Why ARE politicians so egotistical about their opinions?

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John Lennon was facing deportation by Nixon because Lennon opposed the Vietnam war. He was a "threat to national security."

I was reading the Wikipedia page on Timothy Leary, and apparently he was named by [I forget who] to be the "most dangerous man in America." What was he trying to do that was dangerous? He had perfectly good intentions; he wanted to experiment with LSD as a method of reducing crime.

Why the f*** don't I travel back and time and sink the Mayflower? How much more freedom do we have than they had at the time?!

Sinking the Mayflower might in fact increase the percentage of freedom in the modern world. Our mythmakers want us to believe the Pilgrims (or the Saints, as they called themselves) were looking for religious freedom; in fact, they were looking for a place to practice their own brand of religious oppression. They'd already been kicked out of England and Holland for being pains in their neighbors' kiesters; they hoped that in the New World, they could suppress the practices of the "pagan" natives without outside interference.

Of course, once the Massachusettes Colony was a going concern, they started a) being as hypocritical as it's possible to be, and b) turning on each other (look up the history of Rhode Island as an example).

Why are politicians so egotistical about their opinions? Because it's kind of a prerequisite for the job - you have to be pretty egotistical to think that you're qualified to help run a major nation...

Sinking the Mayflower might in fact increase the percentage of freedom in the modern world. Our mythmakers want us to believe the Pilgrims (or the Saints, as they called themselves) were looking for religious freedom; in fact, they were looking for a place to practice their own brand of religious oppression. They'd already been kicked out of England and Holland for being pains in their neighbors' kiesters; they hoped that in the New World, they could suppress the practices of the "pagan" natives without outside interference.

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The Mayflower was not the first English ship that came to the New World nor would it have been the last even if it had been sunk. Once knowledge of the New World became common in Europe there would have been so much voyaging that there would be no way of stopping Europeans (including the British) from coming to the Western Hemisphere. The pressure to expand and spread out was just too great in Europe.

The aboriginal folk of the New World were going to be visited and eventually conquered and plundered sooner or later.

ruveyn

ruveyn

Hey, what do you think of how Eric The Red encouraged people to immigrate to "Green"-land?

The Mayflower was not the first English ship that came to the New World nor would it have been the last even if it had been sunk. Once knowledge of the New World became common in Europe there would have been so much voyaging that there would be no way of stopping Europeans (including the British) from coming to the Western Hemisphere. The pressure to expand and spread out was just too great in Europe.

The aboriginal folk of the New World were going to be visited and eventually conquered and plundered sooner or later.

ruveyn

ruveyn[/quote]

I think the point was not so much the number of Europeans that sailed but the number of um... fundamentalists?.

it is all good for us as we now have very few of those folk over here.

"Being egotistical about [your] opinions" is pretty much the whole job description of a politician.

And most politicians today are shallow, narcisstic a-holes
who refuse to hear each other's ideas.

Take for example...practically everyone in the US Senate.

Not true. I'm not fit to "Run" the nation. I am fit at public speaking and managing relatively small groups of people who will then manage others. Everyone has their part to do and their place to be. No one does everything and no one can do everything; and no one should try to do everything.

Politicians are motivated by a desire to be worshiped for doing "good" and "saving" others. They're like Batman with a ballot instead of a cape. When you see a politician chasing money, that's not really his primary motivation. The money is just to pay for his next campaign so he can get back in front of the crowd and bask in their adulation.

Also, in politics exists the few jobs left in the world which have virtually 100% job security for a period of years at a time.

For every voter who complains that politicians are "too egotistical about their opinions" there are other voters who complain about how politicians are too "gutless".

For every example of a politician being a fanatic about a cause there are counter examples (often from the career of the same politician) of politicians cowardly and cynically ignoring their beliefs to pander to the public to stay in power. Even when they appear to be 'egotisical' and 'maniacal' they are often just play acting to pander to some part of the public that really is fanatical and emotional about some issue.

Even if a politician really is being "egotistical about his opinions" does that mean (a) he is a man of strong rooted convictions?- or (B) does it mean that he's just a closeminded bigoted jerk?

The answer is obvious. If I agree with him he's the former, if I disagree with him he's the latter!