Time for Moral Pushback

The moment at hand -- with Democrats offering Joe Biden as our great white-haired hope and Republicans countering with President Donald Trump -- seems as good a time as any to suggest the real defect of modern politics, meaning its hollowness, its irrelevance to real as distinguished from pretend human needs.

The practice of beating political opponents over the noggin -- rhetorically and sometimes physically -- proves, most of the time, a poor substitute for inciting friend and opponent alike to larger agreement on the more meaningful aspects of life. These include the peaceful sharing of civic duties and the observance of the higher human forms of behavior, e.g., loyalty, generosity, honor, dignity and solicitude for the truth.

However, the policy course that excites most politicians today is the use of force and compulsion to bring unseeing, uncomprehending others in line. It's so much easier, as well as quicker, to make people do something as opposed to persuading them.

Making others do things you want them to do exhibits your personal power. You're so grand, so wonderful in your exercise of strength. You're Hercules. You're Achilles. Maybe Zeus himself. Grand, godlike. Far too many modern political figures have godlike ambitions that they feel compelled to realize.