To some the words politics or politician are pejoratives.

A person the voters have elected to represent them and their community may be dismissed as “just a politician.”

In our representative democracy, what should a politician be and how should politics be viewed?

The famous American theologian and ethicist, Reinhold Niebuhr astutely observed: “The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.”

Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in World War II and President from 1953-1961 said the practice of politics is a “serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.”

Pope Francis stated politics is a “noble activity” that should be practiced with vocation and dedication.

Politicians at their best have the skills to understand the often diverse communities they represent, to have government be responsive to what their constituents want or need, and effectively communicate that their constituents are being heard.

A wise local politician once told me that wars, including civil wars and tribal wars result from a failure of politics and the absence of effective politicians.

Politics when practiced well provides a pathway to resolve conflicts between competing interests in a peaceful, democratic manner.

In the lifetime of some of us Northern Ireland was a textbook example of war within a country when politics failed and is now at peace because politics finally worked.

From the late 1960s to 1998 Northern Ireland experienced what is now called “The Troubles.”

Paramilitary groups attacked each other resulting in about 3,500 deaths. On the one side was the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a Catholic-nationalist group who wanted to end British rule and reunite Ireland through violence.

On the other side were two main Protestant-unionist groups, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defense Association.

Politics finally began working in the early 1990s when some in the IRA rejected continued violence and instead entered politics to pursue their objectives peacefully. In 1994 the IRA declared a cease fire and the pro British paramilitaries followed.

This turn to politics, working within the system, resulted in the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

As is usual when politics works, both sides gained something, while neither side got everything they wanted.

The Good Friday Agreement required power-sharing between pro-British and pro-Irish political parties.

Because politics finally worked, the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland today enjoy a relatively peaceful country and a healthy economy.

From 2011-2014 Chautauqua County government was unable to decide what to do with its money-losing nursing home in Dunkirk. Two different County Executives conducted a non-stop campaign to get the required 2/3 vote of the County Legislature to sell the County Home to a private operator.

On one side was North County representatives determined to keep “their” County nursing home in County government ownership. Joining them were representatives determined to protect the 200 union members at the County Home from a much different work life under a non-union private sector owner.

Finally in early 2014, the proposed private sector buyer publicly promised to voluntarily recognize the union representing the County employees as the union that would continue to represent the workers if the County Legislature finally mustered the 2/3 vote needed to sell the County nursing home to him.

Politics worked. With the proposed buyer’s promise to continue to have the union represent the County Home employees, everyone got something they wanted. The County government would be freed of a money-losing nursing home while the workers would continue to have the important job protections the union would provide under private ownership of the nursing home.

A peaceful, democratic answer needs serious, thoughtful politicians to make sure that politics works, thereby holding all of us together. E Pluribus Unum.

Fred Larson is a graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, Yale Law School, is a retired Jamestown City Court judge and a Chautauqua County legislator serving from 1985-93, 2014 and 2023 through at least 2026.