To a state senator: Legislative Philosophy

Dear Senator L-------:

Thanks for your reply to my e-mail. With the legislature in recess, I hope you'll have time to consider some general philosophizing on the practice of government.

I very much appreciate that you're open to hearing views different than your own. Many in your faction prefer echo-chamber politics, and no feedback that challenges their ideology.

It's a bad attitude in those whose job is to represent a diversity of constituents. It also betokens an underlying arrogance: that "only those who agree with me are worth hearing."

None of us experience reality as a chorus of voices totally agreeing with us. Those who want it so, want to live in a false "reality" of their own creation. That too is a bad attitude in people whose job is to deal with real-world problems, such as Kansas' budget.

It's also a "law" of history that people in power who choose to hear only affirmation of their own ideas, produce disaster. That truth applies to current American political factions as much as it did to England's Charles I, or Josef Stalin.

And bottom line, nobody can learn anything in an echo-chamber. There's the great danger to false realities. By definition, every ideology claims its worldview, and its worldview alone, explains all things, and justifies all things. Ideology loses its grip on its followers if they learn otherwise.

So, Senator, I'm very glad you're willing to hear ideas that challenge your ideology. An important one follows.

Kansas state government, of which you're part, has long set itself to oppose anything "Washington" does. It's not surprising, as that's the unquestioned ideology of the so-called "conservative" faction currently in power in Kansas.

But this doctrine of thumbing your nose (or Kansans' nose, since you're charged with representing Kansas' citizens) at the federal government has precedence in American history, as I'm sure you know. To give that political theory its historical name, Kansas' government embraces "nullification," claiming it's a sound and beneficial political principle.

I'm sure you're aware "nullification" was a theory invented by Southern "anti-Washington" politicians of the Nineteenth Century, to justify disobeying federal laws they didn't like. You're probably also aware their hatred of federal "over-reach" eventually gave rise to secession, and a war to destroy the United States. More to the point, you're surely aware that the theory of nullification, far from "sound and beneficial," brought disastrous consequences on its followers.

It's quite amazing that your faction would embrace this principle, against all evidence.

Commonsense wisdom says it's a bad principle: "in unity there is strength."

Scripture's spiritual truth on the matter calls that anti-authoritarian attitude "rebellion:" and scripture says it originates in the essential character of Satan.

It's a principle contrary to one explicit purpose of the Constitution: "...to form a more perfect Union."

And it's a principle which American history has demonstrated is ultimately and massively destructive.

There are additional real-world problems with your faction's ideology. I'll save those for another time.

For right now, Senator, I'm very curious.

It's common today to demonize the "other side:" that everything "they" think and do is explained by the fact that "they" are simply evil people. (This mindset goes hand-in-hand with the mindset that any one not in full agreement with "us" is an enemy...proving they're evil, since "we" arrogantly believe "we" embody everything that is right and good.)

I don't buy that thinking. I hope you don't either, Senator, because it's not true.

Few people embrace evil because it's evil. That's pathology. Most people follow an ideology because they're convinced it somehow does good. Even dedicated followers of Marxism and Nazism believed those ideologies would achieve good results.

So I have to imagine your faction embraces its ideology from a similar sincere belief it will somehow do good. And I'm very curious what good: against the evidence of scripture, and commonsense, and the Constitution, and history: your faction believes will come from striking rebellious and divisive poses ?

Respectfully, S---- H----