Political dialogue and even dialectic is bound to disappear when politics itself becomes a simple struggle for power between two groups of professional politicians.

The aim of the Founding Fathers was for citizen legislators who entered politics out of a sense of civic duty with the aim of doing what was best for the nation (or rather, what was best for business). Political parties with diametrically-opposed ideologies would have been something they would despise.Even the British Parliament only became ideological with the arrival of the Labour Party in the early 20th Century. Prior to that the Tories had represented the interests of rural landowners and agriculturalists, while the Liberals spoke for urban, manufacturing and mercantile interests. Both were known to be essential for the nation and both were prepared to be pragmatic and compromise.

Nowadays, politics is dominated by ideologies. People with differing ideas of what society should look like and desperate to gain the power needed to make their vision true.

In my view, government should be a matter of practicalities, pragmatism and utilitarianism. The role of Governmnt should be nothing other than to ensure the safety, wellbeing and contentment of the people they are responsible for or to, by all means practical. Politics in the sense of competing ideologies should be treated with the contempt the idea deserves.