Misplaced Pragmatism

I decided to take a quick break from guns and talk about something else for a moment.

I have talked about pragmatism here a bit. It is a value that I consider important. Something I have been puzzling over lately is the pragmatic natures of many of our elected leaders. Many of them seem to present a pragmatic front. Not an idealistic naivete. However, the policies they present and the actions they take seem, to be polite, dumb. Not idealistic, just dumb.

How can pragmatic and politically adept operators push policies that are ideologically inconsistent and more generally haphazard?

It hit me finally what is going on. These leaders, like I noticed, are not idealists. They are pragmatists. However, their pragmatism in not directed towards the policies they are proposing, or more generally the governance of our nation. Their pragmatism is directed, that is misplaced, towards keeping their party and themselves in power. They pragmatically take whatever path they feel is necessary to keep their spots in congress, in the senate, in their high level roles.

That leads to a wilful neglect of any professed ideology. They step away from principal the moment it looks like it could cost them prestige.

We need pragmatists leading our country. However, we need to be more specific when we choose them. We need to choose principled policy pragmatists who will do what works even if it costs them their jobs.

That unfortunately seems like a rare breed, and I don't know if we have enough to fill all three branches. Here's to hoping both parties can find a few.