Posted on 08/11/2004 1:58:00 AM PDT by Brian Allen
American democracy is in sorry shape these days.
Usually, when I hear pronouncements of this sort, my eyes roll and I start counting ceiling tiles. Indeed, as a democracy curmudgeon, I applaud most of the things democracy fetishists complain about. I wish it were harder to vote and that fewer people did it.
The Founding Fathers understood that voting in itself is value-neutral. A mob can vote to lynch an innocent man, but that doesn't make it moral. Conversely, few things would be more morally admirable than a man of good conscience thwarting the "democratic will" of the mob to save the same innocent man's life.
Democracy must be tempered by not only the rule of law, but by custom, good will, good faith and good character. Whenever I speak to college students I try to explain to them that the "liberal arts" aren't a description of Michael Moore's cinematic skills. The liberal arts describe the bundle of skills and learning necessary for citizens to both deserve and protect their freedom.
Anyway, what's got me grumpier than usual about democracy in America is the candidacy of Alan Keyes. After a comedy of political errors and just plain bad luck, the Illinois GOP found itself without a candidate to challenge the popular African-American Democrat Barack Obama for the open U.S. Senate seat. So Keyes, a former U.N. Ambassador, two-time presidential candidate and a radio show host, accepted an invitation to run. One problem: Keyes is from Maryland - indeed he ran for the Senate once already in that state.
Now, I like Keyes. He's one of the best rhetoricians in America. Off the cuff he can articulate very conservative positions on everything from abortion to the United Nations better than most politicians can in prepared speeches. Indeed, this may turn out to be a great race. Two hyper-educated, successful and civil African-American men with very different philosophies vying for a Senate seat in the land of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. No matter who wins, Illinois will have the only black Senator in Washington. Even better, race won't be much of an issue between the two because, as Keyes puts it, "if you are racist you have no one to vote for."
That's great stuff.
Except for the pesky fact that the Keyes candidacy is the latest example of a disturbing trend in which both parties are overturning the norms of democracy, with help from the media. Just in the last few years we've seen a dead man (dubiously) elected out of sympathy in Missouri, so that his widow could get a Senate seat as consolation. In New Jersey, Democrats were able to yank Bob Torricelli off the ballot after the deadline, knowing he would lose. In California, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor because the voters wanted a do-over. In Texas, Republicans violated the longstanding tradition of redistricting only once a decade. And, of course, in 2000 Hillary Clinton won her vanity campaign in New York as a carpetbagger. And, while I think there's a lot of liberal myth-making about the Florida recount, there's no denying the event undermined many Americans' faith in the system.
Now, just as with the Keyes candidacy, each of these irregularities may be justified by no shortage of good arguments. But so what? That just demonstrates the political and cultural pressures driving efforts to rewrite the written and unwritten rules of our system.
The trends at work are complex and numerous. The cult of celebrity allows famous but unqualified candidates to drop into politics in ways that, say, scholars or economists cannot. Loopy campaign finance rules encourage the super-rich to buy their offices, and weakened political parties are only too happy to serve as closing agents for the sale. Worse, consumer culture has infected civic culture. The push to make voting so convenient you can do it with a remote control exemplifies a growing tendency among voters to regard their "choices" as more important than their obligations. Indeed, for some reason, lots of people think it's imperative that criminals vote. Put your ear to the ground and you'll hear the bulldozer coming for the electoral college.
Taken to its logical extreme, these trends would produce a nationalized political system in which voters in California, New York and a few other states would have undue power to select presidents, senators and congressmen.
Keyes understands all of this and admits that, as a matter of principle, carpetbagging is a bad idea because it violates the small-r republican principle that representatives should be products of the communities they represent. (Hillary Clinton, typically, derided such arguments as "dirty attacks" on her character.) In fact, Keyes wants to repeal the 17th Amendment, which empowers voters rather than state legislatures to elect senators.
Keyes also says in his defense that he was asked to run by the party in the state he hopes to represent - unlike Hillary, who foisted herself upon New Yorkers. Fair enough. But doesn't such institutional desperation illustrate how much worse things have gotten in just four years?
Jonah Goldberg is editor of National Review Online, a Townhall.com member group.
©2004 Tribune Media Services
Yep.
God forbid that this bloody Jonah would notice our Nation is engaged in a War for its Survival and/or that the "DemocRATS" are running another [Psycho?]pathological liar at the office usually -- and right up until it was for a time so squalidly squatted by the execrable traitor, Carter -- and as awfully by Peking's "man" in Washington, Herr Kling Tong and his gang -- occupied by the President and Armed-Forces Commander-In-Chief of the United States of America.
<< ... After a comedy of political errors and just plain bad luck, the Illinois GOP found itself without a candidate .... >>
If any doubt lingers anywhere about the political bent of east-coast-establishment-embedded-and-corrupted Goldberg, surely that choice of phrase dispels such and any and all other doubts?
This, Mr Goldberg, is the FRee Republic known as the United States of America and -- just as I have earned the right to live any damned place I choose -- so, thank God, has Senator-Elect Alan Keyes.
BUMPping?
Even good columnists can have bad days. I guess today was Jonah Goldberg's turn.
Jonah's a girlie-man.
<< Jonah's a girlie-man. >>
Girlie-man?
Is that fair -- or even accurate?
Id'a leant more to girly-boy.
Mummy's girly-boy.
Good point.
Seems to me I remember Ann Coulter saying something along those lines when she got fired from National Review.
<< Good point.
Seems to me I remember Ann Coulter saying something along those lines when she got fired from National Review. >>
Actually she didn't get fired.
Mummy's boy took it apon h**self to dare to edit Ms Coulter's output for moral and intellectual integrity and to be less confrontational toward those manifestations of evil that comprise the self-annointed east-coast-establishment to whose B-list the Goldbergs so-cravenly aspire.
Ms Coulter then told h** to the effect "Shove it where -- come to think about it -- it being you and all -- your Lanny-Davis-loving mummy probably DID kiss you!"
Upon which sentiments I am sure she had occasion to reflect at the dims' Boston Circus when USAToday deigned to replace her mega-stardom with Mrs Goldberg's clown.
Note to Jonah Goldberg: You really need to get out of that whale and smell the fresh air. Your thoughts have become filled with Krill!
<< A war mongering, red white and blue, military industrial complex, Al Qaeda incinerating American .... >>
.... Man after my own heart!
Your version is so much pithier!
Do the ends justify the means? We all complained about Hitlery's tactics in NY. I have to admit, I a bit squeamish about the Repubs doing the same thing...and it doesnt' work to say "they did first" or "you have to fight fire with fire."
Perhaps you're idea to fight a war is turn the other cheek. Ie: We must not lower ourselves to their level. It's okay that the Dims won't bring GWB's nominees to an up or down vote, we won't be like that. The other side can be disengenious, skirting the laws by going through loopholes, we, on the otherhand must be above the fray.
If it is, fine, you play by those rules. I prefer to throttle my opponent. Spare him no mercy, until he surrenders or is lifeless.
And don't get overly squeamish as the body toll rises. Just don't give aid and comfort to the enemy, like the Dim candidate.
<< Do the ends justify the means? We all complained about Hitlery's tactics in NY. I have to admit, I a bit squeamish about the Repubs doing the same thing...and it doesnt' work to say "they did first" or "you have to fight fire with fire." >>
If you will be so kind as to pardon the pun, I believe you are comparing straeberry jam [Mr Keyes et al] to pigsh*t. [From which strawberry jam ain't never been made]
The grubby, grubbing, grabbing, carpet-bagging Huckelberry Blythes imposed themselves upon New York.
And Mr Keyes was invited by the Illinois Republicans to replace a candidate who was forced to quit his run by the same gang of thugs and the same tactics that ran the Illinois-native, Hot-Springs-Arkansas-domiciled female Huckelberry Blythe in New york.
Please leave any moral equivilency in those two actions to the once-conservative National Review On-line's Lying Lanny Davis placating-girly-boys!
<< I prefer to throttle my opponent. Spare him no mercy, until he surrenders or is lifeless.
And don't get overly squeamish as the body toll rises. >>
Please Dear Lord that this is the kinda stuff we say and do FRom now on -- and until the evil manifest in the modern "DemocRAT" party is totally defeated.
This most-important-election-of-my-lifetime -- until the next one -- must be won!
Blessings -- Brian
And besides The Beast, Jay Rockefeller wasn't 'from' WV, and I doubt Jon Corzine lived in NJ for long prior to his running. Then there was RFK and his NY senate run. I could go on and on..
And for what's it's worth Obama isn't 'from' IL, either. He grew up in Hawaii and went to college at Harvard for four years! Heck, I have socks older than how long Obama has 'resided' in IL.
Oh and Jonah, the BIG difference is that the carpetbagging RATS did it for POWER, Keyes is doing it for principle. So go pound sand.
<< Jonah ... doesn't have a clue as to the situation in IL .... Obama isn't 'from' IL .... Heck, I have socks older than how long Obama has 'resided' in IL.
Oh and Jonah, the BIG difference is that the carpetbagging RATS do it for POWER, Keyes is doing it for Principle.
So go pound sand. >>
Sounds about right to me!
Well, so far the consesus seem to be that the end justifies the means, and if you don't like the message then you should kill the messenger.
<< ... so far the consensus seem to be that the end justifies the means, and if you don't like the message then you should kill the messenger ... >>
Or so far the consensus seems to be that to compare the principled response of Mr Keyes to the Illinois Republican Party's invitation -- itself the response to an attack upon its original candidate by the same corrupt ludicrous-left gang that imposed the Hot-Springs Arkansas carpetbagger upon New York State is to compare that gang's naked lust for power-at-any-price with principled politics. And that in this instance there is no messenger -- only a moral-equivilency-promoting opinionator who is already dead.
Dead wrong!
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