Category Archives: Democracy

Egyptians Don’t Like Executive Orders

Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Islam, Middle East, Multiculturalism

Whereas we in the US lionize our top dogs, mistaking the political overlords for benefactors, Egyptians have no delusions about their “sons of 60 dogs,” an apt Egyptian expression for their political masters.

So after removing one “son of 60 dogs” (President Mohamed Husni Mubarak), they elected another (Mohamed Morsy), this time democratically. These admirably rebellious people are now revolting against Morsy for issuing a “decree, late on Thursday.”

it marks an effort by Morsi to consolidate his influence after he successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August. It defends from judicial review decisions taken by Morsi until a new parliament is elected in a vote expected early next year.
It also shields the Islamist-dominated assembly writing Egypt’s new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened the body with dissolution, and offers the same protection to the Islamist-controlled upper house of parliament.
Egypt’s highest judicial authority, the Supreme Judicial Council, said the decree was an “unprecedented attack” on the independence of the judiciary.

In American “democracy” such decrees are known as executive orders. For example, Obama passed an immigration law by extra-constitutional directive shortly before the election.

Americans didn’t riot. They never do. (Besides, rioting about free-for-all Third World immigration is racist.)

White Millennials Are Not Complete Morons

Barack Obama, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Multiculturalism, Race, Republicans

Scroll down to the “Vote by Age and Race” breakdown, on CNN. Buried in the exit poll analysis was this tidbit:

Whites aged 18-29 years backed Mitt Romney by 51 percent to 44 percent, giving the Republican candidate an 11 percent edge. (And remember that, “Ultimately, elections are about perception—the way in which the people perceive the political planks of the two parties. The American people perceive the Democratic Party as the party of entitlements. They think of the Republican Party as the party of austerity.” To the extent they cast a vote for the latter, to that extent they are against the moocher mentality.)

No longer able to ignore the differing racial voting patterns that emerged in the 2012 election, USA Today seconded the above fact in the analysis titled, “A nation moving further apart.”

“Among younger voters, African Americans and Hispanics slipped slightly in their support [for BHO]; the significant erosion was among whites under 30. In 2008, they had backed Obama by 10 points. This time, they support [sic] Romney by eight.”

The sense of loss is etched allover these fresh faces.

Oops: The most celebrated, centrally planned, multicultural mobocracy has failed. You win some you lose some, right? What’s a country between friends, hey? I hope the gamble was worth it.

My, my, and how individuals like Dick Morris muddied matters.

Exercising A Right Over Others

Democracy, Elections

PBS’s Christina Bellantoni cites a poll (which I can’t locate on PBS News Hour’s usually well-organized site), according to which individuals earning less than $50,000 trended Barack Obama; those earning more than $50,000, and certainly individuals in the upper-income tax bracket, preferred Mitt Romney.

Single women and racial minorities are with Obama too. (Understandably, categories overlap.)

People with higher incomes are in the minority. They are an economically dominant minority (to paraphrase Amy Chua). The rich dominate the economy, the poor dominate the polity.

When elections roll around, the voting mass exacts its revenge against the economically dominant minority.

The economically dominant minority funds government. The rich pay most of the taxes. Obama is the candidate who, on paper at least, has promised his special constituencies more of what richer people rightfully own. Mitt Romney is the candidate who, on paper at least, promised to confiscate less private property.

That is, at least, how the voter perceived the candidates.

Answer me this, then: What kind of a right is the vote? What kind of a right gives one man control over another man’s life?

In this democracy (for we are no longer a republic), you vote not for a representative who will defend your inalienable, individual rights. Rather, if you are The Rich, whom The Left treats as a reified, rigid state-of-being, you vote defensively. And if you are The Poor, you vote, indirectly, to extract what your guy has promised you from The Other Guy.

In a word, pillage politics.

UPDATED: Libertarians And The Vote

Canada, Democracy, Elections, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, The State

New American columnist Jack Kerwick is blasting non-voting libertarians. (I have an excuse: I have chosen to decline citizenship of Police State USA. I’m a permanent resident, but not a US citizen. I am, however, an American patriot. I don’t need Uncle Sam’s imprimatur or papers to be a patriot.)

I think Jack is making an argument that is similar to the one made in “LIBERTARIAN WRANGLING”:

From the fact that many libertarians believe that the state has no legitimacy, …they arrive at the position that anything the state does is illegitimate. This is a logical confusion. Consider the murderer who, while fleeing the law, happens on a scene of a rape, saves the woman, and pounds the rapist. Is this good deed illegitimate because a murderer has performed it?

Writes Jack:

“Romney, along with his fellow partisans, has pledged to repeal ObamaCare. “Would that be evil? [NO] He also wants to make America more energy independent. [Note: Libertarians want energy production, not necessarily energy independence, for the latter would imply a rejection of the logic of trade. It’s “drill AND trade, baby, trade.”] Would this be evil? A Romney administration would engender an environment dramatically more business-friendly than any that we could ever expect from an Obama administration. Would this be evil?”

The answer is no.

Basically, Jack Kerwick wants to shatter the pretense of ideological purity that allows libertarians (like myself) to stand outside of politics.

It’s a good debate. We should have it. (If I were cleared to vote, I doubt I would vote for the loopy Gary Johnson.)

UPDATE: Joseph Farah feels the same urgency that Jack Kerwick does: “It’s a matter of self-defense and self-preservation,” he says. MORE.