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Monday, August 08, 2005
Antidisestablishmentarianism
No, this won't be a column about spelling.
Just now, Americans of nearly every political belief are dissatisfied with the doings of Washington. Conservatives are unhappy that the Bush Administration has countenanced profligate federal spending, has reconciled itself to the unConstitutional Department of Education, and has done little to nothing about abortion. Moderates are unhappy that nothing on Capitol Hill is ever done in the tones of civility, with an eye for mutual accommodation. Libertarians are unhappy because they view the expanding War on Terror as a stalking-horse for the elimination of many civil liberties. Liberals are unhappy because...well, because they're liberals. Only one group appears satisfied with things as they are.
"Of course we're non-political. The real power always is." -- Major "Fairy" Hardcastle, in C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength
Bruce Martin, a long-time libertarian activist of your Curmudgeon's acquaintance, likes to call the Democratic and Republican Parties "the Incumbent Party." The phrase carries a lot of meaning. It's clear from the behavior of politicians in office that what matters most to them is staying there, a goal to which they'll sacrifice any principle and a good deal else. But just this weekend, Pascal suggested yet another label for our ruling elite, one rich with historical resonance: the antidisestablishmentarians.
This word, familiar to most because of its unusual length, refers to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century controversies over the Church of England. That church, be it remembered, is the established church of Britain. Historically, it's been privileged over all other religious institutions in the Sceptered Isle. Even today, it's supported with tax money and granted legal recognition available to no other creed. With the rise of classical liberalism in the Enlightenment era, a large party rallied around the proposition that the time had come to disestablish the Church of England: that is, to discontinue its legal privileges and its state support. These were the Disestablishmentarians. They were opposed by the Antidisestablishmentarians -- a more accurate label than "establishmentarians," since they sought, not to create a new establishment of clerical privilege, but to preserve the existing one.
Antidisestablishmentarianism entered the English language in this way. (The First Amendment to the Constitution of these United States was enacted to exempt American schoolkids from having to know how to spell it.) Few today are aware of its historical significance, but as a label for a defensive stance over a set of legal privileges, it is unmatched.
The tactical components of an antidisestablishmentarian defense will vary according to the establishment being defended. Those that pertained to the Church of England are not relevant to the governmental establishment of Twenty-First Century America. A look at the techniques used to cement the current state of affairs into place reveals much worthy of protracted thought, for in the main, they are non-political. That is, they bear no relation to any overtly espoused philosophy of government or program for sociopolitical improvement.
In conversation, Pascal and your Curmudgeon have identified the following elements of the American ruling antidisestablishmentarians' tactics:
- A layered defense. The American ruling establishment possesses an institutional "defense-in-depth." At the bottom are faceless bureaucrats whom Civil Service protections render immune to the displeasure of the citizen. Above them are executive appointees who can claim merely to be implementing policies decided upon by the White House or Congress. Beyond them are the White House and Congress themselves, each of which frequently employs some other element in the defenses as either a rationale for its actions, or a scare tactic with which to win support from its "base."
- The cultivation of distasteful alternatives. Each end of the conventional political spectrum features persons and groups the citizenry at large considers unacceptable. Establishment figures will frequently point to these and imply that the choice is "between him and me." This tactic is replicated with a half-twist when major-party politicians contrast themselves with third-party figures. Even those third parties that espouse wholesome principles, such as the Libertarian and Right To Life Parties, are dominated by activists most Americans would cross the street to avoid.
- "Them." This is a subtle tactic, strongly related to the one above. In one form, a politician whose support has grown shaky warns his supporters that their ideologically acceptable alternatives to him are persons so broadly unacceptable to the electorate that to back them would result in handing power over to their ideological adversaries. In another, that politician, in negotiating with those adversaries during a legislative struggle, warns them that should they undermine his support by failing to compromise, his replacement will be far tougher to work with -- that compromise today will secure their interests for tomorrow.
- The Washington Monument Defense. In its fundamental form, this brilliant stratagem involves the transference of pain from the electorate's preferred target back onto itself. As a defense for a political elite, it works by permitting elected officials to intervene to save a program or governmental feature the electorate values, which unelected officials had slashed in retribution for a budget cut or a reduction of authority. Thus, it allows those elected officials to pose as the defenders of what the electorate values most.
No doubt there are other techniques, but by themselves these are worthy of a meticulous examination.
Innumerable commentators have declaimed on the importance of flushing the system of its incumbents. Third parties routinely trumpet the desirability of sweeping away Washington's entrenched power brokers. Term limits have been proposed for this purpose, as have innovative approaches to ballot access and the institution of a "none of the above" alternative to either-or elections. So far, all of it has come to naught against the ruling establishment's carefully interlocked defenses.
The antidisestablishmentarians of both branches of the Incumbent Party labor ceaselessly to persuade us that ours is, if not the best of all possible political worlds, at least preferable to any available alternative. Their quasi-Panglossian representations serve to protect their favored political representatives, who in turn protect the extensive system of votes-for-favors that binds all its players together. And we hapless Candides watch from the margins as the carousel turns endlessly around.
Comments
Term limits for all- particularly the faceless bureaucrats, who, IMNSHO, really run things. The elected elite come and go and the tiny princes and their fiefdoms remain at the DMV, etc., plodding and obstructing. Look at the State Department for a national example. Secretaries are appointed, serve and move on and nothing in their ‘culture’ changes, regardless of the appointee’s dispostion.
If the US Attorneys can be fired en masse at the beginning of each new administration, why can’t the same be done for each bureau? Unions?
Posted by on 08/08/2005 at 02:02 PMI particularly like the trope Frank Herbert tramped out in one series of novels: Whipping Star, The Dosadi Experiment, and one or two others whose titles escape me at the moment—that of the institution of a Bureau of Sabotage, whose charter responsibility is to slow the wheels of government—to a halt wherever possible. With approved methods up to and including assassination.
Sort of Heinlein’s “one house to pass legislation, one to repeal” idea with a very sharp edge.
I’ve thought the United States could use such a department at the cabinet level ever since I first read of the concept.
M
Posted by Mark Alger on 08/08/2005 at 02:30 PMCindi.
A similar idea is what prompted this essay. I had suggested a Jubilee year for all bureaucracies, on a seven year rotating cycle. Instead of slaves being freed every seven years, either a seventh of a bureaucracy would be “freed” each year, or 1/7 of the institutions (like all of the State Department every 7 years) would be let go.
And Fran said, “you can bet the farm that all of government would fight the idea like no other.” And I said, “that’s already being done. No reform is too small that those in power don’t have their radar warning system set to spot and then to fight it. The antidisestablishmentarian aspect is endemic within each institution already.”
There you have it.
Posted by pascal fervor on 08/08/2005 at 02:45 PMCindi a note. While U.S. Atorneys can be forced to resign at once, it was NEVER done in the history of the Republic until Bill Clinton did it in 1992 to end investigations of himself and his wife.
The USA has one political party-the party of the state. The republicans and democrats do not question the legitemacy of unlimited state power. They only disagree about what to use it for.
The democrats are the party of big government in support of more government to reward their allies in government employment (mostly labor unions like AFSCME)
The republicans are the party of big government in the service of mega-businesses (who have not added a net job in 30 years).
This leaves the rest of us with no party.
None are interested in the rights or welfare of the average person.The republicans are still the stupid party.
The democrats are the stupider party.Posted by on 08/08/2005 at 11:28 PMLook at a few talkshow hosts who behave moderately towards Leftist guests and rudely towards conservative callers. I think it’s clear that they cherish their own establishment ties more than they do any sense of conservative principles.
And it shows.
They are the Antidisestablishmentarians who are most troubling.
They have loyalties in two camps.
They weaken concerted efforts at reforming Leviathan by casting aspersions on both ideas and leaders who espouse them.
They are sources of much disarray on the right.
IMHO, they are earning the future of the protagonist in Vonnegut’s Mother Night.Posted by Pascal Fervor on 08/10/2005 at 07:27 PM
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