Political Friends

 The other day I read this in The Nicomachean Ethics and I toss it out here:

For where ruler and ruled have nothing in common, they have no friendship, since they have no justice, either...

Hence, there are friendships and justice to only a slight degree in tyrannies also, but to a mauch larger degree in democracies; for there people are equal, and so have much in common.

 The Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Chapter 11, §§6, 8.

I think we have overstretched the nation-state. I do not disagree that the Tea Party has not some points. So do the liberals.

What we need is less volume, fewer slogans, and more of a conversation without politicians or pundits. Would that not scare them?

We need to find out what we have in common and how we can all be friends, and to what extent we can all be friends. You get Facebook and Twitter to host this conversation. Which leaves me with this question: do you care enough about your country to talk about saving it?

Let me leave you with this from The Nicomachean Ethics, Book IX, Chapter 16, §3:

Base people, howeverr, cannot be in concord, except to a slight degree, just as they cam be friends only to a slight degree; for they seek to overreach in benefits [to themselves], and shirk labors and public services. And since each wishes this for himself, he interrogates and obstructs his neighbors; for when people do not look for the common good, it is ruined. The result is that they are in conflict, trying to compel one another to do what is just, but not wishing to do it themselves.

sch

 [Yikes. If I had any sense, this would have been omitted. Here you find concrete proof of the limits of mental capabilities. Today, I would disavow my second paragraph and references to Facebook and Twitter. I was very wrong about them in 2010; they have been tools of division and chaos since then. I would keep the quotes, as I think they have applicability even in these post-Trumpian years. May have even more relevance now than in 2010. We do need a common conversation, still. How to do this, I have no idea, here and now. I cannot recall why I thought the Tea party had any good ideas. Finally, I would keep my third paragraph as being even more true nowadays Otherwise, it is junk. sch 2/11/23.]