Wonderland: Closer to Home Than You Think
Remember the official from Disney's animated "Alice in Wonderland"? Well in case you forgot his name was Dodo, as in the extinct bird. Was this just a funny joke to make the movie more interesting or was it satirizing government officials? Chances are it is the later. Most people today don't really care about politics and even more people don't think highly of politicians. This Disney official portrayed what everyone pictures as a typical politician; selfish and uncaring. Like when he has the other characters running on the beach to dry off when giant waves continue to soak everyone except him. Or when Alice outgrows the White Rabbit's house and the Dodo comes up with the brilliant idea of just burning the entire house to the ground. Either way, anyone would have to admit that the similarities are undeniable. It's nice to know that we teach our small children how to view the government as a bunch of bumbling dodos.
I felt that this criticism of the U.S. government was far too harsh. For one, politicians were analogized to extinct birds. However, this couldn't be further from the truth because our government is extremely active. If our government wasn't, they wouldn't have passed such wonderful legislation as the Patriot Act. Guantanamo Bay would be shut down and the wars in the Middle East would have never even existed if that were the case. And thank God it's not.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there was a reference to the Dodo's idea to burn down the house that Alice found herself trapped in. However, this is another inaccurate comparison. Because this assumes that the government is actually thinking.
Now, I have to give credit for the accuracy of comparing politicians to a flightless bird. This country is firmly grounded in its principles. Principles like freedom and cooperation. And by freedom I mean choosing to submit one's self to TSA full-body scans. And by cooperation, I mean insuring the banks' negligent mishandling of billions of Americans' dollars.
And our government isn't selfish. They pass legislation that can profoundly benefit people...by extending tax cuts to the rich, forcing men into selective service, and failing to prepare a budget.
But it's not their fault that they can't do everything right. Everyone in D.C. is incredibly busy...with managing their offshore accounts and polishing their private jets.
And some may complain about how the government is not responsible with the money of the general populous. One may ask, "What could they possibly do with that much money? Buy diamond-studded cars, diamond-studded boats, diamond-studded diamonds?!" However, the average person could not possibly understand how important it is that we trust less than 1% of the population with a solid chunk of this nation's wealth.
Finally, the above analogy compares politicians to birds. But this is a misunderstanding of what politicians are. In examining the etymology of "politic" one can note that it is made up of two parts: poly and tick. Furthering this, poly is the Latin prefix for many and a tick is a blood-sucking monster. In other words, Congress is vampires.
See? We have nothing to be afraid of.