Three things I should keep off the decks
To avoid the pains in the necks,
And to keep folks from fussin’,
Don’t start a discussion
On politics, religion, or sex.
I: Why I don’t write about politics
Most people only have interest for their own politics.
Everything new to be said about conservative versus liberal, Republican versus Democrat, have versus have-not has been said. Everything that has been said can be quarreled about. There are good, intelligent, educated people on both sides. If good, educated, intelligent people cannot agree on a political agenda there is little good to be said for political agenda.
You find truth in political agenda only by coincidence.
Demonizing the opposition only breaks down communications with good, educated, intelligent people.
The No Child Left Behind program passed with bipartisan support; most teachers that I’ve talked to see the bill as the death-knell for American public education. When the majority of our population has inadequate access to good education we have lost upward mobility.
Our Congressional delegates don’t send their children to public schools. We keep electing people who betray us. An oligarchy run by Democrats or Republicans is still an oligarchy, and when we have a ruling class we lose the strength of our system.
Both political parties have spent entirely too much time and energy on two issues, generating more heat than light and polarizing the country. I won’t name them because I don’t want to get drawn into the useless discussion.
And most political discussions are useless. People come to a political conversation more interested in winning than in finding truth; the odds of making the other person see the light are akin to picking a winning Lotto number.
We should not infer that a good debater will be a good leader; the person who wins a political debate demonstrates an ability to spin things well extemporaneously, not an ability to solve problems.
But if you elect me, I’ll raise tax on cigarettes by a dollar a pack per year, I’ll raise taxes on gasoline by five cents a month at least till it hits six dollars a gallon, and within three months of election I will have been corrupted by power so much that I will start lying. I promise.
II: Why I don’t write about religion.
Most people don’t want to know about religions that they don’t agree with.
The best questions don’t have answers. Michigan vs. Michigan State is only fascinating till the end of the game. The really, really great questions of human existence and cosmology cannot be answered. People have faith that they believe the truth, but such truth can only be demonstrated with circular reasoning.
While having religion available is good for a society, and while trying to make religion illegal is hopeless,
trying to make people more religious is worse than useless. (Though making them act more ethically is possible with good law enforcement.) Religious writing either preaches to the choir or angers the reader; I have no wish to do either.
I don’t write about religion because nobody changes an opinion based on such writings; they are useless in an information age, and a waste of time for the writer.
III. Why I don’t write about sex (even though almost everyone is interested in other peoples’ sex lives).
Anything you can even think about sexually has already been done by hundreds, this morning, before breakfast. Person A reading what I’d written about person B’s sex life might think I was writing about him or her and would be angry that I’d violated confidentiality or, if I hadn’t, finding out that he or she wasn’t as creative as they’d thought.
Besides, there’s enough sex on the net; the cheap, sure way of selling a product has already been done and overdone.
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