Once you’re in a position to actually influence policy, then maybe it makes sense to have opinions about policy.
How does anyone manage to acquire a position to actually influence policy? From what I can tell, people of my acquaintance who have done this, have begun with some opinions about policy … and, indeed, have sought positions that accord with their preëxisting policy opinions.
I think if you’d like to see some changes in the world you should think of your opinions about those changes as opinions about changes you’d like to see in the world, then see if political action is a tool that can help you accomplish those changes. Putting those opinions in the politics bucket seems like tempting fate as far as inviting being mindkilled about them.
Some people want to be politicians. They do best by joining an existing party or movement and adopting all their political opinions except for maybe one or two issues they personally care about.
Other people want to affect policy on a certain issue, and they decide to do so via politics. But once they enter politics, to get things done and based on the personal contacts they develop, I think most of them (not all) tend to affiliate with a party and again adopt their other opinions.
And yet other people (the majority, I think) try to affect policy without becoming politicians. Most changes in effective policy happen because a new product becomes available on the market, because someone expands or curtails a service, because someone changes prices by R&D or by contributing money to an existing concern. And these people can remain free of politics if they want to.
How does anyone manage to acquire a position to actually influence policy? From what I can tell, people of my acquaintance who have done this, have begun with some opinions about policy … and, indeed, have sought positions that accord with their preëxisting policy opinions.
I think if you’d like to see some changes in the world you should think of your opinions about those changes as opinions about changes you’d like to see in the world, then see if political action is a tool that can help you accomplish those changes. Putting those opinions in the politics bucket seems like tempting fate as far as inviting being mindkilled about them.
Some people want to be politicians. They do best by joining an existing party or movement and adopting all their political opinions except for maybe one or two issues they personally care about.
Other people want to affect policy on a certain issue, and they decide to do so via politics. But once they enter politics, to get things done and based on the personal contacts they develop, I think most of them (not all) tend to affiliate with a party and again adopt their other opinions.
And yet other people (the majority, I think) try to affect policy without becoming politicians. Most changes in effective policy happen because a new product becomes available on the market, because someone expands or curtails a service, because someone changes prices by R&D or by contributing money to an existing concern. And these people can remain free of politics if they want to.