{"id":122,"date":"2011-06-20T20:18:15","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T00:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=122"},"modified":"2011-06-20T20:18:15","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T00:18:15","slug":"politics-and-the-land-of-make-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/06\/politics-and-the-land-of-make-believe.html","title":{"rendered":"Politics and the Land of Make Believe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the shows I used to watch as a child was Mr. Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood.\u00a0 <\/em>In every episode, Fred Rogers would whisk his viewers away to \u201cthe land of make believe.\u201d\u00a0 It has been quite some time since any reader of this column has been a child.\u00a0 However, insofar as we involve ourselves in any capacity in politics, we continue to visit a land of make believe.<\/p>\n

Given that it consists largely of myths, it should come as no surprise to hear that the world of politics is as close to a land of make believe as any adult is going to visit.\u00a0 In the popular imagination, it is a truism that politicians are liars.\u00a0 <\/em>Certainly there are politicians who fit this description; but I don\u2019t think politicians are more prone than anyone else to lie.\u00a0 Politics is for the most part like play, <\/em>an activity during which truth is suspended.\u00a0 Perhaps many Americans are aware of this, and it is this insight, infrequently unconscious though it is, that accounts for why politics has acquired the less than flattering reputation that it has.\u00a0 But if play precludes the category of truth, it precludes as well that of falsity.\u00a0 That is to say, although politicians may not speak the literal truth, this doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that they are lying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are two things of which to take note here. First, this is no defense of politicians.\u00a0 Politics is like <\/em>play, but because it isn\u2019t identical with play, it is far from clear that any political actor deserves a pass for his or her suspension of the truth.\u00a0 Second, it isn\u2019t just politicians who are engaged in make believe, for it isn\u2019t just politicians who are political actors: all of us <\/em>who participate in politics are actors as well.\u00a0 What this in turn means is that all of us who participate in politics are no less guilty of pretending than are politicians.\u00a0 It also implies that if politicians are liars for their non-true utterances, than we are liars for ours.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, those politicians, pundits, and voters associated with the Republican Party\u2014i.e. \u201cconservatives.\u201d\u00a0 Those who belong to this group claim to champion such things as \u201climited government,\u201d \u201cpersonal accountability,\u201d \u201cfiscal responsibility,\u201d and \u201cnational security.\u201d\u00a0 Yet for as often as the party faithful iterate these \u201cprinciples,\u201d it is doubtful\u2014impossible really\u2014that anyone can truly believe that they represent anything meaningful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These bumper sticker slogans that somehow or other have succeeded in becoming the stuff of Republican pep rallies possess an elasticity that renders them all purpose devices. They are compatible with all manner of policies, both those that are characteristically advocated by Republicans as well as <\/em>those advanced by Democrats.\u00a0 <\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

After all, no government can literally be unlimited in scope; there will always be areas of life that even the most powerful totalitarian governments simply won\u2019t be able to do anything about.\u00a0\u00a0 And, as far as I can determine, there are no true believers in national insecurity, <\/em>fiscal irresponsibility, <\/em>and\/or personal unaccountability<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only in the world of make believe that is our political reality could anyone genuinely endorse the notion\u2014at no time more strongly underscored than during each election season\u2014that our two national parties are engaged in a \u201cfundamental philosophical conflict.\u201d\u00a0 Coupled with this fiction is another: nothing less than the ultimate fate of America herself hinges on the outcome of the next election.\u00a0 All of this makes great drama, but none of it is true, for there is no fundamental disagreement <\/em>between Republicans and Democrats, right and left: when they differ, <\/em>our establishment political actors differ in degree, <\/em>not kind.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Consider any of the major issues that compose our politics.<\/p>\n

All Democrats and most Republicans: support an income tax; present levels of legal immigration from the third world; Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in some form <\/em>or other; and \u201ccivil unions.\u201d\u00a0 There is considerable agreement between the two parties on the need for \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d\u2014a euphemism for de facto amnesty\u2014vis-\u00e0-vis the millions of illegal immigrants living amongst us.\u00a0 And although Abraham Lincoln achieved a \u201cfundamental transformation\u201d of America the likes of which Barack Obama can only dream, and although Martin Luther King was an avowed leftist, both men are regarded as virtual saints by Republican and Democrat alike.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republicans purport to despise political correctness, yet they repeatedly legitimize the litany of politically correct sins.\u00a0 When Democrats support affirmative action and Welfare, ridicule or attack black Republicans, or reject school vouchers, Republicans attribute all of this to their \u201cracism.\u201d\u00a0 For that matter, because a disproportionately large number of abortions involve black fetuses, Republicans have even taken to accusing Democrats\u2019 support of abortion rights as being fueled by \u201cracism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans are as incensed about \u201csexism\u201d as they are \u201cracism.\u201d\u00a0 If Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, or any other Republican woman comes under attack by their political rivals, it must be because of \u201csexism.\u201d\u00a0 And among the reasons that Republicans regularly submit for their outrage over the injustices that prevail in the Islamic world, one of the reasons why more American soldiers must forfeit their lives, if need be, is the \u201csexist\u201d treatment of women there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is true that while few political actors from either party as of yet will overtly endorse so-called \u201csame sex marriage,\u201d lest anyone suspect them of being \u201chomophobic,\u201d few will conceal their enthusiastic support for \u201ccivil unions.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, so opposed are Republicans to \u201chomophobia\u201d that, along with \u201csexism,\u201d it is for the sake of combating this evil that they argue employing our troops to places like Iraq and Afghanistan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republicans are at least as committed as Democrats to social engineering, whether the society to be managed is our own or some other.\u00a0 Truthfully, because Democrats tend not to have any of the zeal for the mission to democratize the world upon which Republicans would like for us to embark, the latter have an even stronger faith in the power of Big Government than the former.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it is time for us to separate the world of make believe for the real world.<\/p>\n

Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the shows I used to watch as a child was Mr. Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood.\u00a0 In every episode, Fred Rogers would whisk his viewers away to \u201cthe land of make believe.\u201d\u00a0 It has been quite some time since any reader of this column has been a child.\u00a0 However, insofar as we involve ourselves in any capacity…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPolitics and the Land of Make Believe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/06\/politics-and-the-land-of-make-believe.html\" 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