Category Archives: Democracy

Reckless Rubio Has Lost His Senate Seat

Democracy, Elections, Republicans

Rand Paul was smart. Unlike Marco Rubio, he didn’t abandon his senate seat when he stood for president. “[H]is Senate seat [was] a backup if and when his presidential campaign fell through.” Paul even “paid the state party hundreds of thousands of dollars to hold a caucus instead of a primary, which skirted state law preventing his name from appearing on the same ballot twice.”

Rand was also diplomatic enough to frame his presidential bid as an extension of service in the Senate:

“I am running for president for the same reason I am your senator: to fight for you, for our country and for our rights,” he wrote.

Rubio, on the other hand, is a real spoilt brat, who has acted recklessly and impulsively. Basically, he didn’t like the Senate and was eager to move on:

as Rubio runs for president, he has cast the Senate — the very place that cemented him as a national politician — as a place he’s given up on, after less than one term. It’s too slow. Too rule-bound. So Rubio, 44, has decided not to run for his seat again. It’s the White House or bust.

“That’s why I’m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate. I am not running for reelection,” Rubio said in the last Republican debate, after Donald Trump had mocked him for his unusual number of absences during Senate votes. …

MORE Rubio and the Senate.

Bernie Sanders’ Rickety Platform Of Big Bad Money Is … A ‘Dud’

Capitalism, Classical Liberalism, Democracy, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Law, Socialism

The Bernie Sanders claims—his platform, really—that Big Money controls politics has proven to be a bit of a “dud.”

In the words of David Von Drehle of Time magazine, “Big Money, the supposed superpower of post-Citizens United politics, is a dud so far. Super-PAC bets by various billionaires have done nothing to fire up such candidates as former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Bush has filled screens in key states with millions of dollars in both positive and negative ads. The result: falling poll numbers. Touted as a front runner a year ago, Bush is mired in single digits and rang in the new year by announcing that he was scrapping a round of ads in favor of more ground troops in early voting states.” (“How Trump Won,” Time, January 18 issue.)

What does this say about the logic of Sanders’ campaign?

The illiberal (this writer is classically liberal) Sanders and Hillary Clinton have JUST pledged to undo Citizens United.

If free speech—Big Money—is excised from politics; in particular, unlimited election spending by individuals is disallowed—you’d have no Donald Trump counter-politics.

A Barack Obama new rogue in judicial robes will certainly ensure no self-funding billionaires rise against the system.

Iowa Caucuses Would Be Remarkable Athenian Democracy, If ONLY

Democracy, Elections, Federalism, Founding Fathers

James Madison was not a democrat. He denounced popular rule as “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” Democracy, he observed, must be confined to a “small spot” (like Athens). That’s why what’s underway in Iowa is so remarkable for its local impetus, “a gathering of neighbors,” really. Where an Iowa-like process loses any semblance of legitimate self-government is once campaigns expand and local voices become fainter and fainter. The Iowa Caucuses would be remarkable Athenian Democracy, but for the fact that by the time candidates get to Washington, they forget about Iowans (or the people of any other state). When it leaves the locality, Democracy, like water ripples, never comes back.

Right now, this “gathering of neighbors” is impressive:

In Iowa, groups of voters will meet in 1,681 precincts throughout the state beginning at 7 p.m. local time Monday. “It’s basically a gathering of neighbors, so it’s the folks on your street or in your neighborhood or at your church who vote at the same place where you vote, coming together to discuss politics,” said David Redlawsk, a political science professor at Rutgers University currently serving as a fellow at Iowa’s Drake University. The caucuses will take place at schools, fire stations, city halls and sometimes churches — any easily accessible public location. … There’s a similar theme voters in both states should remember: Love thy neighbor. It just might help your candidate become the next president. … “The caucuses are really about community and neighborhood gatherings and talking politics. But in the end, the campaign in New Hampshire is very similar to the campaign in Iowa — it’s very personal, it’s very oriented around town halls and one-on-ones,” Redlawsk said.

Schooling Sanders On ‘Inequality Of Condition’ As Essential To Progress & Liberty

Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Liberty, Socialism, Taxation

In his spectacular “Disquisition on Government,” John C. Calhoun, one of America’s greatest political thinkers, outlines why it is so dangerous to depict liberty as meaningless without equality, when the opposite is the truth. From A Disquisition on Government:

… There is another error, not less great and dangerous, usually associated with the one which has just been considered. I refer to the opinion, that liberty and equality are so intimately united, that liberty cannot be perfect without perfect equality.

That they are united to a certain extent — and that equality of citizens, in the eyes of the law, is essential to liberty in a popular government, is conceded. But to go further, and make equality of condition essential to liberty, would be to destroy both liberty and progress. The reason is, that inequality of condition, while it is a necessary consequence of liberty, is, at the same time, indispensable to progress. In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to bear in mind, that the main spring to progress is, the desire of individuals to better their condition; and that the strongest impulse which can be given to it is, to leave individuals free to exert themselves in the manner they may deem best for that purpose, as far at least as it can be done consistently with the ends for which government is ordained — and to secure to all the fruits of their exertions.

Now, as individuals differ greatly from each other, in intelligence, sagacity, energy, perseverance, skill, habit of industry and economy, physical power, position and opportunity — the necessary effect of leaving all free to exert themselves to better their condition, must be a corresponding inequality between those who may possess these qualities and advantages in a high degree, and those who may be deficient in them. The only means by which this result can be prevented are, either to impose such restrictions on the exertions of those who may possess them in a high degree, as will place them on a level with those who do not; or to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions.

But to impose such restrictions on them would be destructive of liberty — while, to deprive them of the fruits of their exertions, could be to destroy the desire of bettering their condition. It is, indeed, his inequality of condition between the front and rear ranks, in the march of progress, which gives so strong an impulse to the former to maintain their position, and to the latter to press forward into their files. This gives to progress its greatest impulse. To force the front rank back to the rear, or attempt to push forward the rear into line with the front, by the interposition of the government, would put an end to the impulse, and effectually arrest the march of progress.

These great and dangerous errors have their origin in the prevalent opinion that all men are born free and equal — than which nothing can be more unfounded and false. It rests upon the assumption of a fact, which is contrary to universal observation, in whatever light it may be regarded. It is, indeed, difficult to explain how an opinion so destitute of all sound season, ever could have been so extensively entertained, unless we regard it as being confounded with another, which has some semblance of truth — but which, when properly understood, is not less false and dangerous. …

MORE Disquisition on Government.