"Democracy as a government relies upon the ability of factions to compromise on divisive issues through rational debate instead of violence. The current political power brokers have figured out how to short circuit this process by focusing national attention on issues which are based on differences of non-negotiable, irrational moral sentiment, and are thus not subject to resolution through rational reconciliation. They've broken democracy."
"Asking whether a politician genuinely supports or cares about an interest is like asking whether a stockbroker supports and cares for Coca Cola. There has to be professional detachment. It depends on the market, and if he actually cares and acts according to some sort of sentimental feeling about Coca Cola which isn't totally a function of market conditions, he's a bad stock broker, cut from the herd, and eaten by bears. There has to be an emotional separation. "The Religious Right" is actually just a voting bloc, a collection of issues, influential people, and interested voters, so you can't care about it. You use it, like a hammer or a microphone."
The Stars, Our Destination...
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Insider White House info via Something Awful...
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2 comments:
I couldn't find the quote you posted in the link given.
(Please read this kindly, I'm quite tired.)
In any event, I don't know about the "breaking democracy" bit.
This blurb of course leads back to two important books of our schooling, "The Argument Culture" and "Democracy on Trial". ("Long live Sarah Core Peters!")
It isn't that democracy doesn't work, it's that as a group, we aren't very good custodians of it.
For instance, take the polemic issues that are often used to divy up the voting public. They are highly nuanced but aren't presented as such. Americans are generally not willing to examine underlying assumptions that they make that might make them feel uncomfortable. Rest assured, though, the longer an issue foregoes rational assessment, the more bizarre its political manifestations. Bush the Second is an oblique representative of the Evangelical movement. An interesting thing about him is that he needs to communicate with his core voting block in such a diluted manner, using terms like "moral values".
This "factions" talk is from the drafters of the Constitution, the Fedralist papers and what not.
The committee system has unbalanced the Legislature, as a handful of congressmen wield vast power, making the whole body more prone to... influence.
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