A breath of fresh air from Karol:

Isn't there something to be said for politicians taking a side of an issue, us voting for them based on where they stand, and then them representing our interests in elected office?

We are forever being told that some issue is too important to be left to the politicians, too important to allow it to become politicized. And some folks are just unnerved by vigorous debate.

There are indeed those fundamental, inalienable, absolute rights which should not be subject to the whims of politics. Those genuine rights aren't in competition -- my exercise of my freedom of speech doesn't require anything of you. All that is required is for the government not to infringe on those rights.

Beyond those basic freedoms, we enter the realm of trade-offs and competing interests, where what I seek may very well undermine your aims and vice versa. Politics is our way of arbitrating between those interests and setting the rules of the game. I much prefer deciding such matters through politics; the alternatives are tyranny and revolution. When the really important matters are removed from the realm of politics, ordinary people lose hope of change, opposition goes underground and becomes extreme, and government moves from openness to hidden, often corrupt, influence.

We shouldn't be ashamed of politics.