Chapter 3: Essence and Husk

“It’s not a fact that everything is exactly that way”

In this chapter, I will try to dispel some popular policy illusions. I do not think that you believe all these speculations, but if you are a typical American, and you have not been closely involved in politics before, then some of them are most likely familiar to you. Before we proceed to a detailed discussion of the art of practical politics, I would like to shed light on the fallacy of some of the provisions of our Great American Credo, directly related to politics, which will save you time and you and me.

If you do not take into account love and religion, perhaps more is written about politics than about any other subject. I intend to discuss some of them, and try to disprove them. Most of the errors, from those that I will discuss, are chosen by me because I myself had to change my point of view on them in the experience of my bitter political mistakes. My current views, of course, may also be incorrect, but they are based on the scientific method of observing the facts, and not on the desk reasoning. So if you do not believe me - go and check everything yourself, and it’s better not just once to be sure. But in order to save you from a multitude of mistakes, I would advise you, consider what I tell you the truth, until your own experience makes you think otherwise. And please note that all generalizations that I make regarding various social groups have their exceptions. Evaluate everyone coming to you without being biased. For example, in nature there is no physical law that prohibits women from housewife clubs to be smart, and occasionally smart women really do meet there.
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Now let's drop the conventions and talk frankly. We will touch on many forbidden topics and sort them out by the bones. We will discuss a lot of issues that are not discussed in a decent society, and we will speak about them completely freely, without using, however, obscene words. We will discuss Catholics, Communists, Jews and Negroes, women politicians, political reformers, school teachers, Irish Catholics, the government from members of the ruling party and the government on a competitive basis, and find out whether the father is always right. I will try to describe everything as I saw it with my own eyes. And I hope I will not write anything that touches you personally, but this can happen.

“No one should relate religious beliefs to politics”

This is a beautiful statement reflecting the American ideal of religious freedom. However, it is divorced from reality, and gives sentimental idealism. It is always necessary to take into account the religious convictions of a candidate for a political post, because they are one of the most important features of his personality. Whether he is a Catholic, a Protestant, a Communist, a Mormon, or a Jew, his religion has a strong influence on how he will behave in certain areas of activity (I did not make a reservation, considering religion and communism, I consider him to be a religion, and further I will write why ). However, it is important not to succumb to blind prejudices, objectively taking into account the religious beliefs of a person, to understand how he can lead in connection with these beliefs.

I must note that in considering the candidate’s religion in connection with politics, there is no discrimination, or inconsistency with the American spirit. The religion of man is his free choice, even though most people accept the faith of their parents. A Catholic may become a Jew, and a Communist may become a Quaker. Religion of a person says a lot about his attitude to the world, spiritual values ​​and prejudices, and if this person is involved in politics, then we have every right to ask about his religious convictions.

For example, let us imagine that we live in a fictional city, where local school departments can, on their own initiative, spend budget funds to support those from private parochial schools that accept students for free tuition. And suppose you think that budget funds should be spent only on the support of public schools. Before you is a ballot paper with two candidates, equally experienced, respected, and decent people, one of whom is Catholic, the other is not.
Should you choose a candidate who supports your views, or, without going into details of the biography, choose a candidate who you like so much with your beautiful eyes?

Imagine another scenario: the same election, the same city, you are not a Catholic, and you think that taxpayers' money should be spent on supporting free education, however, the government should not establish a compulsory free education program, except perhaps reading write and count. You think that parents have the right to decide for themselves which school subjects their children will be taught, and you are afraid of the state obligation in this matter. Who will you vote for?

Or maybe you are a Catholic, and you are afraid that the budget financing of Catholic schools will be the first step towards the government gaining control over them?

Questions may be even harder. Suppose, for example, that Congress is considering funding research. At the same time, many of the best colleges and universities are managed, or filled with representatives of any one religious denomination. Do you refuse to finance research to the famous Catholic College of Our Lady by donating money to some seedy college from Tennessee, from the state in which scientific views on biology are determined by the decision of the state legislature? What do you think about the equally famous Southern California University, which once belonged to the Methodist Church? Since then, much has changed at the university, but the influence of the Methodists is still felt. Do you allocate budget funds for engineering research to this university, or, in your opinion, only atheists can be the best research engineers?
Meanwhile, we know from history that church private schools made an absolutely indispensable contribution to scientific research that helped win the Second World War.

How will the question of the allocation of money for scientific research affect the question of budget financing of parochial schools? And it will necessarily affect, and you yourself must compare all these factors when you decide whether to participate in the election campaign of a Catholic candidate, or his non-Catholic opponent.
Another example: a recent legislature in my state proposed a law on birth control, and a law on licensing, controlling and limiting alcohol sales. The governor received about a hundred letters from supporters and opponents of these laws. An analysis of the letters showed that almost all birth control letters were written by Catholic communities, while all letters on the prohibition of alcohol were written by Protestants.
So, isn't it obvious that you have every right to be aware of the religious beliefs of your future congressman, senator, or governor?

Suppose you belong to that religious trend, which is known as Scientific Christianity, and which denies the existence of diseases, considering them to be the result of sins that have accumulated in the soul. Then how would you treat free medicine? Does it matter to you that a state legislator belongs to your church, or does it not matter?
And the congressman is a Judaist? Is he inclined or not to vote for the free acceptance in our country of all refugees from Europe? Who is more likely to refuse financial aid to England in favor of helping Palestine — a non-Zionist Judaist, or a Catholic Irishman from Boston?

To illustrate the political influence of religious beliefs can be infinite. I am not going to impose my opinion on all the issues listed above, I just want to explain to you that not paying attention to the significance of religious beliefs means to be in a deliberately disadvantageous position when composing your opinion about politicians and the problems they solve. But to always choose only members of your church, or, on the contrary, to completely ignore the candidate’s religion is just as silly. The first of these approaches is narrow-minded and contrary to the American spirit, the second is naively idealistic. Decide for yourself which one you like best!

The role of church communities in politics

(Before you accuse me of communism, fascism, papism, Zionism, atheism, and so on, let me say this: like my great-grandfathers, I am a born American, mostly Irish blood flows into me, with an admixture English, French, and a little German. My name is Catholic, I was baptized in the Methodist church, I believe in democracy, freedom of person and religion.
And yet, in my opinion, American church communities are a frequent source of political corruption and scandals. This is sad, but easily confirmed by observations. This state of affairs is caused by the too strong faith of members of church communities that their united and united efforts are able to expel all these hardened crooks from the local government. Indeed, the members of the church community, by voting unanimously, could influence the outcome of any election, push through any reforms they needed, and retain any of their gains. But in reality it does not work.

I will not discuss whether we are becoming more moral, more merciful and more civilized, as a result of the influence on us of the religious and missionary activities of priests, pastors, rabbis, and their parishioners. I also do not doubt that, as a rule, the political intentions of church groups are good. But due to the fact that these good intentions are applied too narrowly, without taking into account all the attendant factors, they too often lead to bad consequences.

For example, only recently church communities have become interested in the procedure for entering into contracts for paving streets, recruiting public service personnel, and assessing the value of real estate to collect tax. As for the approval of the cost of evacuating stolen and abandoned cars, the distribution of gas tax revenues between the city, district and state, or the appointment of management companies in the utilities sector, the church is likely to consider these issues too politically sensitive to preach about them from the cathedral chair.
Instead, religious communities are more likely to promote laws prohibiting actions contrary to their commandments. And professional politicians will only be happy to promise religious communities to adopt such laws, because they themselves do not interfere with such laws, rather the opposite - they expand the scope for bribes and corruption, provide support from pimps, bookmakers and other similar stakeholders, and finally - support from part of the very church communities that promoted these laws.

So if you are a member of a religious community, and you think that for the good of your community, laws are needed to ban gambling, ban and restrict the sale of alcohol, ban the sale of contraceptives, or require mandatory compliance with Shabbat, is your right, and I do not require you change your mind and give up the idea of ​​getting such laws. But keep in mind, practice shows that such laws are only the first step towards eradicating the evil against which they are directed. Questions of morality can not be resolved only by passing laws governing them. If you seek the adoption of such laws, without bothering to analyze all the sociological, economic and psychological nuances that constitute the cause of the vice that you intend to eradicate, then by adopting a law you will not only not eradicate evil, you will create dozens of new evils.
If you are a congressman, and your conscience demands that you support a law of this kind, then think that after the adoption of this law, your task of combating the corruption of officials ensuring compliance with this law will become more complicated and you they will have to work much harder and harder to cope with the corruption caused by this law.
And finally, if you are an amateur politician, a volunteer engaged in politics, and are interested in any reform, in order to avoid cruel disappointments, do not expect from religious communities real help in promoting reforms, even if they help to achieve the moral ideals of these communities .

Women in politics

At the dawn of the “Choose Women” movement, we were convinced that women would bring high moral ideals to politics, defeat bribes and corruption that have been cultivated by male molested politicians for so long.
And women really influenced politics: in the Senate they were given a separate make-up room for them. They influenced the spirit of political meetings: previously similar to fist fights, now the meetings began to resemble a meeting of classmates. The range of treats at political events also expanded: canapés, cakes, ice cream, coffee and chilled wine were added to a simple diet of beer and pork rolls. For me, this change in the menu is definitely enjoyable: I do not like pork rolls.

And with the arrival of women in politics, bribe-takers reduced tariffs.
Girls, please be quiet! Let me tell you! Of all the rules there are exceptions, perhaps you are one of them. You know better.
However, in politics there are a lot of women who seem to be eager to thunder straight to hell. Male politicians can be just as corrupt, but the tender sex is also given for a lower price. Apparently, women came to politics in order to reduce not corruption, but prices for it.

When you open a party office or become a candidate manager in an election, you are immediately attacked by phone calls from women who want to help you in the election campaign. They will seem ready to work for the idea of ​​volunteers, however, very soon it will turn out that they are political prostitutes, ready without shame of conscience, for a very small fee, to support any candidate and any kind of bill.
Reject their proposals, but do it politely: a politician should never argue with anyone, your goal is to win elections, not disputes over the telephone. Let better than these “volunteers” your political rival hires, they will not bring benefit to them, because they work so badly that they do not even pay for the low pay they work for. However, later you will surely find that your opponent hired one of your workers earlier than you, and now she works at your campaign headquarters during the day and reports everything at night to your opponents headquarters at night. Do not let this discovery discourage yourself. A politician should be able to foresee such trifles of life. And do not lose faith in people! Judging sensibly, you will see how there are more honest people around you than dishonest ones. Rogues seem more numerous simply because they cause more trouble.

I tend to believe, although I’m not sure exactly that, in general, men in politics are more honest than women. My opinion is based not only on lower bribe rates from female corrupt officials. From my intercourse with a large number of men and women revolving in politics, I made a judgment that women usually understand matters of politics worse and therefore do not understand so well that all political problems have social consequences. In some part, this may be due to the fact that most women in their daily lives do not affect social life as much as men, and, therefore, have less opportunity to understand how it works.
In addition, many husbands consciously cultivate such ignorance in their wives, because it gives them the opportunity to show at home how much they know about politics and not get caught up in ignorance, because in politics they do understand better than their wives.
The most frequent phrase I've heard from women hundreds of times during the electoral round is “My husband understands all this for me”. And they really leave "all this" at the mercy of her husband, not distinguishing the speaker from the pitcher, and considering the ombudsman to be a part of the car.

Therefore, when someone tells such a woman that she can make some money with easy and easy work not far from home, helping to carry out an election campaign, she is ready for anything, diligently doing everything that she is ordered, not thinking about the political consequences of her actions for country. She would not be surprised to be asked to work for a candidate by voting against him, because she does not understand the very essence of political work. , , , , , , , – , , , , , .
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