On a side note, if you hover your mouse over the photos, they'll say something cool. Yeah, that's right, I learned how to span.
There's obviously a lot more to it than that, but that's the basic gist that I remember. Having thrown this little piece of classic political science history literature hoo-ha in your face, don't you think that it would be such a huge let down for Hobbes to bounce through time and find himself in '09, where tons of people really don't give a crap about what their government is doing? Not to name names, but I was conversing with a good, intelligent lady friend of mine a couple of days back, and after we fumbled through the subject of what-the-fuck-is-Harper-up-to-now (it turns out he's playing a sort of Obama pantomine), she concluded the end of our discussion with a palm slap to the table top and the declaration of, "In the end, I don't know and I don't care about what our government does."
Wait, what?
These are the guy's that run our country and basically control our lives. Those little road blocks in life that tell us what we can or cannot do, the suits who decide how much of our income is taxed like so many pulled fingernails, the price of postage stamps, all of that, and so much more, is decided by our government.
vs. 
So basically, not caring about what your government is up to is, in part, like letting go of the reigns, covering your eyes, and hoping that your horse doesn't run itself into a wall. Not the smartest idea, by far.
Yet I can understand where these people are coming from; afterall, I am one of them. Sure, I know about things like the upcoming budget proposal that'll decide where $40 billion dollars will blow across the nation, I know that Jack Layton rocks at debates as much as he rocks his little moustache (for the record, I like it), but beyond that, I have to rely on my sporadic newspaper reading habit or at least attempt to catch up on Rick Mercer to figure out what the heck is going on in those crazy buildings up at Parliament Hill.
But why? Why isn't it more fun for the regular Joe to just dive into all and becoming truly immersed with the minute details of politics, so we can finally figure out why the immigration process takes so effing long, or if Harper has anything to do with the fact that my toilet swirls in a lovely counter-clockwise orientation.
I know that on the one hand, we average hucklers find that, half the time, all the press release of what the Prime Minister and his band of merry fellows are doing now are just, well, dry. I read about politics in print news, but I do it because I feel like I should, not because I actually like picking up on a reporter's apparent dislike for Jim Flaherty. Politicians don't help the situation with their vague answers, dancing around an issue like a horny, feckless kid skirting around the issue of sex with his new girlfriend: they want to just spill the beans, but they're pretty sure they're going to get bitch slapped if they don't say what they need to say juuuust right. Of course, when they finally do get down to it, they seem to get lost in all their vagueries that they kind of forgot their point, and so did we.
That's a point for us. A point for them, though, are the loads and loads of people who are already involved and immersed, just swimming in the juicy, sticky pool of politics and all of its intrigues. They understand it like its a melody the rest of us just can't catch, and does this make them smarter than us? In ways, yes, but overall, probably not. It just so happens they're actually interested in what we perceive to be mumbo-jumbo, but unlike quantum physics, I think we have to realize that if we're really planning on actively living in a city, with its tall buildings, cracking asphalt roads and swarms of people, we need to figure out what those elected top dogs really are doing up there.
Because, in the end, politics and government is made to serve the people, we just have to give a shit.
For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Mr. Hobbes, he basically says that humans gave up their right to autonomy for government, believing that this would be the only way to leave behind their savagery and enter a truly civilized existance.
There's obviously a lot more to it than that, but that's the basic gist that I remember. Having thrown this little piece of classic political science history literature hoo-ha in your face, don't you think that it would be such a huge let down for Hobbes to bounce through time and find himself in '09, where tons of people really don't give a crap about what their government is doing? Not to name names, but I was conversing with a good, intelligent lady friend of mine a couple of days back, and after we fumbled through the subject of what-the-fuck-is-Harper-up-to-now (it turns out he's playing a sort of Obama pantomine), she concluded the end of our discussion with a palm slap to the table top and the declaration of, "In the end, I don't know and I don't care about what our government does."
Wait, what?
These are the guy's that run our country and basically control our lives. Those little road blocks in life that tell us what we can or cannot do, the suits who decide how much of our income is taxed like so many pulled fingernails, the price of postage stamps, all of that, and so much more, is decided by our government.
vs. So basically, not caring about what your government is up to is, in part, like letting go of the reigns, covering your eyes, and hoping that your horse doesn't run itself into a wall. Not the smartest idea, by far.
Yet I can understand where these people are coming from; afterall, I am one of them. Sure, I know about things like the upcoming budget proposal that'll decide where $40 billion dollars will blow across the nation, I know that Jack Layton rocks at debates as much as he rocks his little moustache (for the record, I like it), but beyond that, I have to rely on my sporadic newspaper reading habit or at least attempt to catch up on Rick Mercer to figure out what the heck is going on in those crazy buildings up at Parliament Hill.
But why? Why isn't it more fun for the regular Joe to just dive into all and becoming truly immersed with the minute details of politics, so we can finally figure out why the immigration process takes so effing long, or if Harper has anything to do with the fact that my toilet swirls in a lovely counter-clockwise orientation.
I know that on the one hand, we average hucklers find that, half the time, all the press release of what the Prime Minister and his band of merry fellows are doing now are just, well, dry. I read about politics in print news, but I do it because I feel like I should, not because I actually like picking up on a reporter's apparent dislike for Jim Flaherty. Politicians don't help the situation with their vague answers, dancing around an issue like a horny, feckless kid skirting around the issue of sex with his new girlfriend: they want to just spill the beans, but they're pretty sure they're going to get bitch slapped if they don't say what they need to say juuuust right. Of course, when they finally do get down to it, they seem to get lost in all their vagueries that they kind of forgot their point, and so did we.
That's a point for us. A point for them, though, are the loads and loads of people who are already involved and immersed, just swimming in the juicy, sticky pool of politics and all of its intrigues. They understand it like its a melody the rest of us just can't catch, and does this make them smarter than us? In ways, yes, but overall, probably not. It just so happens they're actually interested in what we perceive to be mumbo-jumbo, but unlike quantum physics, I think we have to realize that if we're really planning on actively living in a city, with its tall buildings, cracking asphalt roads and swarms of people, we need to figure out what those elected top dogs really are doing up there.
Because, in the end, politics and government is made to serve the people, we just have to give a shit.
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