In my previous message (1213) a Guy named Charles writes:
"What difference does it make with my vote when both of the major party candidates are dolts and the libertarian (or other indepedent) don't stand a choice?"
Can you offer any insight that I can share with my frustrated listeners?
How is it, in such a great country as ours, that we have so few "leaders" and so many politicians that promise the world to voters and when they get elected, represent their own (as well as family/cronies) interests, rather than the public good?
Any insight would be appreciated. Remember, I'm from Chicago, where the motto has always been, "vote early - and vote often!" AND the biggest voting block is the cemetary.
Good questions. I'll take a crack at it.
Democracy is as old as human society. We common folks have always selected their leaders - at least initially. Even people who don't like Democracy and have fought against it give lip service to its value. Churchill said: "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." The author who quotes this also supplies this quote "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Democracy is a fragile form of Government, it is subject to demagoguery, fraud, mass marketing and self-destruction.
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0105/0105churchilldem.htm
Nevertheless, Representative Democracy is the only form of Government that has any chance of achieving the common human goals of "liberty, equality and happiness." This is because only genuine multi-party divided and Representative Government regulates human ambition and formalizes the "consent of the Governed." It provides a means for the legitimacy of rules and regulations, forms and commerce to be established and consensus to be gained.
But for Democracy to work it has to be a "living system" in which all the elements within are aware and participating. If any one group achieves monopoly of power, it's not democracy anymore. If the majority crushes the minority, one may still have a Republic, but the spirit of a functional Democracy will be gone. Democracy legislates itself out of existence when it ceases to respect minority views or develops a monopoly, even a monopoly of power belonging to a majority. This is because Democracy functions within time, and what seems a "true view" now may prove a chimera later. And what is a "majority view" under one regime or one set of circumstances may become a minority view as circumstances change.
It is to the credit of our founding fathers and that they avoided a single undivided chamber of legislation in their constitution. It is also to their credit that they divided the Judiciary, Executive, and Legislative processes so that super-majorities and genuine consensus was needed in order to generate lasting laws and change. This can be frustrating at times, but for those who really understand it, one gets a feeling of genuine appreciation to them and a certain amount of patience.
This is frustrating to the average voter, because it basically set up a Government where we only have two parties available to us. The founders didn't even want to have one party. They wanted an ideal government governed by high minded representatives. But the first result of that was to try to create an elite one party state, and Jefferson effectively opposed that by creating the Democratic Party. Patience is a virtue here. Jefferson achieved his goal by running against Adams. He didn't do it by revolution.
The current system is stacked against third parties. They can develop, but their initial function can only be to wreck existing majorities and elect minority parties. Still if people are so frustrated with the Democratic party first created by Jefferson, that is an option. We could create a "Liberal Party" and wreck it. That is how the Republican party was formed. The Federalists formed a party, which was so awful that it could only attract rich folks from New England. So they eventually tried to create a "Whig Party" that would include new elements. That didn't work either. So eventually they made an alliance of religiously conservative folks and business interests and called that alliance the Republicans. Their first big party issue was slavery, and "free soil" on land formerly belonging to Indians. To get the former required the Civil War, to get the later required exterminating the indigenous. But it "worked" for them.
A better strategy for transforming a political party is to get involved in it and reform it. The Democratic Party has looked very different at different points in its history. And with a little effort it could look still differently in the future. But for that to happen people have to be involved to the extent they can. In the past it was very difficult for outsiders to do this.
The purpose of democracy is to avoid oligarchy, autocracy, and monopoly. The only force that can remotely have a chance of checking executive power in the long run is that of democracy. The powers that be have always sought to control information to use against others and to limit people's options in opposing their more corrupt activities. Once Democracy is gone the check on that is gone as well. If we don't elect better leaders they eventually will be appointed for us. That is what happened to the Roman Republic. It could happen to US too.
Democracy depends on a "free press" and that is more than paid professional reporters, it is participation and dissemination of information by the citizenry. In Russia they used to read the papers between the lines. When real information was found it was printed and passed around. This was called "Samizdat." They could tell what was "really happening" by who was no longer in the pictures and by what was not being said. We are already near that point here with our "news". The formal press can be manipulated because it relies on advertising and readership and can be owned by perverse powers. Even so, if we let advertisements and propaganda sway us in our voting then we are the dolts. The antidote to a controlled press is our participation.
Participation is the only option for avoiding the spread of tyranny, monopoly, authoritarianism, patriarchy, and oligarchy. But in this day of Internet and Blackberries, it should be possible for any of us "Yeomen" and "commoners" to do so. We can participate directly in our local elections and determine who gets elected by doing so. That doesn't mean we won't elect "dolts". In Democracy the majority may think our candidates are the dolts and not support us. The candidates may think we are dolts and try to use us. We have to be savvy enough to use our own persuasive power to convince people that we are the better alternative. That gives the 'better alternative' a better chance to come to fruition. That is how direct democracy is supposed to work, and at the local level our efforts should be to enforce direct democracy and make sure that we are honored in the vote.
Heck, if people think all the leaders are "dolts" they can run themselves. Someone I know helped defeat a really bad and corrupt local politician with State ambitions by running against him in his local Republican primary. It worked. He won the primary and then lost the general election. He was quite happy with the outcome because he didn't really want the job anyway. In the US, the primaries are the field for nearly direct democracy. If we don't get involved in them, then we are the dolts.
If money controls the process, and it does, then participation is still the answer. They may have "money," but money can only buy so much deception and dishonesty. Our own money can buy information and truth. Eventually people have to see through the lies if they are paying any attention at all and have access to the truth. If "dolts" are being elected, it is because we the people don't participate and are sitting on our fat rear-ends. Meanwhile habeas corpus is being suspended, and genuine figurative and law-enforcement centered "wars" are being turned into perpetual literal "asynchronous wars" in which the power is increasingly being turned over to a monopoly.
All of us want money and power, at least on some level. We need self discipline to check our own ambition at the door of our neighbors. Otherwise, the purpose of ambition becomes to achieve power; monopoly, oligarchy and that usually entails ruling by autocracy. The tools for achieving this at the National level are old; incessant warfare, dogma, propaganda, and fear. These people know that fear can be used to manipulate minds; either by paralysis or by accession (they amount to the same thing). Terrorism was first identified as an "ism" used by States. Only later did private groups try to use it. Osama Bin Laden is not as good at scaring people as this administration is. The only thing we need to fear is fear itself. The only thing we need to fear is fear itself. A "pearl harbor" type event, as William Krystol noted in a book he wrote on transforming the DoD in the 90's, can allow the executive to do almost anything it wants. Just not forever.
We need to "fight" and vote.
Chris
Posted by cholte at October 7, 2006 10:45 PM