Can we put politics behind the best interest of our communities?

21 comments

1. Who defines what’s in the best interest of the community?

2. I Don’t THINK I UNDERSTAND TEH question

3. This is bad faith. The entire point of politics is to debate what is in the community’s best interests. This reads like people online who yell at people who supposedly are voting against their own interest and things like that. We could absolutely do better in talking to each other to come to solutions everyone can more or less live with but you’re poisoning the well here.

4. What people think is the best interest of their community IS politics.

   Anyone who has ever spent more than 30 seconds engaged in local government discussions knows that people can disagree in good faith about development, property taxes, education, trash collection, the library, etc. Those things are politics too, not just Biden/Trump.

   Imagining that if everyone put away their MAGA hats and Fauci tote bags they’d sing kumbaya and agree on every aspect of their town government is silly and naive.

5. All the policies I like are in the best interest of the community. All the policies I don’t like are bad for the community.

6. Fascist, Communist China, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela don’t like they people talk about politics in daily life.
   SO DO YOU OP!

7. Absolutely! Now let me tell you all about what’s in your best interest.

8. The entire point of politics is to figure out and then follow what is best for the community those politicians will serve. The only people who ever seem to try to get us to not talk about this stuff are the folks causing the problems and refusing to change. The beautiful thing about the US is that our governments are representative and they’re also varied. Go live somewhere where the politics are in line with what you want, and respectfully leave folks alone if you’re the outlier. It’s not difficult to understand at all.

9. Yes…that’s what politics means…

10. Not really. Politics exists because we disagree about what is best for our community or — more often — how to achieve that.

    For example, one person thinks the best way to help poor people is a strong social safety net including transfer payments — money to help them pay for the things they need. Another person thinks the best way to help poor people is to create an economy in which there are plenty of jobs and they are needed in the labor market, so they get paid a wage that will cover their needs.

    And then people will further disagree on *how* to build a strong social safety net and what form it should take, or what it should cover. And people disagree on what actions the government can take to create a stronger labor market.

11. That is politics.

    My history professer said yesterday that “Politics is the discussion within a community over the distribution of resources”

    Resources is a very broad term and covers basically all bases.

12. How, specifically, do you propose we separate politics and the best interests of our communities. Politics arises directly from the attempt to act in the best interests of the community. I would say most, if not all, political disagreement centers around different perspectives of what is in the best interest of the community and how that should be achieved.

13. Can we put aside the over the top animosity and anger is the question you need to ask.

    Politics aren’t going anywhere. They literally rule our communities, cities, states, and countries.

    And who determines what’s in the best interest of the communities? Is it the people who live there? How do they demonstrate their feelings? Oh, that’s right, they vote.

14. Working together requires accepting the same reality.

15. I’m not sure what you mean by “put behind”. Do you mean make it less important? Supportive of the best interests? The phrase “put behind” can be interpreted in multiple ways.

16. Eh, doubtful. Some people have the notion that a community is better without literal Nazis. Others disagree.

17. That would be great but the problem starts immediately. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who has to capitulate to whose views? Is that seen as moving forward or is it seen as moving backwards? What is the best interest of our community? Who defined it? Why did they define it in that way? See? Where do you even start on such a complex thing?

18. People have differing opinions on best interest

19. Politics is mostly an attempt to do what is best for communities. The problem is that we don’t agree on what that is or how it should be implemented.

20. If everyone agreed what the best interest was, politics wouldn’t be necessary.

21. Whose community? Yours or mine?