The definition of 'Politics'

"All I know is what i read in the papers" Will Rogers, who also went on to say "I'm not a member of any organized political party, i'm a democrat"

dlowan, Agreed,
There is indeed much that politicians take credit for, or have blame imposed for, that they have little to do with.
A facet of politics is that a person must convince an electorate (at least a fair percentage of) that his is the best remedy for social ills. After years of telling people this, and acting as if it were true, he begins to believe it himself.
This little phenomenon may well account for the excesses of many legitimate governments. The Versailles court in France, Henry VIII of Britain, House of Saud, and Franklin Delano Rooseveldt of the U.S. come rather quickly to mind.
A government rules only with the consent of the governed. I didn't notice that the consent had to be freely given.
The necessity of having sufficient power on the side of the government is what makes politicians necessary.
Stalinist Russia made do with only about six% firmly on the governments side.

Some governments are the social ills. c.i.

politics is the projection of personal desires into the field of inter-personal affairs.

the is no politics without contesting world views and competing goals.

Politics comes from the Greek word polis. A polis in ancient Greece was a civic community governed by a representative group of leaders. That's all politics really is -- the application of this.

Politic comes from the greek word POLITKE, not polis, polis mean city-estate, & some of those greek polis were not governed by a community.
Like Halicarnaso was a polis, however it was ruled by kings.

As regarding "playing the game", I guess it's true but hopefully it'll end, & I shall contribute to end the game.

Humans develop a political system, then create two opposing groups to keep the checks and balances necessary to prevent extremism. It's a great wonder how they don't go into battle with guns. c.i.

C.I.; they don't?, or was that your point?

I was very impressed that Phoenix had such a positive take on all this, but you guys have brought her around!

I would define current politics as the ultimate degradation into compromise; which is in line with some other thoughts here, BUT! I have a solution:

Democracy (defined by Churchill as terrible system, but the best to come along so far) needs a facelift; lets set up a point system for voting.

Everybody gets one vote, no questions asked (or perhaps if they don't use it for five consecutive elections they lose it, naw, no questions!).

Then everyone who graduates from the school system successfully gets an extra vote; masters degree, one more; doctorate, another one.

Everyone who does volunteer work for an acredited (sorry about that) organization for a specific lenght of time earns another vote.

Any one running a business employing five or more persons earns an extra vote.

O.K. you get the idea, I'm not going to sit here and work it all out now, nor should I be the one to do it but meritotious voting, inspite of the affront to plain democracy that obviously doesn't work, and inspite of the opportunity for abuse, would mean that politicians would actually have to support policies that are worth electing.

We would have to make sure to weight the scales in favour of the "pure of heart" rather than the "Official Endosement of Greed in America" oganizations.

Piss off, I like dreaming!

Bo, I like your idea; it should be extended to all forms of government decision making. c.i.

Bo, that sounds suspiciously like an updated version of the proposals put forth in Platos's Republic some 2,500 years ago, where 'philosopher kings' rule. Plato's notion was, in part, that those with the most knowledge should have the most say in how to run the government. I'm afraid it wouldn't work in a democracy where academic accomplishments are not seen as being germane to public policy. The nay-sayers would point out -- probably rightly -- that this would lead a tyranny of the elite. I have known any number of PhDs whom I wouldn't trust to park my car, let alone run the country.

The minute you go beyond the 'one man-one vote' concept, you're courting trouble. I don't think any college president should have four or five votes to my one or two.

I've never been known for my "timelyness";

However I do think the weighted vote system makes sense, but like any other good idea, which goes against human nature (not a complimentary term) it would be absolute hell to implement, and not likely to overcome the usual "special" interest groups.

Great idea BoGoWo!

But why don't we raise people to rule, like for example, make them have the genes of the smartest persons alive, & then raise them in a atmosphere of justice & teach them how to rule, so when they're 22 they can rule for a 15 year period.

My point is that not everybody is fit to rule, here we even have dumb actors running for positions in the congress, & they probably will win because the common persons like them, they choose them because of how popular they are, not how fit they are to exercise their position.

& the problem with the elite having more power is that they don't know things of how exactly to run a farm, & other things that the so-called common people do, & need. So they care less bout those persons.

PS.- Politics are now just a big popularity contest!

In case you didn't know, cicerone, the majority of democracies around the world are governed by more than just two opposing parties. In fact, the Anglosaxon bipartisan system has a lack of direct representation. In such a bipolar democratic sherade, the several nuances in modern issues get absorbed but not implemented, and conflicts results from this instead of cooperation -- hardly ever does the sense of compromise get a chance to be developed in a bipartisan system.

Forgive me I'm tired... played too much soccer. But my dear Dux, politke is not a Greek word. Politikè maybe is. Or politikos.

wolf, I'm sure what you say is true. Have more than two parties, and the problems only multiplies, because nobody ever has a majority. c.i.

I have to agree with c.i. Countries which have a multi-party system sooner or later find themselves at an impasse. Coalitions get formed and re-formed and the government comes to a standstill because there is no consensus. And every party has its own particular axe to grind. Getting a majority vote on anything becomes close to impossible.

However, I do not mean to imply by this that a third party, especially one that can mount a serious challenge, is not a good idea. It is. If nothing else, it keeps the other two parties on their toes and more or less honest. And, if it becomes strong enough and popular enough, it can, in time replace one of the two other major parties as the key player.

Politics describes the process by which we constantly renegotiate the social contract which makes the elaborate structure of society possible. Without politics, we'd have a brief interruption by our sponsor, chaos, which would be followed by the return to our regularly scheduled programming--politics.

Set, We have regularly scheduled politics whether we like it or not; it's covered by all the media almost every day. c.i.