“Political science” – what a verbal miscarriage! What science can there be in politics; except for the science of deception, obfuscation and manipulation? As a branch of philosophy, politics is a lot more than economic programs and social policies. The governance of people, communities and nations, require thorough knowledge of philosophical concepts and models. The authors of the American constitution obtained excellent guidance through great minds, such as John Locke, David Hume and Thomas Paine and In Europe philosophical giants like G.W.F. Hegel and J.W. Goethe inspired their governments in social policies and moral issues.
What we know is that without prominent moral thinkers and great philosophical minds society cannot find humanity.
Everything we create, conceive, organize or fabricate originates from our minds. However, if humans only think in order to control, to gain power, to obtain possessions by force or deception and to achieve scientific goals, they will morally degenerate and loose the right to govern. The basic values and principles of Human Rights and democratic constitutions are not the results of United Nations committee meetings or parliamentarian working groups, but are defining parts of our western cultural heritage. Moreover, without morality and ethics there can be no real Justice.
Most of our modern civil laws stem from basic elements of the old English legal system and the Napoleonic Code and were inspired by the prevailing philosophical understanding of ethics, truth and morality. After the religious abuses of the Roman-Catholic church throughout the middle ages, some thinkers were introducing reason and logic for a responsible and just society (Immanuel Kant: “Critique of Pure Reason”). However, some of the most important philosophers of the 20th, Bertrand Russell and Ayn Rand eventually doing away with religion wholesales, arguing that humans have the capacity for moral judgment without believing in or adopting a religious system – leaving morals and justice as purely cultural accomplishments. Be it as it may, the philosophical problems of faith and reason will still be debated by scholars through the foreseeable future.
Today, it seems not much is left from the philosophical concepts of Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, even Popper, Wittgenstein, Russell or Rand. In today’s political environment, laws are more often than not being put in force simply “on demand” by activists or media pressure. The modern day Jacobin are modelling their populist themes such as abortion, immigration, gay marriage, capital punishment and poverty to suit their constituent’s emotions; much like during the French Revolution. At the same time, the liberal left tries to peddle compassion for the predator, rather than for the victims and to implement the “the common good” of the egalitarians. The aim is not “social justice” (if there ever can be such a thing in a free society), but the dismantling of traditional manners and culture in order to increase state power and control.
In the absence of modern honest, non-partisan philosophers, the hope rests with you to read the works of some of mankind greatest thinkers in order to form your own qualified ideas about the nature of truth, morality and politics. Your fellow men (and women) must hope, that you look beyond short-term material gains and personal benefits and than apply your ethic standards to your choices of future leaders and to your demands of their qualities and competence.
Der Staats-lose Bürger 