Why the low profile of politicians?

Peter Kopa, Prague 31.8.2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzccFhNUKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzccFhNUKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSmXvL7ukeo

I comment below Daniel Levin’s book, ‘Everything is just a big circus or the mistakes of the powerful’.  This US lawyer has been a recognized consultant for political reforms, worldwide, for more than twenty years. He works for the Liechtenstein Foundation for State Governance in Liechtenstein and is the author of best sellers in the USA.

Politics, the great attraction for the mediocre

Levin maintains that politics and diplomacy is a pitiful show of conceited people, of charlatans, of narrow and selfish spirits, which for that very reason can pose a serious danger to the welfare of the people. At the same time, the great majority of people with high moral and professional profiles have no interest in taking on political positions, perhaps because they do not want to identify with a world that they despise.

The big question that arises is how and why so many incompetent people, who express in their face the corruption and lack of character, come to assume important political positions. Levin does not give us a totally satisfactory answer by telling us that they cling to a group ideology or ride the crest of some political wave capable of catapulting them into positions of power, with the help of the great lever of democracy, which as we know is very manageable through money. It is a pity and a great problem, even for the security of a country, that key positions are held by people who do not have the minimum preparation necessary even to be aware of their own importance and responsibility.

How to attract good talent to politics?

Levin says that this problem should be solved at the constitutional level, which he considers practically impossible in the United States, since this has to arise from the very heart of a nation.  At the same time, we must take into account that democracy suffers enormously from the fact that so many times, too low percentages of voters go to the polls to vote, of which very few have previously been well informed about the candidates and the problems of government, to which the citizen has a right.

Additional comments

In view of the great real problem of the shortage of true political leaders, who leave their personal interests entirely aside in order to sincerely seek the common good of their people, with a know-how rooted in wisdom, in the science of government and in personal psychic and technical talent, there is no other choice but to introduce at the constitutional level the following minimum principles:

1. The need for prior training of people who want to make a political career, just as not everyone has the right to build a building, or cure diseases, or defend a client in court. All this requires a demanding preparation for higher studies. This is as simple as qualifying for it from university institutions or other similar initiatives. And at the same time it is necessary to attend to the political formation of citizens, through ad hoc subjects in the official educational plans etc.
2. To promote the knowledge of those who aspire to political positions, inside or outside a political party: something like a Hyde Park in London, where citizens traditionally go to various discourses on politics.
3. Preventing corruption through laws, with penalties for the invalidation of legal acts where some form of corruption has subsequently been proven.
4. Recognize the right to a referendum, in which citizens can make a direct statement on government matters or on their representatives.

The mediocrity of men in government has a tendency to degenerate into political gangsterism, which in Europe has been legitimized under an ideological pretext, as has been the case of Communism in Russia and Nazism in Germany. In Latin America the criminal style is more direct, like Maduro in Venezuela and so many other cases all over the world. Especially Africa has been, and still is, the sad scene of governments that believe themselves the owners of their country, imposing their abuse at the cost of massive liquidations with machetes or gunshots. Bad governors have always been the primary cause of people’s poverty.

We must overcome once and for all the erroneous dogma that every citizen has the unlimited passive political right to be elected as a ruler, without regard to his moral qualities and professional ability. This idea is so rigid, because it is an extreme reaction against the dynastic principle, without having considered the conditions that the citizen must meet to be raised to governmental authority.  By requiring subjective conditions prior to the election, the passive political right of all citizens is in no way questioned, just as they also have the right to heal, to construct buildings etc.: yes, but on condition of prior preparation documented by the corresponding professional title.