I don't agree with that. They aren't all crooks but I do find that they all get co-opted by the system. It doesn't seem to matter how principled they are when they start out eventually they all give in to the temptations of the office. Especially when they get into power.
I was active in politics back in the ,ate 80's and early 90's. I was a Provincial youth riding President and Federal youth riding VP. It was by being that active that I got turned off. I saw just how two faced and hypocritical all politicians or all stripes could be.
Our Federal MP back then was a great guy. Even if it meant going against the party he would do what was right. Until his party became the governing party and he wanted a position of some sort, especially a cabinet seat. Then doing what was right became doing what was politically expedient.
Provincially, around the saw time, you saw the knives out for the party leader. At a closed door meeting of the youth you saw senior party members and MLA's going table to table basically telling the youth to shut up. Don't talk about the leadership problem. It is none of your concern. It was pretty disheartening.
After I mentioned some of this H started going on about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. He didn't like when I started laughing at him. He is supporting Harper and complaining about the rich getting richer. That is, pun intended, rich. :)
I asked him why he was surprised there were so many tax loopholes and legal loopholes for people, especially "the rich", to exploit. He had no answer. So I asked him how many of our politicians were lawyers. A lot of them. What do they do when they get out of politics, even if they get jobs within the party? Most go back to practicing law, even if they are just a figurehead position at a company for a healthy pay check.
Most of our politicians are professional politicians, lawyers, doctors, and the like. They aren't your average everyday person who actually has to live life in the real world. One of my problems with Iggy is that he has lived his life within the hallowed halls of academia and hasn't had to face the real world. Christ, once a professor gets tenure they can't be fired unless they do something very heinous. Compare that to someone who can be downsized at a whim. you tend to look at things from a more realistic angle when you can go from working to unemployed that easily.
And you know what? If they were your average person no one would vote for them! We have become indoctrinated that we need the "elite" governing us when often the "non-elite" have more common sense and honesty.
And when I use elite I am not trying to separate people by class. It is just how we look at politicians. Your average working person doesn't "look like" a politician and people would hold that against them. Face it people are THAT judgemental. (I still remember talking with someone who started going on about a lawyer. The lawyer is question was fat so theh person went on and on about how they couldn't possibly be a good lawyer because they were fat. They didn't LOOK like a lawyer. The persons skill never came into the equation it was all appearance.) Add to that the fact that it isn't easy to run for office unless you have money. But I digress.
After we got past H's irrational hatred of Iggy it made for an interesting discussion.
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