Politicians

[Almighty Colin]

A few things.

What some people consider "problems" aren't considered so by other people. Solutions to many social "problems" are not necessarily known.

Fixing one "problem" often exacerbates another. The majority of a presidential candidate's time leading into an election is spent campaigning not studying all the possible ramifications of particular legislative items on all of public policy.

There's an enormous amount of legislation passed each year that attempts to solve "problems". It's not like society is standing still. I in fact think that the world is a much better place today than it was a half century ago. The successes of the civil rights movement seem to me the most obvious positive changes in western societies. But this is just a cultural belief banged into my head by too many after-school specials watched as a kid. But hey, I embrace my slavery.

I would guess that most people who aspire to be president desire to make what they consider to be positive changes. Presidents don't make law though. They are only one part of the process. And of course, in the end any such legislation proposed by presidents tends to get passed as a watered down version if it passes at all. This is by design and is all a part of the system of checks and balances. In constitutional democratic republics a president's job is not to dictate.

All the various institutions that exist today exist as such for a reason. They were often created to solve other problems and I think that we citizens should always keep that in mind. That being said modern democracies have built into them the apparatus necessary to make changes and better reflect current society. This happens through legislation which usually occurs by a process of compromise between people with competing political beliefs and by common law which permits rapid change to changing social conditions.

Such change is not intended to be radical. Radical changes in institutions can have destabilizing effects on the entire system often ending it entirely.