Disregarding Democracy
I read a great commentary piece in the Examiner this morning by columnist Melanie Scarborough. She takes a look at the hubris of the Bush administration as exemplified by Vice President Dick Cheney:
Dick Cheney has been dismissive of other people for so long that his lips curl in a permanent sneer. Still, it was stunning to see his response to an interviewer who pointed out that polls show two-thirds of Americans oppose the war in Iraq.
“So?†the vice president smirked, clearly relishing the opportunity to demonstrate his disdain for public opinion. Taken aback, the interviewer followed up, “Don’t you care what the American people think?â€
“No,†Cheney said.
The Bush administration has always boasted that it puts no stock in opinion polls — and, to some degree, that is reasonable. The president and vice president have information other citizens don’t have. George W. Bush receives firsthand reports from the war zone; Cheney was in Iraq only days ago, making firsthand observations.
Moreover, the American public is notoriously uninformed. It would be interesting to see how many of those who oppose the war could find Iraq on a map.
Nonetheless, to disregard the will of the American people is to disregard democracy. Bush and Cheney were not elected to impose their will on us; they were elected to execute our national will. What the American people want from their leaders should matter — particularly in the most consequential decision a president can make: sending soldiers into battle to risk their lives.
Neither his daughters nor the vice president’s are in harm’s way because of their fathers’ decisions. To the contrary, as wards of the Secret Service, the Bush and Cheney daughters enjoy the safest and most convenient life possible. While their contemporaries in the military are dodging bullets and bombs, they are dodging the nuisances of everyday life. For the vice president to respond with “So?†after being told that other parents also don’t want their children sent to battle was grotesquely callous.
Moreover, many Americans who oppose the war are not the buffoons Cheney imagines them to be. Some considered it a mistake from the start to invade a country that had not attacked us. Others believe it is a lost cause to try to impose secular democracy on a country seemingly bent on Islamic rule. Still others see that the war is exacting tremendous costs for no benefit. Americans historically have fought to protect our way of life, but that is already lost. The terrorists won. Instead of living in defiant freedom, we now live in pre-emptive fear.
[snip]
The war in Iraq may turn out to be a success. Bush and Cheney may be ultimately vindicated. But no matter how fervently they believe that now, it does not give them license to be contemptuous of the citizens they ostensibly serve.
I’ve grown incredibly tired of the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” approach to criticism that this White House has taken over the years, particularly during the course of the war. Rather than engaging critics and working to find a solution that is acceptable to the populace, Bush & Co. (full disclosure: I voted for him. Twice.) continue charging onward, intentionally ignoring anyone who isn’t part of their echo chamber.
There’s an immaturity in the way they conduct themselves, a sort of schoolyard derisive snickering always at the ready for those who question their wisdom. As Ms. Scarborough says, even if they are vindicated, even if they are proven right about all that they’ve done, there is no reason they should treat the citizens of this nation with contempt.
Filed under: American Empire, Politics
No man can truly represent another, much less 300 million others. Democracy is a façade.
‘My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)—or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy . . . The most improper job of any man, even saints, is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.’
—J.R.R. Tolkien
Great Tolkien quote. Love the last bit especially.
What does Tolkien mean by “unconstitutional monarchy”? If he is using these words in anything like their ordinary senses, then the entire quote deserves to be dismissed as a bilious rant, twice engaging in blatant self-contradiction.
Good point, Victor. I was focused on the last line of the quote, but the first half is confusing.
I don’t think I’m inherently opposed to unconstitutional Monarchy, but I tend to think of the Magna Carta as a good thing.
And another thing about this Tolkien quote:
philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs
Except that whiskered men with bombs is merely the logical outcome of believing that control should be abolished. It’s merely a theory-practice distinction, not a disagreement. At any given point in history, certain people will be engaging in control, and therefore bossing other men improperly (and always using violence to that end). And the only way that status-quo can be abolished is by undermining that control, which means (1) making that control too dangerous to want to exert (i.e., assassination), (2) making ineffectual the social peace that is the trade for granting the state a monopoly on legitimate violence, and (3) denying that consent sanctifies an unjust decision (to merely peacefully protest is to accept government legitimacy in the first place).
And the very notion that control should be abolished is … completely utopian (how is any organization supposed to function, even the family, except on the notion that some people get to “boss”) and rather un-Christian (what is God then, if not the ultimate tyrant).
In case it isn’t obvious, I’m about as much of an un-Romantic as political theorists get.
Ah, but Steve, remember that the Magna Carta was declared void by none other than Pope Innocent III!
I have lately been thinking about the negative aspects of constitutions. For one, it seems constitutions are invariably twisted beyond and against their original intent. For another, I do not see from where constitutions derive their authority. Granting the legitimacy of representation (with which I disagree), it does not follow that the will of majority should of right be imposed on the whole. But, even granting authority to the majority, constitutions are by nature only the agreement of those alive at the time. They bind future generations to the ideas of the present.
Like Tolkien, I find myself leaning more and more to Anarchy, meaning the sovereignty of the individual over himself and his property. Yet, on a spiritual level, I understand Monarchy to be part of the natural order. Perhaps the two concepts are not incompatible. Salvador DalÃ, after all, called himself an anarcho-monarchist!
Victor, I think the Tolkien quote implies the abolition of control only of the State, not of the family or any other institution. As to the idea of whiskered men with bombs, I quote Joseph Sobran: ‘R.J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii calculates that in the twentieth century alone, states murdered about 162,000,000 million of their own subjects. This figure doesn’t include the tens of millions of foreigners they killed in war. How, then, can we speak of states “protecting†their people? No amount of private crime could have claimed such a toll.’ (http://www.sobran.com/reluctant.shtml)
Granting the legitimacy of representation (with which I disagree), it does not follow that the will of majority should of right be imposed on the whole.
Then whose will should be … and by what principle of legitimacy is THAT acceptable?
constitutions are by nature only the agreement of those alive at the time.
Which makes them different from laws, exactly how ….? What is the shelf life of any law on that principle … a day, an hour, a minute? (The population does change that rapidly, if only by a little.)
Anarchy, meaning the sovereignty of the individual over himself and his property. Yet, on a spiritual level, I understand Monarchy to be part of the natural order.
That is unbelievably incoherent.
First of all, “anarchy” means the absence of government. Every dictionary, every competent political scientist, every etymologist knows this. Why one should support anarchy, what would happen in the event of government’s abolition, etc., are all perfectly legitimate questions, but “the sovereignty of the individual over himself and his property” is mere private language.
Second, saying that monarchy is part of the natural order, whether known at a spiritual level or otherwise, flatly contradicts the initial Tolkien quote about how even saints aren’t fit to boss others.
Third, property in any sense other than “what I hold in my grasp or other physical power right now at this very minute” is a social construction in the first place. In any other sense, property is a legal right, a claim that “this is mine by right and that is yours by right,” and so it cannot exist outside a legal order, i.e., an “archy.” So talking about anarchy as security in one’s property is … again … unbelievably incoherent.
Fourth, person and property are individual ends. They do not provide any means at all or a really even much of a framework for resolving disputes among persons or making claims against others, whether crimes or torts (and those things are usually disputes over the extent of person and property — what they mean). The reason government is necessary is that people are social animals, but sinners. Disputes must arise, and adjudication on the basis of neutral principles (rather than rule by the strongest) requires the judgment of others (no man’s neutrality can be trusted in his own case). The ORESTEIA is all about the gifts of impartial justice against which there was no appeal (the polis) and the evolution away from a pre-civilized system of private vengeance (which is the alternative to the rule of law)
I think the Tolkien quote implies the abolition of control only of the State, not of the family or any other institution
No, it doesn’t … not if the warrant for the claim is that bossing other men is an improper job, most of all for those who seek it. This is too powerful a claim to confine to the state because it’s a claim about human nature and human dignity. It has to apply to the family and the church as well (certainly, there is no moral justification for a papacy or an episcopacy if domination is illegitimate).
As for the Rummel quote, that is — at best — an argument against totalitarianism or certain forms of the state. But the state is coterminus with civilization, as it provides the needed security to engage is something other than warfare, theft and rape, i.e., living like animals. It takes a feminist mind to go from the undoubted fact that many men beat their wives as proof that marriage is per se illegitimate, and only a similarly adolescent mind think the undoubted fact that some states are tyrannical denies the per se legitimacy of every state.