@rocky71: just in regards to your comment nr. 4: do you mean to say that, G-d forbid, there should be no politicians, or that, also, G-d forbid, politicians should bow to the prevailing religion ? I hope not. Modern contemporary politicians (since I will not go back in time to before the Industrial age) are just a profession like all others, serving the current state-nations, hopefully most of them having a modern democratic system of government, whatever the form of government, republic or monarchy.
I take objection to blanket-vilifying all modern politicians, even if we know maybe some of them are corrupt, or motivated by pure human greed, thirst for power, etc. What matters is that the overall system is as democratically balanced as possible(meaning with checks and balances), so that no one politician can ever be absolute ruler or dictator, so that there is a rule of modern, and civilized law, with human rights to be respected, including freedom of religion, of speech, and all that entails.
I would not like the idea of a primitive system of law which is derived solely upon religious concepts, or a pre-Magna Charta type of law. I like modern laws. Maybe they are not perfect, but they are better, and they seem to me more ethical.
In a similar vein I think I like modern politicians...even though one can visibly see with the naked eye that many are not always very "moral" people, but they too, if in a democratic state, are subject to the rule of law.
I also believe that most current day modern states find themselves on some form of a continuum, an evolutive sort of line from less democratic to more democratic. One can even find some measures of this, for example the Index of Democratisation, the "IDEM", the one which has been, BTW, also correlated with the authentic (not just written) democratic and social freedoms bestowed and potentially used by women in a society. One could maybe say that that type of "measure" of "democracy" and that "index" are maybe biased...it may be possible...I am not good at statistics, maths, and stuff like that, especially not when applied to "soft sciences", like sociology, for example. All I know is that when girls are not encouraged to go to school and read and learn and feel free to debate and say their opinion..that does not bode well for a social group or a society. If I were a courageous politician I would advocate AGAINST such a society, but I do not have political inclinations, nor am I too brave by nature.
I would never dare be a dissident, for example, were I to live in a nondemocratic society without freedom of speech...
...what I wanted to say...I don't wish to cast a bad name to all politicians out there like it seemed to me you were doing in that point nr. 4. Not ALL politicians are corrupt. Not ALL politicians are mean or "evil manipulative evil doers". I just cannot believe that...but I do realize that I hold these beliefs because I was lucky that I grew up in a family where I felt free to discuss politics with my parents, then I lived most of my life in places where I felt protected by the rule of law, where I also never felt that religion weighed too much or too heavily upon my daily choices, and was just an individual factor to take into consideration in my personal life, not something imposed upon me by an outside society. I do realize that realistically NOT many are so lucky.
I also realize that, as we speak, there are out there some dissident ethical "politicians", (or at least politically inclined people), that actually wish that their fellow citizens could also enjoy these types of freedoms, and that they actually are active in spite of the real dangers that they face.
I also know what political regime change means for a country, and I know how difficult that is, and how it takes time, and how it may bring in some cases disappointments, shattered hopes, or even other types of real dangers. In some countries it may even be ethical and legal as well to help bring about regime change by outside intervention, just when you put in balance the need to actually PROTECT human lives and human freedoms. These are NOT easy decisions to take.
Maybe I am SO very
naive when I say that there IS such thing as an Ethical Politician and Ethical Politics, and there are Ethical Policies as well. But I PREFER actually being so naive, because it brings HOPE, and an Optimistic voice, not a dark pessimistic one. And so many people around the world need Hope. I like at times to say that I am actually candidly naive more than I like to say that I am ethically naive...just because the word "ethical" WEIGHS so heavy at times. And when I say "candid"...I smile because I remember the book "Candide" by M. Francois Marie Arouet aka Voltaire...a book that was banned at one time, a book in which the author himself made a little FUN of stubborn "optimists"...like myself maybe (!)...but also making fun of certain very starched religious or autocratic despotic ruling figures who thought they knew it all and must have the ultimate say, making also fun of corruption at the same time ! I say that a professional modern day politician who KNOWS how to remain HUMAN, authentic, and, on top of that, who knows also how to communicate this to the PUBLIC in an educative manner, is truly an ethical politician of the present and of the future.
Sorry for the somewhat off topic ramble. I just couldn't help it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide