Integrity in Politics

Party politics is essentially a popularity contest where participants try to make themselves as attractive as possible to the voting public. There is nothing in this game that requires anyone to be truthful or coherent. All that is required is an ability to entice the public, and once in power, take credit for all that is good and deny any ill effects of policy decisions.

This is why people with integrity have a tendency to leave politics through the course of a grand political cycle. Great statesmen appear early in the cycle. They are then replaced by less principled people, who in turn are replaced by grifting opportunists. This happened in Rome, and it's happening in the West today. There is little integrity or intelligence. It's all populism and opportunism, with shallow or non-existent moral backings.

Ideals and loyalty to the public are gradually eroded as the scheming and back stabbing intensifies. It becomes increasingly intolerable to be in politics for those with honest intentions. They get side-lined by their less principled peers. They get kicked out. Only those "open for business" remain. However, even this unsavoury lot comes in various degrees of deprivation, and it's the lowest of the low who have the best chance of surviving. With no principles, and an insatiable thirst for power and money, the truly greedy stay in the game.

While a grand cycle may see some return to honour from time to time, the overall tendency is towards decadence. Instrumental in this are the numerous self-serving agencies that former politicians have set up. These will always resist reform. Such agencies will grow, but never shrink. They will scheme against any reform minded politician.

There is no way to avoid the final collapse of a grand political cycle, and since we appear to be at the end of the current one, we need to take some basic precautions for ourselves. We must be as independent from the people in charge as it is possible to be. We mustn't rely on their money or pension schemes for our well being. We must also stay away from financial assets.

The safest strategy is to avoid the attention of those who will rob us. A modest plot of land, with a modest house, and our other savings in gold, hidden away in a loft or attic, is a strategy that has stood the test of time. It will work just as well this time as it has before.

Old farmhouse

By Own work - Rasbak, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link