A Syrian refugee tells me whether politicians are good, bad or incompetent

Blazing Reader,

Discerning whether politicians are good or bad or incompetent is tricky.

Or, at least, I thought it was until last April. While waiting for a plane to the Netherlands at Toronto Pearson Airport, I ended up talking to a young man who'd escaped war-torn Syria. He was in his mid-twenties, very polite and... rather wise./p>

I asked him what he thought of Bashar al-Assad. Was he really a big bad dictator? Or were Western countries making him out to be Hitler reborn to excuse an invasion? 

He looked at me through his spectacles for a few seconds, almost as if he was looking back in time or across a great gulf.

Finally, he spoke, sounding on the edge of laughter: 

"Politicians... they're all bad. Assad. Putin. Trump. Biden. Obama. Bush. Johnson. Lecornu. Some are just less bad than others. But less bad doesn't make them good."

"What about Trudeau?" I asked.

He laughed. "Oh, he's the worst."

My Syrian soothsayer's words may sound extreme to many, but objectively speaking, almost anyone involved in almost any government is operating, supporting and condoning a system of theft under the constant threat of violence (AKA taxation). 

As psychotherapist Sterlin Lujan writes in Dignity & Decency:

"It is sad how people line up behind politicians like cattle. Why do these folks follow thugs and sociopaths? Do they not realize the system is a legally sanctioned mafia? Why do they idolize and worship these leeches as if they are actually going to do something to better the world?"

At best, you get a rare few like Ron Paul, whose sole purpose for getting elected is to get government coercion, theft and violence out of the way so that good can naturally arise in its place.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. For more "rhapsodic musings of a modern anarchist," check out Sterlin Lujan's book, Dignity & Decency.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.