Trying as hard as we can for positive change

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday June 29th, 2009

Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong."

While driving this week I saw a car with two bumper stickers; one in French and one English, which said: "I do not trust Shawn Graham."

Instantly I thought of the flurry of activity around the switching of the cabinet and how huge the sigh of relief was that Kelly Lamrock was no longer in charge of the education portfolio.

I have always been involved in organizations that are trying to make a difference. In university it was Greenpeace and Amnesty International, later I worked for Peace Brigades, and on it went. In almost every case the return on investment has been dismally small.

What I mean to say is that no matter how hard you work for change, what you actually see change is slow, minimal, and long term. I liken it to changing the direction of a 100 car freight train by hanging off the back and leaning. It will make a difference, you just might not notice it as the train is going.

Politicians must necessarily be self-assured people.

To believe that they personally can make a difference and be the voice of thousands of people, some level of humility has to be left at the door. At the same time, it is a job that one could not possibly do for more than a year unless you believed in it.

Now, imagine for a moment that you invest all of your energy into something, that you sacrifice higher paying jobs, that you leave your family home alone most nights of the week, say, to try and make the educational system better.

Now, imagine that the response to this is almost entirely criticism and hatred.

I maintain that individual ministers, individual governments, individual countries, work within political systems that are very hard to change.

Almost universally when someone tries to colour outside the lines, by changing the health care system concretely like Obama, by revamping the educational system like Lamrock, people turn on you.

Don't get me wrong. I am literally quaking in my boots that my daughter has to go to school in two years. I wonder how to get her educated and not destroy her innate intelligence. I am pretty sure our educational system is off the rails.

But, back to the bumper sticker, "I do not trust, Shawn Graham, Kelly Lamrock, Stephen Harper," whoever you wish to place in that category; and why it is wrong.

Trust is a judgment on the personal morality of the individual. When we say it in regard to politics, it is a judgment on the morality of the motivation for the political action.

In almost every single case I can think of, I trust that the politician was doing what they believed to be the best policy for the most people.

This does not mean they were right. Sometimes they are blind to certain aspects of a decision, sometimes too many advisors stir up too much dust and cloud the issue, sometimes they rely on trusted officials who have separate beliefs.

Just think about this; when Bush signed an order to invade Iraq he trusted there were weapons of mass destruction; and thought it was the best and safest reaction.

The intelligence community thought that Iraq was causing problems and either believed there were weapons, or thought there could be some day and the right thing to do was attack.

Whether most of the reasons behind the attacks were fabricated or not, there is no reason to make a moral judgment against the people at the top levels of government for doing what they truly and wholeheartedly believed would save the most lives.

Turns out that their decisions were wrong; a lot of mine are too. That does not mean I cannot be trusted.

To base the entire personal worth of a politician on the outcome of decisions that they make, perhaps that they are forced into by circumstances, is wrong.

Of course, it happens every day. Too often we judge the worth of people on the wrong criteria. Look at the United States and their almost constant sex scandals. It would seem that every politician down there has an affair at one point in their lives. Almost instantly they are deemed morally unfit to be in office.

Are they really?

Does anyone making these judgments compare them to the achievements done while in office? Does anyone doubt that the stress and personal attacks, and family sacrifice lead one to have to make tough personal choices?

I am not saying that everyone who offers themselves for public office should have carte blanche on morality.

I am, however, suggesting that they might not need it if we could just learn to separate the person and what they are truly hoping for from the decisions that they have to make.

Despite what we would hope, in the last few decades there have really been very few changes to anything on the political front, and most of the changes that have been made have been for the better.

We fight the wrong battles. We make issues like taxation a defining characterization of individual politicians.

Anyone who wants to raise the GST is greedy, right?

Most of us could not hope to do any better at rationing money to shifting priorities, or maybe we could. . . if so, do we have the courage to run?

Someday my children will be old enough to not need as much of my time, and I will try on different hats to continue my quest to make the world a better place.

I know that I will be attacked for doing so; it is part of the price of admission.

Perhaps we all need to learn to be a little gentler and stop assuming the worst motivations.

Most of the people we ever meet are trying as hard as they can, politicians included.