Why is there so much wishful thinking in American politics?

Question

We fund "s*x education" programs for teenagers that emphasize abstinence, and then we wonder why there are so many teen pregnancies.

We pass laws against people having guns and say it's to stop people who don't follow laws from having guns.

We eliminate programs to help the poor, that were way too little in the first place, and say it's to "help" the poor so they won't become dependent! Then we wonder why there has been so little progress against poverty.

We let corporations practically run the government, and allow passage of laws that attack the ability of labor unions to act, and then we wonder why workers' living standards are falling.

We help set up situations abroad where generations of children are brought up with no hope, in refugee camps, and then we wonder why those kids become suicide bombers.

We "impose sanctions on" (starve), bomb, and invade other countries, and then wonder why the people who live there hate us.

Why do thinking patterns that are so clearly invalid, that would not be tolerated by any sane person in any other area of endeavor, seem to prevail in American politics?

Answer 1

Why, indeed.  I guess we're a bunch of Dreamers.  

Answer 2

The wishful thinking in American politics is only the less wishful when compared to other countries because American politics (of any kind) is far more possible to implement than the wishful thinking of the politics of any other state.

Answer 3

Politics:  The Art of the Possible.  

Answer 4

The reason why there is so much wishful thinking in politics is because most people, who actually participate in the political process, have no intimate experience with the issues germane to the election, but instead digest the picture of the world that the corporate world has communicated to them. Hence, they have an idealized image of how things are. The corporations that run this country have poured billions of dollars into lobbying our government officials, and in advertising campaigns to the public, seducing them into this belief that their votes actually do induce change. It’s hard to compete with such a well-fashioned fantasy, when it is backed by so much corporate money.  Its as if most of the public is living inside the Matrix. They are living in this illusory world that is cleverly fashioned by a few powerbrokers, and in this fantasy land the powerbrokers have concocted an idea in each individual that what they do in the ballot box actual makes a difference, when in reality they are merely choosing one side or another side of the same coin. This fantasy keeps people complacent. No one better elucidates this than George Carlin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u6lCBnRo...

Answer 5

Maybe you should miss off the politics

Answer 6

A comforting lie or myth is better than a stark truth, for the political machine that lives on corruption and division. American politics has long held to these axioms.

“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.” Adolf Hitler

The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.

Adolf Hitler

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Joseph Goebbels

However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796