With elections in the air, I can’t help but wonder whether people who get into politics believe in their stories genuinely or just trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their constituents. A part of me hopes that the candidates are genuine in their promises.
After all, we all have the best of intentions when starting a new job, or relationship, or diet. No one intends to run off the rails and get stressed at work, break up, or just eat shit and die.
You never know whether the wheeling and dealing that takes place in the backrooms of politics are just the prices to pay to get something done. In organisations, such things occur, although no money passes, when people would scratch each others’ backs for favours in one way or the other. Perhaps the corruption that takes place at the government is just a higher level of back-scratching.
People trying to short-circuit processes and policies may just be doing so because they are trying to get things done. A lot of it has to do with the incentives that are offered or even the lack of disincentives.
This leads us to another question – do we consider the intentions of the person when judging their actions? Should we judge a man stealing food to feed his kids differently from another man stealing money? What if the man was stealing money to buy food to feed his kids?
Would we judge Hitler differently had we considered his intentions?
Whatever you think, remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.