Politics!

Okay, we're gonna get heavy now, because this is something that has been bothering me for a good bit of time.

See, I'm very interested in sorting out politics. I want to figure out a way for humanity to kind of just fix everything and move on to what we're all hoping for; the Federation in Star Trek!

In this, I'm both a blue-eyed skeptic and a misanthropic cynic.

The problem is the fact that I'm quite conflicted between two main ideologies; let's call them 'freedom' and 'unity'.

Freedom, on the one hand, sounds very appealing; people being to the greatest possible degree free to mind themselves without the intervention of government. I'd like to think this is something that could work, given that people in general are honest, good-natured and reasonable. The problem is that they are also deceptive, vicious and completely and utterly unreasonable. The latter category is the minority, but the way I see things across the world, it only takes a few bad ones to screw things up for all the good ones.

After all, in a country of several millions, you just need one single guy to mess it all up by hoarding enough money to buy himself his own army.

Freedom is the way of the idealist to me. If you completely discard the pragmatist arguments, as noted libertarian Penn Jillette does, I don't really see how one can end up anywhere else. You need charity? Trust people to donate. You need to renovate a road? Gather up funds locally and get it done. It would mean much greater efficiency and less waste all around, to boot.

But it's in the practical details that I think it would break down, so we come to...

Unity, on the other hand, seems to be based on two things; pragmatism and reinforced community. Ideologically, it might not be entirely reasonable to force people to show solidarity and to pitch in via the government to get things sorted instead of trusting them to do it without coercion, but pragmatically it's a way to get it done. Of course, this course isn't without an ideological foundation; it does assume that for it to work, the people need to be in on it. They need to feel that this is the right thing to do. If the people isn't behind having high taxes, like here in Sweden, to allow us to forge a working nation, then the system won't work.

Unity has the added advantage of ensuring uniformity in government. The US has fifty different states, each with their own legislation, and that does mean you end up with one country consisting of wildly different regions with no uniformity in exercising law enforcement and the likes thereof. Sometimes, I do believe a central government needs to layeth the smacketh down on some local candy asses.

I simply cannot decide to follow one entirely, because the arguments behind both are strong yet neither can be applied completely to all issues in the world.

On the whole, neither of these ideological directions are a problem, politically. Partisanship and demonization, however, are.

We see it all over the world, but the US is something of an interesting case in point, because it is extremely obvious there. You have people who actually seriously describe their opponents as the antichrist just because they belong to the other party. Republicans start talking about revolution when Obama signs an executive order, but they ignore it when Bush signed an identical executive order. The democrats treat Bush as a a warmongering, profiteering idiot, while they don't look very closely at who fills up Clinton's pockets.

This kind of partisanship is never ever a good thing. Not only does it preclude any fruitful compromise, it also ensures that how good an idea something is never has any impact on whether or not people support it.

Supposing a republican president comes up with a plan that will end all wars in 24 hours, feed all the hungry in the world and make the US of A the most powerful nation in the world, you'll have half the population deciding right then and there that it is the worst idea in the history of the world, and that it must be stopped at any cost.

Why can't everyone at least try to see their political opponents as trying their best to work things out?

I sure don't agree with Glenn Beck on many issues at all. I think he's wrong on so many levels with regards to so many things. But I don't think he's a demon ascended from hell to punish mankind. I think he's holding honest opinions, and tries to maintain his integrity to the greatest degree in the face of very complex issues.

Of course, there are always spineless morons and corporate shills spread throughout politics, but I believe they are the rotten exception. I believe that Bush did his level best to run the country in accordance with his beliefs, and I do believe that Obama does the same.

I don't agree with many of Bush's actions, but I don't attribute them to malice. I attribute them to him trying to navigate a political swamp while balancing conflicting interests all around him. He might've acted like an idiot at times, but we all do that. Nobody is perfect.

Except for Stephen Fry, obviously.

That's it folks!

Yes, it can finally be stated without deception that the Soccer World Cup is over!

In the finals, two teams competed against one another, and in the end one of them won. No surprises there, since that's the exact turn of events I had predicted all along.

During the match, people kicked the football a large number of times, and the team that won scored the most goals against their opponent.

The incidences of icing and the ball being out of bounds somehow didn't stop the match from ending the way it did.

In other news, the two parties in the american parliament disagree with each other on numerous points.

In contrast to this, the Korean government made an official statement.

Following this news, Sweden announced that it refuses to take sides in the football, calling themselves "Not associated with association fotball", instead relying on the Germans to carry the torch for Europe.