trying to pick on her specifically, either... she is far from the only person around here that I've heard/read make that particular statement.

(Sweeping, over-broad statement follows)
A bad thing about a monoculture is its relative inability to tolerate and incubate diversity. Here in the Bay Area, the monoculture is generally political in nature.