Trust and Politics

From responses to my previous post, I see that perhaps we see all Presidential candidates as narcissistic individuals that want to be President. Truly, there has to be some personal reward in the position. I think that a selfish agenda probably is very important in order to create the drive one would need to make it to the finish line as the winner.

Now the questions is "what are we afraid of?" When someone is selling us something we instinctively don't trust the person doing the selling. We know they want our money. They want us to part with it and in exchange we are supposed to receive something of equal value. Our fear is that we aren't actually receiving what we paid for.

So, what are we afraid of when it comes to our President? Each one of us has our own set of fears, I suppose. With Bush for example, he seems to be on a single track and he's hellbent on seeing it through, right or wrong. Parents across the nation are losing their sons and daughters. That's worth being afraid of. What about the loss of individual rights and freedoms? How do we lose those rights?

We lose those rights when we are afraid. When we are faced with a scary situation, we decide to give up our freedoms in exchange for "safety". The more afraid we become the less we want to risk.

So, do we vote for someone who will protect our rights or do we vote for someone who will protect us from terrorists? Or from evil corporations that want to destroy our environment? Or from our health costs? Are we voting for someone to take care of us?

If we are buying into an argument from any candidate that equates to "I'll take care of you and protect you from (insert whatever here)" then perhaps we should be afraid. When you give anyone the power to protect you then you also give them the power to enslave you.