What is Politics, anyway?

[Lance Harrop <lharrop@mrj.com>]

Poster: Lance Harrop <lharrop@mrj.com>


Lord Jonathan Blackbow writes:

>      [Funny thing, that - politics is the single entity that can quickly 
>      turn into a "you're either with us, or against us" scenario.  And Lord 
>      help you if you're not with us.  I have a differing viewpoint than 
>      many people on the principality question, which I am fairly careful to 
>      keep quiet about, especially since Kane's not around anymore for me to 
>      use as a sounding board.]

Which raises the interesting question, is any issue inherently 
political?  Is the Northern Principality Question, or any other 
question, like the distribution of kingdom level events between North, 
Central, and South, Political questions by necessity?

Perhaps questions only become political when they ONE: cause the 
fractionalization of a social entity, and TWO: are decided by 
institutions which govern some activity of that entity, and THREE: hide 
within the question some motivation, or suspicion of motivation, not 
directly applicable to the question.

When we settle issues with consensus, without reference to governing 
authority, and solely on their own merit, do we often regard the question 
as simply not being political?

Is all politics bad politics because we only think of bad politics as 
politics at all ;-) ????????

Just a thought,
Leifr
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