How Our Fear and Desire Fuels Power Politics and the Growth of Big Government

Mainstream politics is slipping deeper into polarity wars for control over us and the direction of our nation's future. Each side professes to fight for their respective core principles when in reality they fight for power and influence, and the perpetuation of their seat at the table where they get it.

It is their addiction to power that allows them to be manipulated by those who want it wielded in their favor.

As each side takes turns getting its way, it grows the role and reach of government ever larger, ever costlier, and ever-more independent of the people -- so much so that it has taken on a life of its own. In short, we've created a beast that feeds on power and the struggles of those who want it (for whatever purpose).

These power games are played based in two primary ways. First is to reinforce the desire of different constituent groups to get something they want out of the political process.

The other is by playing upon fears of what the other guys might do.

We the people dutifully do our part by picking sides between them, most often the lesser of the two evils that will give us the most of what we want and the least of what we don't.

If we're to reclaim our system of governance and lay the foundations of the kind of world we want to live in, we must first begin to look through their carefully crafted efforts to keep us under their control.

The solution for our political wars isn't greater control by one side or another who would impose their vision of how things should be. It instead starts with us, the awakening individuals within a conscious electorate. For it is our abdication of responsibility to our lives, to our world, and to the future we crave that allows them to play their games.

This change starts with expanding our own consciousness and calling forth leaders who can advocate the principles and visions needed for the new world while standing up to the powers and temptations that will stand in our way.

It requires personal self-awareness so we can recognize when our fears and desires are being tweaked, and the presence of mind not to jump on their fear or desire train but instead turn away from those who would try to get us to do so. That means not only rejecting candidates in the voting booths, but also turning off the media that encourages their battles by trotting out legions of surrogates to spew their respective venom.

And perhaps most importantly, examining for ourselves the issues over which they fight to understand our own motivations and other factors at play within us, and then balancing them with the many competing interests involved in a manner that not only serves our reason but the inner voice that whispers to us inside.

This process will empower us to break free of the emotional responses their efforts tweak and heal the inner scars that allowed such behavior to form in the first place.

After all, how can we build a new world without a strong foundation of inner and outer peace? And to have that, we must root out the rampant fear and runaway desire that keep our world in a state where conflict and control keep us at odds with each other and set the stage for all we're trying to get away from.

As always, we must remain cognizant of the collective vision toward which we strive, and align our efforts daily with whatever it takes to get there and live within it.

But that alone will not be enough. For not everyone wants to go where we do. Many still need to experience conflict, struggle, power and control. These include the powers that be that are leading our nation and world headlong toward the abyss.

Maybe we can't stop them. But we can make a stand for what we believe in, even to the point of shouting it loud enough for all to hear that there is a better way.

Our job is to recognize their efforts, engage and neutralize them as best we can. But always, always, ALWAYS, keep living as if the world we seek is already here and expect -- no, DEMAND -- that those who are called to lead us are held accountable to act in ways that can get us there.

Above all, we cannot sit idly by and allow power-addicted control freaks to lead us any longer, nor look to white knights to ride forth to save us from ourselves.

The future is not some nebulous concept we can leave to chance. If we want a nation of less cost, less government, less intrusion, less oppression, but with more peace, more prosperity, more joy, more happiness, more freedom, and better relations with our fellow human beings and the world around us, then we need to strengthen our intent to make it so and leave no stone unturned to get there.

We cannot continue to live focused solely on our own lives pursuing courses of runaway self-interest and expect our leaders to do anything else. The only way they're going to change is if we show them the way -- and that change starts within us.

The time for a new beginning is now. Our daily politics are trying to show us the future we want is not in the direction and means of travel our current crop of leaders are trying to take us. So far, though, all we've done is allowed them to drag us into the fray so they can keep on playing their games.

It's up to us to find another way.

The future is now. I can see it. Can you?