“Why Are/Were They so Popular?” or “How to Become a Politician”

Let us do a little quiz game. The initials of the line you will find below represent six political protagonists (Protagonisten). We are talking five men and one woman. They all live in the American-European parts of the world. Three of them have German as their native language, two are French and Italian, and one of them lives on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean. One of them is dead, another has no political office, and the others are perhaps in the middle of or before the zenith of their careers.
J. H.; K-H. G.; K. T. z. G; N. S.; S. B.; S. P.

They all came as bearers of hope, perhaps because they were capable of personifying more or less credibly the small or great Messiah or Sun King – excuse me: Sun Queen (what is the female form of Messiah?). They all seem to be rich and powerful and are omni-present in the rainbow press.

Can you guess who they are? You will find the solution at the end of this article.

Here is another hint: they all have one thing in common. Time and again, their actions have been judged not to be particularly integer, morally appropriate or virtuous. And yet they are so much loved by their subjects that they will always be re-elected, or would be if it were still possible. And the more they misbehave, the more popular they seem to get.

How is that possible?

As with all difficult questions, the answer seems to be simple!

A philosophical friend of mine informed me:

A law should be such that your normal citizen who has been socialized and is of average intelligence can see where the law is necessary in order to maintain and promote the public welfare. Consequently, said citizen will be prepared to follow the law voluntarily.

If that is so, you can hope that the citizens will adhere to the laws of their countries because they see the usefulness of such behaviour – and not because the punishment threatening them in case they violate laws and let themselves be caught will do more damage than the violation of the law would have earned them after a sensible balancing of interests.

But unfortunately, that is not the way of the world.

Today, legislation is produced at inflation rate on several levels. Most of these laws are unnecessary and incomprehensible. More often than not, you can hardly make out a higher meaning. As a general rule, these laws will not have any effect, sometimes the effect is the opposite of what was intended. In those cases, the damage is also rather small, because the goal of the legislation was nonsense, anyway.

Regardless, the citizens are too lazy to revolt against the lawmakers. And too scared to cleverly perpetrate laws. If you break a rule, you mostly do it because you did not know better, or because it would have been too much of an effort not to, or for self-defence. The intellectuals among us sometimes also use Epikie in order to justify their perpetration of laws.

It is something we all know and consequently there is no special attraction in it for the citizen who sits on the spectator’s benches of the political scene. On the other hand, the courage to perpetrate or simply ignore laws is applauded more and more often. Consequently, a politician will only reach true greatness and acceptance when he masters the art of nonchalantly ignoring the total nonsense, not caring about laws and rules and showing how he can move through all the administrative undergrowth in a clever way and over the hurdles of legislation to his own advantage!

Because that is when the politician’s opinion is the same as the general opinion: firstly, the laws are all nonsense anyway and secondly they only apply to the others out there. Morals or virtue will not play any role. Well, who is interested in values, no matter if liberal or conservative?
So your average citizen naturally admires the way of the politicians hidden behind the above abbreviations.
If you can see yourself as being made of this material and if you also look quite presentable, talk nicely and perhaps even can give a presentation without having to hide behind your desk or manuscript (and if you have a little money), then you should go into politics.
All you have to do is enjoy publicity, especially on spectacular occasions and in an environment that is covered by the media. And you always have to have a smile on your lips. You must integrate beautiful people into your immediate surroundings and make use of them.  And what is of particular importance: you have to radiate an aura of soft arrogance and decent superiority due to your outstanding position at all times. In that way, you will stand out positively in a rather dull environment and you can really make your way to the top.

🙂 And I hope you will then remember me, who made a politician out of you! I will gladly accept 10 % of your auxiliary income as your way of saying thank you.

But not to forget!

You can only be really accepted and admired if you could not care less about anything! Ignore rules and laws. Not to mention morals and virtues. Or values, no matter whether liberal or conservative.

And here is another advice:

If, due to your natural carelessness (after all, who has time to pay attention to every detail?), you get caught, then all you have to do is make a huge gesture and remind everybody how silly the law was and how harmless your crime is in relation to your own significant importance.

In case of need, you can always refer to the greater good. Themes like defending the Euro, fighting terrorism, the danger caused by all those immigrants, the German cultural identity, old-age pensions, the future, freedom and many more will be ideal. And I am sure you can think of a lot more yourself. After all, the more rubbish you talk, the better.

If you master all these arts, then you are made of the right material to become a politician who wins absolute majorities.

Now you will say you cannot imagine that to be true. Because you are not in a situation privileged enough to be able to afford it. You have neither money, nor the connections – not to mention that your name does not have that certain sound to it?

Well, in that case, it was tough luck. Your future is mediocrity and you will neither make a political career, nor get mentioned in the rainbow press.

RMD
(Translated by EG)
Here is the solution to our little quiz game:

Jörg Haider; Karl-Heinz Grasser; Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (complete name: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg); Nicolas Sarkozy (Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sárközy de Nagybócsa); Silvio Berlusconi; Sarah Louise Palin (née Heath)

P.S.
🙂 Due to recent events, I refrained from adding doctorial titles. If you want to know more, look up the names in Wikipedia. You will find them all, with quite interesting information.

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