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Tuesday, October 03, 2006
The Majoritarian Chickens Have Come Home To Roost
Though he didn't give birth to the notion, Hugh Hewitt is probably the public personage most closely associated with the nostrum that in American politics, "only majorities matter," which he popularized in his recent book If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat.
That premise has been used to exhort conservatives to hold their noses and vote for Republican candidates who, if the truth-in-advertising laws applied to political candidacies, would be called liberals and compelled to re-register as Democrats. The theory is that we need these "Republicans-in-name-only" to assure control of Congressional committees and an overall preponderance on matters about which all Republicans supposedly agree.
There are just a few teeeeeeny problems with the majoritarian thesis, at least as Hewitt has proposed it:
- It's amoral, and favors men of low character;
- It creates an incentive for candidates to say one thing but, once elected, to do another;
- In practice, it leads to results conservatives abhor.
Whether or not we did so because of the majoritarian thesis, simple partisanry, or some unlabeled rationale, we've elevated "Republicans" to high office whose subsequent behavior has been anything but Republican, as the party's repeated statements of principles would define it. Some of those Congressional "Republicans" routinely speak and vote against the positions the party's platform, a relatively conservative document, has espoused. One of recent note, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, eagerly left the party to gain a committee chairmanship for himself. Others, such as Congressman Mark Foley of Florida, have proved to be outright villains.
When men, of low character, principally motivated by power and prestige, are elevated to office, the results are never good. One of the dead giveaways of low character is the willingness to adopt a label to which one's convictions would never entitle him. Another is an excessive eagerness for "compromise" with the ideological adversary, i.e., an unwillingness to stand on principle. A third is the tendency to say whatever one's current audience will like best.
Your Curmudgeon believes that at this time, if we judge by the criteria above, persons of low character predominate in both Houses of Congress. Needless to say, the disease is independent of party affiliation.
A nation of high private character, whose soul hadn't been bought for subsidies and subventions, would deem it to be its highest duty to turn the rascals out. Ours, sadly, has not done so. Concerning the upcoming elections, maintaining or regaining majority status is the sole major topic of discussion.
It might be a reductio ad absurdum to ask the question, but your Curmudgeon will ask it nonetheless:
If so, why? If not, why not?
Wherever you might live, whatever your appraisal of the current Republican caucuses: Would you let your answers to those questions influence your voting decisions come November? Or are you more concerned with sending men to Congress who can be relied upon to bring home the pork?
Many of FDR's legacies still trouble us today, but none more than this: by allowing the federal government to break fully free of its Constitutional bonds, he created the system of incentives to political pandering and prostitution that has brought us to where we stand. Yet to undo his anti-Constitutional scheme will require that we brace ourselves for "sacrifice" and act against those incentives, to deny power to the panderers -- ultimately, to put men in office who will re-erect the walls that were supposed to limit government, and make them stand firm.
Given the current state of affairs, the first step most likely to be beneficial (and conducive to further good steps) would be a state-by-state campaign for mandatory "None Of The Above Is Acceptable" lines on all ballots for all elective offices, whether federal, state, or local. Ideally, a plurality for "None Of The Above" would result in the office being left vacant, its powers unexercised until the next election. But at the very least, it would give men of character a way to express their displeasure at being asked to vote for men who have none.
Are we the moral, trustworthy citizens of a principled republic, or are we Butterscotch Men, who can't run till we get warm, and can't get warm without running?
Comments
I wish this could work. I don’t think the Democrats would do it as far as their stinkin’ candidates went (sometimes I believe their stinkiness is considered an asset by D voters). Thus, if only Republicans use this option, only our positions will remain unfilled, thus leaving the loony left running things. Can we risk the loons running things for any amount of time? I truly don’t know the answer to that; it would entail knowing how very severely they’d be able to shackle us.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/03/2006 at 11:11 PMI honestly could not care less if the Republicans as currently constituted retain the House or not. Maybe some gridlock will be good for the country…it certainly helped tighten some federal belts in the mid-90s.
If it weren’t for the issue of judicial appointments, I wouldn’t care about their hold on the Senate either.
Honestly, the only office I’m especially enamored of keeping in Republican hands at the potential expense of other moral concerns is the one that decides what to do when an American city is vaporized by a terrorist nuke. (If the next occupant of the White House has the self-confidence to name Edith Clement or Janice Brown to the Supreme Court, it’d be nice to have a Senate willing to back it up, but national security trumps all, and character trumps everything but security.)
Posted by Matt on 10/04/2006 at 01:43 AMI understand your concern, Cindi. I’m certainly not going to suggest that any amount of damage to the nation, its laws, or its security is acceptable in the pursuit of a return to principled government. A chessplayer will tell you: your strategy can be brilliant and you can still lose, because your tactical position will get you clobbered before your strategy can bear fruit.
As matters stand, we can’t simply refuse to support persons of weak character at the federal level, if the outcome would be that persons of even worse character would rise to power. We have to work from the bottom up. Neighbors. Town councils and county legislatures. State governments. Then on to the federal level. If it sounds as if I’m saying that the entire nation has to be rebuilt as a nation of character and principle—a people who would refuse anything a politician might offer to them from someone else’s pockets—that’s because I am.
Will it be difficult? You bet. But there is no alternative that I can see.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 10/04/2006 at 07:01 AMSpeaker Pelosi.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/04/2006 at 12:33 PMLet’s see. Do I vote for Satan, or Baal? Well… if I don’t vote for Baal, Satan will get in. I know Baal is bad, but not as horrible as Satan!
Maybe it’s time to say: “screw it” and vote for the greater of two evils. Let the Republicans know that we won’t put up with any more of this crap.
I’m tired of voting for Democrat wannabes. Maybe I’ll just vote for the real thing!
Posted by Tony on 10/04/2006 at 03:16 PMI’ve already been voting on the premise that “If it talks like a Dem, votes like a Dem, and is helping to lead the nation toward the Dem’s ideal state” I will not vote for that candidate . I will not be stampeded by boogeymen when what the Republicans are offering is no different from what the Democrats offer. If I wanted to vote Democrat I would register and vote as one. Neither am I impressed when the difference is registered in fractions.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/04/2006 at 05:58 PMI tend to agree with the idea of ‘if it talks like a dem, votes like a Dem, etc….’ then I’m not going to vote for it. Neither would I vote for a pedophile like Foley, who I am dishonored to say, came from my own state. If no suitable candidate can be found I will vote third party or not at all. A slow, agonizing decline of our nation isn’t really any more preferable to a more rapid decline. One can at least hope if the Dems obtain a majority because some of us refused to vote for bad Republicans… the Dems will mess up the country enough to galvanize the public into voting them out of office on the next run. It’s a rather dim outlook, but it beats Republicans: The Low Fat Democrats.
Posted by Xealot on 10/05/2006 at 10:09 AM
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