THE CONSERVATIVE VIEW
BY RUSSELL TURNER
THE PRICE OF POLITICS
It seems like the years get shorter all of the time; here we are just a few days away from Christmas and a new year. This year has been an eventful year; one of the biggest things that we survived was the midterm election cycle. At the local coffee shops politics is always fair game when it comes to complaining about something. I have come to the conclusion here in America we have only ourselves to blame. Politics affects the quality of life we lead every day of our lives. To be a well informed citizen it requires staying informed every day, not just when the election cycle rolls around every other year. It is a sad fact that we human often allow ourselves to be manipulated into choosing elected officials who often have a pretty smile and little substance. In this country we create a ruling class that has little in common with the everyday people that work hard to keep this country running. Many years ago a man told me that when it comes to politics there are two kinds of people, the ones who want to do the right thing and the others who want to be somebody. When you look at history what we are seeing in our country today is nothing new. It was Mark Twain that once said that history may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Christ; while we celebrate his birth we need to also remember the events of his death. Jesus Christ was the ultimate conservative; his teachings are the basis of our founding principles. He advocated taking care of the poor but he never suggested that the government should be given that exclusive task; he taught that we as individuals should take on that responsibility. He never tried to raise an army to correct the problems of his day, but the events that led to his death were political. 2,000 years ago the driving force of politics was the same as what we are witnessing in our time. Today we call it the deep state, but the symptoms were the same back then. You had a group of people that were self absorbed with themselves, they wanted to sleep in a soft bed and eat the best food, and they couldn't care less about what the average people had to do to survive. It is so ironic that people in power hate and despise the honest person trying to do the right thing. Christ was sent to the cross even though he had never done anything wrong, but there are always forces that defend the status quo just because it has always been done that way. I often wonder what kind of world we would have if the people of that day would have accepted Christ and not succumbed to a mob mentality and murdered him.
We humans can do better. If we take the time to educate ourselves on the workings of government and refuse to be manipulated by the forces of the status quo we could have a better world. The people of the past put their faith in a corrupt political system and you can plainly see the results. We humans have paid a high price for politics with fallible humans in charge.
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