Category Archives: culture

Democracy and Parties

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Much has been made, especially in the recent press, of the “civil war” going on in the Republican Party, with the proximate subject being the contest over tactics for handling Obamacare while funding the government.

Think about that for a moment, though.

One party demands submission to the party line.  Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, UT) are well known for their ability to enforce party discipline, and they have the able help of their seconds, Congressman Steny Hoyer (D, MD) and Senators Chuck Shumer (D, NY) and Dick Durbin (D, IL).  This party’s decisions are made behind closed doors, and the results are presented to the public with no discussion of alternatives.

The other party openly debates, often with considerable zeal, the party’s position on strategy and tactics, on particular issues, and on the party’s defining principles.  No decision is taken secretly; the debate is right out front for the public to see—and to participate.

Both parties claim democratic principles as their core.

One party actually lives those principles.  There’s no civil war going on.  That’s the messiness of democracy.  That’s democracy in action.

There’s Hope, Again

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Both Colorado State Senators, including the President of the State Senate, facing recall over their gun control legislation lost those recalls Tuesday.  These were solid defeats, too, nothing cliff-hanger-ish about them: State Senator John Morse (D), the Senate President, lost 51%-49%, and his colleague, State Senator Angela Giron (D), lost 56%-44%.

Moreover, these were not California-style recalls, where the firing occurs in one election and a separate election is held later (in which the just-fired incumbent could be a candidate).  These Colorado recalls were elections themselves, and on losing the recall, Morse and Giron were replaced by their opponents—Republicans Bernie Herpin and George Rivera.

The State Senate remains in Democrat hands, and it remains to be seen whether Herpin and Rivera will be any more responsive to their bosses, the citizens of their districts, but this is a clear step in the right direction: those who try to limit our individual liberties—in this case, try to foist onto honest citizens restrictions on 2nd Amendment rights—can expect to be fired forthwith.

It’s Circular

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Allison Benedikt, over at Slate, wrote this:

You are a bad person if you send your children to private school.  Not bad like murderer bad—but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad.  So, pretty bad.

And this:

[I]t seems to me that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve.  This would not happen immediately.  It could take generations.  Your children and grandchildren might get mediocre educations in the meantime, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good.

Plainly, given her demonstrated ability to think, she must be a product of just such a public school education.

Oh, wait—proudly so:

I went K-12 to a terrible public school.  My high school didn’t offer AP classes, and in four years, I only had to read one book.

It just doesn’t get any clearer than this.

Political Honesty

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The German poet Matthias Claudius commented some years ago,

Say not all that you know, but know all that you say.

Spiegel Online International thinks that’s good advice in a particular circumstance today:

That would be a good lesson for those politicians who are handling the euro crisis.  Absolute honesty, which many are now demanding of the German government after its most recent comments on Greece, is simply not wise.

SOI justifies their position this way:

…the EU approaches the euro crisis through negotiations between member states.  And a fundamental principle of these negotiations is that not all cards are laid on the table at once.  It’s a classic way in diplomacy of avoiding bursts of outrage.

And, citing an aspect of Robert Putnam’s Two-Level Games Theory,

Politicians have to sell their policy goals both at home and abroad.

Which is true enough in winning games, but it overlooks one essential secular fact, and one fundamental moral fact: the only place the sale has to go through is at home—those are the folks who will be forced to pay for the politician’s…decision.  The fundamental moral fact is this: the folks at home are the ones who will have to give up a significant portion of the security and prosperity they’ve hard-won for their families in order to pay for the politician’s…decision.

Such a policy might have been defensible early, in the run-up—even the after math—of the EU’s first Greek bailout.  But now, after the debacle of two failed Greek bailouts and amid talk of yet a third, the policy has outlived its usefulness.  It’s time to lay it all out.  Let the people who will be required to pay for yet another bailout with their hard-earned money taken as tax know what the politicians know and think they know about the situation.  Let the people whose money it is decide for themselves whether a third bailout is warranted.

Else, what are the politicians covering up?