Polity: The form or constitution of civil government of a nation or state; and in free states, the frame or fundamental system by which the several branches of government are established, and the powers and duties of each designated and defined.
Teachers oftentimes instruct their students to start a composition with a captivating title for the purpose of inducing a desire for further investigation. I'm not a teacher; I'm a maintenance man. My priorities consist mainly of preserving a structure. The commonality between the two are somewhat similar if the intent is not to pollute "corrupted or impaired by mixture of ill, moral, or physical," as described in my Webster's Dictionary. My title "Bi-Politized Pollution," introduces a duality view of polity and the subsequent pollution of it. The prefix "bi" fixes a perversion to the polity in much the same way as the words bisexual or bipolar. There can be no understanding or defining, for instance, of bisexual without the norm of male-female sexuality. "Polluted" is always something defiled; rendered unclean; tainted with guilt; impaired; or profaned.
There is the title. Where in the world did that come from? I finished my book of "Ben Franklin's Compleated Works" and I'm reading Lincoln's debates with Douglas. The Judge, as Lincoln refers to him, just finishes three hours of his interpretation of all the legislation and repeal of parts concerning the legality or fundamental rights of the slave owners to bring their property into the territory of Kansas, soon to be a state. The debate is outside. The people have been standing and listening to the democratic position on slavery. They break for supper and return for Lincoln's two-hour rebuttal on every point of interpretation of the law, with Lincoln consenting to another half hour rebuttal by Douglas; a slick ploy to ensure the democratic portion of the crowd will return from supper. If you are interested in the content of the debate, I would suggest that you read it for yourself. This would require the broadening of your understanding of the polity of our country and the fight to preserve it in its purest form. Try conceiving two of our legislators of today in an exhaustive debate lasting six hours and the tenacity of a people willing to spend the time for a comprehensive evaluation of the platforms of each respective party. Spending the time? For the most part, we hardly feel obliged to taste of the propagandized snippet fed to us from our own party, whom we suspect are bought and paid for, and oftentimes resembling a blind date dancing partner more than our representative. My first thought is usually, "I wonder who else you have been dancing with, and how you became so adept with your shuffle."
Before we look at the tactics between Lincoln and Douglas, understand that I have jumped ship and abandoned party affiliations. My reasoning is simple enough. I want to own my opinions. I feel obliged to render my decisions to my conscience and to God. I am not inclined to dance to the prevailing tunes being played without knowing the price of admission. My political creed is aligned more to people, such as Washington and John Quincy Adams. To say it another way, party-less, obliged to do what is good and right in the eyes of God for the good of the people and country, and restrained by an ethical standard. Omission or lying for the promotion of an agenda, contrary to popular standards, is out of bounds.
So, where does the pollution of polity come in? Slavery is the primary battlefield for the debate period. Lincoln alludes to Douglas's position on the Illinois State Supreme Court as a result of what we now would refer to as "packing the court" to overturn a previous decision that the democratic party disavowed. They added five new justices so they could overturn the previous four justices. This decision was not related to slavery, but was used by Lincoln to cast a shadow on Douglas's integrity. He also quotes Douglas's belief that "All State laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of one State from settling in another with their slave property, and especially declaring it forfeited, are direct violations of the original intention of the Government and Constitution of the United States and fourth, that the emancipation of the slaves of the Northern States was a gross outrage on the rights of property, in as much it was involuntarily done on the part of the owner." Douglas asserted his position that slaves were property and celebrated the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision that affirmed the claim that slaves were indeed property. His assertion was based on the people's right to choose and what he saw as the State's Sovereignty or as it was deemed Popular Sovereignty; "The people's choice on whether to have slaves or not to have them."
Lincoln presents the supposition that links President Buchanan, President Pierce, Chief Justice Taney, and the Supreme Court to a systematic strategy to make slavery legal in every state [baby stepping]. Douglas's response was to label it as a conspiracy theory. The rebuttal was very entertaining for me. It was laced with Lincoln's satirical style of stripping, as it were, every allegation made rendering Douglas as if he were the school boy caught with his fingers in the cookie jar. Lincoln's view was that all people were covered under the Constitution's protection, while not admitting that it made them necessarily equal. That may be a subject to be debated, but it served him well at the time in catering to the people's presupposition to fairness.
My
whole point is very simplistic in itself. The party system lends
itself to a variety of problems. By its very nature it divides. By its
very nature it can also align one's allegiance to one principal to the
obverse by party designation. The Judicial system becomes corrupt by
party allegiance and becomes nothing more than a tool of manipulation.
To say that the system has been bi-politized may be somewhat of an
understatement. I'm not talking here of oppositional debate, but the
deceptive manipulating strategies being the course of resolution. The
pollution is, and always has been, ethical degradation. The solution is
the ethical resolve embedded in the individual. We talk alot about
sovereignty, but refuse to acknowledge what was supreme. My 1828
Webster's Dictionary gives an under-girding definition for retrieving
the truth that we have lost as a country:
"Sovereignty, Supreme power; supremacy; the possession of the highest power, or of uncontrollable power. Absolute sovereignty belongs to God only."
John Adams said we could only survive as a Nation if we were a moral people. He was referencing a Biblical morality and authority, not the floating crap table morality that we see today. I love history with all of its players. I love the glimpses you get from people's lives, which presupposes my preference for their own writings. I'm not saying that all politicians are totally corrupt; I am saying that the "he said-she said" nonstop bickering, is a sure sign that devolution is true. Make your argument an honest consideration that belies an ethical portrayal of the person you really are, owning the subsequent outcome of your stance. Align your position to God's purposes and intent, and be free from the bi-politized system that owns you now.
"Spoiler alert" Lincoln realized that after the Dred Scott decision, it would only take one more Supreme Court decision to uphold slavery in every state, making us a slave nation. If slaves were merely property and not people, as was the democratic position; who could disallow them from taking their property to their next home in a free state.
