Comments on: Staking Out the Past http://boldwords.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/staking-out-the-past/ Exploring how bold words can give life to bold ideas. Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:34:13 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Britt http://boldwords.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/staking-out-the-past/#comment-1092 Britt Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:53:06 +0000 http://boldwords.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/staking-out-the-past/#comment-1092 @Sean: More honesty, less advertising would be wonderful for voters, much more painful for the politicians. I think you make a great connection with this idea that they want validation of their potential. It's not enough for their individual pasts and actions to represent them. Instead, they must find a measuring stick to compare against, hoping that we are more fond of the good things about the stick than angry about the bad. And like labor, I think we do a good job of blocking out what happens from one campaign to the next. Otherwise, I'm not sure democracy would last. @Sean: More honesty, less advertising would be wonderful for voters, much more painful for the politicians. I think you make a great connection with this idea that they want validation of their potential. It’s not enough for their individual pasts and actions to represent them. Instead, they must find a measuring stick to compare against, hoping that we are more fond of the good things about the stick than angry about the bad.

And like labor, I think we do a good job of blocking out what happens from one campaign to the next. Otherwise, I’m not sure democracy would last.

]]> By: Sean Bohan http://boldwords.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/staking-out-the-past/#comment-1091 Sean Bohan Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:40:49 +0000 http://boldwords.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/staking-out-the-past/#comment-1091 According to one of my professors, humans do not have the capacity to remember pain. If we did, we would have been natural-selected out of existence because no woman would have had more than one child if she remembered the pain of childbirth. So we look to the past and remember the good things about our previous leaders. Their qualities (not their shortcomings), their big deeds (not their failures) and in Regan's case "are you better off now than you were x years ago?". And that is the rub - they are all looking to validate their potential against the known quantity of "that guy". I would rather find the candidate (Dem or Rep) who has the guts to say "President X is what we needed then. I am the President this country needs now." More honesty, less advertising. :) According to one of my professors, humans do not have the capacity to remember pain. If we did, we would have been natural-selected out of existence because no woman would have had more than one child if she remembered the pain of childbirth.

So we look to the past and remember the good things about our previous leaders. Their qualities (not their shortcomings), their big deeds (not their failures) and in Regan’s case “are you better off now than you were x years ago?”.

And that is the rub – they are all looking to validate their potential against the known quantity of “that guy”.

I would rather find the candidate (Dem or Rep) who has the guts to say “President X is what we needed then. I am the President this country needs now.”

More honesty, less advertising. :)

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