Why I Dislike Politics

Okay, expanding on a theme I covered during the whole Journalism rant, here is why I think politics is inherently useless.

They don't DO anything! They add no value. They're parasites, but oh no, they're so much worse.
Every proffesion serves some function, they add value so to speak. This value can be of two kinds, either product based or service based. Now, the other wing of the Indian Government system, the Beaurocracy which I still consider to be a career option frankly closed to me, it serves a purpose. Administration is required, it's a nessecity, and all right they're not the most efficient or decent about doing their job but it gets done nevertheless.

So that brings us to the sticky matter of politics. Before I go any further, as an excercise please define the purpose and role of a politician. What is he supposed to do?

Many of you will answer, get elected into office. What office? What does his or her office entail? It seems to entail getting reelected back into that office, for the majority of their term, or ensuring other people close to them get elected into some political office or the other. Thus, the entire purpose of a politician seems to be to remain a politician.

But wait, they did have a role to play, as laid down by the Constitution that we have. They're supposed to MAKE LAWS. The excutive powers on the other hand, are supposed to make policy. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the last thing we ever hear Manhoman Singh, Sonia Gandhi or L K Advani ever did was pass a bloody law. No, we have had the same laws the Brits laid down in Victorian times.

But let us even analyse the claim that politicians in a democracy in some magical way represent the will of the majority, the masses so to speak. I got news for you, ya smart arses, in India at least there's only a voter turnout of at best 60%. At worst, it falls well below 45%. That means that the actual majority of the people no not so much as wish to have their will represented by a load of self serving clowns, who occupy prime residential area in Delhi, and occasionally fuck up our traffic when they wish to go for a joyride. (This is essentially because they think people might want to kill them, which is quite true. However they want to kill them because they're screwing around with the traffic, so it's a wonderfully recursive loop).

In the end, it's a question of what appeals and what does not appeal to your value system. I've been brought up, and have grown up to believe that there is goodness and respect and fun in providing value in return for compensation. That's a decent career, in my eyes. Politics is the art of removing value, and making a lot of noise about it. It's the lowest slimiest job human beings can have.