Trouble is, we call politics a game, but it isn't one. There is no referee, and the teams make up the rules as they go along. You can't cry foul or offside in politics. Almost anything goes.
Interpretation
Politics operates without clear rules or oversight, making it unpredictable and often chaotic.
In this quote, Michael Ignatieff highlights the complexity and often tumultuous nature of politics, emphasizing that there are no universal rules or authorities to ensure fairness. Unlike a game with a referee, political actions and decisions are often subjective, leading to a landscape where anything can happen without accountability.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the challenges of political reform in a class on political science.
Genocide is not just a murderous madness; it is, more deeply, a politics that promises a utopia beyond politics - one people, one land, one truth, the end of difference. Since genocide is a form of political utopia, it remains an enduring temptation in any multiethnic and multicultural society in crisis.
Commerce has changed the ethics of citizenship and the incentives for national service. America now buys private contractors - we used to call them mercenaries - to do the country's fighting.
Desert Storm created the pattern for the American way of war that eventually prevailed in Kosovo. America learned from Vietnam that unilateral use of force eventually forfeits international legitimacy and domestic support. Desert Storm demonstrated the political necessity of coalition warfare.
Communism may be over as an economic system, but as a model of state domination, it is very much alive in the People's Republic of China and in Putin's police state.
Those with a gift for action, for their part, often express contempt for those whose gifts are more reflective. Men of action like to say, 'Those who can, do, those who can't, teach,' forgetting that those who teach get to write the history books.
How do you keep war accountable to the American people when war becomes invisible and virtual?
When counterterrorist policies are used to suppress peaceful protests and legitimate opposition movements, shut down debate, target human rights defenders, or stigmatize minorities, they fail, and we all lose. Indeed, such responses may cause further resentment and instability and contribute to radicalization.
Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.
I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine - not Russia - attacked us in 2016.
The faces and the tactics of the leaders may change every four years, or two, or one, but the people go on forever.
The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.
It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates. They're rehearsed appearances.
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