calling a spade a spade

[quarrel]

“If God did not want them sheared, He would not have made them sheep.”
— The Magnificent Seven

What is politics?

Politics is a tree with one apple on it, and you with your foot on some guy’s neck because you’re one day from starvation and he really likes apples.

In the absence of laws, you’re permitted to behave any way you want. All of politics boils down to the artificial proscription of liberties. “You could try to do this, but we won’t let you because….” I hate politics for this reason. Hate it. I despise forcing other people to do what I want.

But grown-ups do lots of things they don’t enjoy: Wash the dishes. Discipline their children. Shoot invading foreigners. Give poor people less money than they want. They do these things because they’ve matured enough to realize that the consequences of not doing these things are even less enjoyable.

When you get right down do it, either you can let everyone in the world do anything they want to you, including rob, rape, enslave, and kill you, or you can…not. The former is self-destructive and arguably irrational (though some Buddhists might disagree). Politics is the only alternative.