day no. 17,441: smart enough yet dumb enough

"We must begin by establishing our priorities... Sen. Eugene McCarthy once said that being a senator was a lot like being a football coach—you had to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it was important." — Douglas Wilson, Athletics and Christian Community #1

Politics are like playing a game, you have to have the wherewithal to know how to play and to remember that's just a game. Politics is not altogether unimportant, but it is less important than the people playing the game think it is. Christ is King which makes everything political, but politics cannot save, only Jesus can... and politics itself needs to be saved.

“I doubt whether the best men ever would devote themselves to politics. The best men would devote themselves to pigs and babies and things like that.” — G.K. Chesterton

Politics is not just a game, because it has to be played. You don't have to play football and no one else necessarily does either, but if you don't play politics, someone else will and that just means your concerns won't be represented. The stakes are high and someone has to play, but only someone of low caliber would devote their everything to it. It's a job you take of of necessity in order to accomplish something else, not an end in itself.

"No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems -- of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind." — Thomas Sowell

Only a scoundrel would see politics as an end in itself. It is necessary to legislate, but it is also necessary to realize that life is more than legislation. In fact, legislation should largely stay out of our lives. Legislation is for those who wants to infringe on the ability of others to live, be free, and pursue property and happiness.