Consistency

So to continue the story, many months ago I reestablished contact with a friend from college.  He is a very politically knowledgeable and intellectual person and is very involved in the Tea Party Movement.  He also wrote an email two days after 9-11 saying he would now be carrying a gun and looking for suspicious looking people and encouraged others to do the same. Soon after that he joined the Navy.  So when I asked him a question about an issue I had been pondering, i.e. the targeted killings of terrorist suspects by the US military in Pakistan by unmanned drones, I expected an intelligent, well-reasoned, response supporting the military's actions.  Instead what I got was an intelligent, well-reasoned response, opposing the killings as violations of the U.S. Constitution.  Immediately, I was shocked by the consistency. 
So often I see people base their political theory on their opinions.  They have a list of opinions -  pro or anti war, pro or anti abortion, pro or anti welfare, pro or anti gun, pro or anti big federal government - and they craft their political theory to support their opinions.  This often leads to a good deal of inconsistency.  For example, they don't like how the Federal government is trying to control education so they argue that the original intent of the Constitution does not give it that power, but then turn around and support a Federal bill regarding education if they do like its particular policy, rather than consistently sticking to the position that the Federal government should stay out of the matter all together. 
But what I heard in his answer was a consistent following of a political theory, that theory being that we should strictly adhere to the Constitution.  The theory was adopted, and then the issue, targeting killings in this case, was evaluated and an opinion was then formed based on that theory.  I was intrigued, not primarily by the theory itself, but by the consistency, the integrity of the opinion. 

Political Coma

For several years I have basically been in a basic political coma, generally tuning out and being non-responsive when anything of a political nature was discussed.  My only occational responses to anything political was a rejection of nearly all things political as being vain and self-interested, and I still stand by that as an appropriate description of most politicians.  I find that for the most part, the only people who are sufficeintly motiviated to go into politics despite the obvious stresses and troubles it brings, are motived primarily by an intense desire for power and noteriery, and thus not motiviated by any form of principles.
I have not always been in a political coma.  I studied political science in college and was involved in different campaigns.  Later, while in law school I worked in the North Carolina State Senate.  I probably fell into a political coma while I was there, for it was there that I saw what I called 'the joke of public service.'  What I saw was a struggle for more power, pandering to constituent complaints including barking dogs and potholes in order to ensure continued power, and free parties, lunches, dinners, drinks and dancing. It's not that I believe there were no principled politicians who acted based on their believes and what they felt was the good of the state, but I certainly didn't get to see them at work.   So I fell into a political coma, and later work with politicians only made me sink deeper into that coma (though I did get to work with few elected officals that were and are stellar). 
Recently, something happened to make me start to emerge from my coma, but that is a story for another day.