The politicians are at it again. I have always been amazed at what the politicians get away with. The current kerfuffle is a case in point. I am going to ask you to stop for a moment and put your feelings about it aside and look at the logic of what is actually going on. We will look at both sides of the kerfuffle. Rather than use party names, I will use the words attacker and defender. I hope this will help you see actually what is going on. The attacker group who have been very unhappy with the president found a piece of evidence they could use in the Ukrainian phone call incident. The second piece of evidence was the president’s actual words yesterday about China needing to investigate Vice President Biden. They feel they have a very strong case because it is against the law, a federal law, for a foreign country to contribute in any way to a political campaign. They feel they have a very righteous goal in mind. I have always found it is a good idea to be at least a little skeptical of anyone who is righteous.
The defenders are using two standard political techniques, attacking their opponents and using a trick well-known by stage magicians. I think everyone can easily see the first of these two techniques attacking their opponents, so I won’t spend any time describing those actions. The magic technique that stage magicians use is misdirection. They might typically get you to focus on one of their hands while the other one is performing the “magic.” The defenders are using this technique by saying look over here and see all of the illegal things going on in relation to the vice president. This has two desired effects. The first is there true believers will nod and say yes there is corruption there – it just shows how bad the other side is. The second is to sow doubts about someone who might or might not win the endorsement of their party.
It shouldn’t matter which side of the kerfuffle you’re on. We need to try and understand what the politicians on both sides are doing and how they are doing it. We must never let any politician ever use their bag of tricks on us in a way that is confusing or devious. Try to take your personal feelings about a situation out of the kerfuffle and see what both sides are doing. If the politicians can convince you to just look at one side, they have won and you have lost – NO, we have all lost!
