Category Archives: Democracy

Update III: Bush Bolsters Israel, Makes Policy Change Hard for Barack

Barack Obama, Bush, Democracy, Economy, Individual Rights, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Neoconservatism, War

“President George W Bush called the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel an ‘act of terror’ and outlined his own conditions for a ceasefire in Gaza, in his weekly radio address to the American people.”

Listen to the president’s radio address. This is a very emphatic statement from George Bush. Such a forceful position in support for Israel makes it hard for the incoming president to deviate, or chart a new course.

Update I: The backdrop to the Israeli offensive:

A quarter of a million Israeli citizens have been living under incessant terror attacks from the Gaza Strip with thousands of missiles fired over the past eight years.

Israel left Gaza in 2005, giving Palestinians the chance to run their own lives. Despite this, more than 6300 rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel since then.

During the past year alone, more than 3000 rockets and mortars have been launched into Israel.

As US President-elect Obama stated during a visit to Sderot five months ago, “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing.”

More…

Update II (Jan. 4): Regarding Bush and the comment by “gunjam” (may his gun never jam): Bush’s support for Israel’s self-defense need not be psychologized. The president’s violation of the negative rights of Iraqis; and his support for those of Israelis is not courageous, but craven and contradictory. As I observed in “Conservatives For Killing Terri“:

I can think of only two occasions on which I agreed with George Bush. Both involved the upholding of the people’s negative, or leave-me-alone, rights.

The first was his refusal to capitulate to the Kyoto-protocol crazies. Not surprisingly, some conservatives denounced this rare flicker of good judgment. And I’m not talking a “Crunchy Con” of Andrew Sullivan’s caliber—he does proud to Greenpeace and the Sierra Club combined. No less a conservative than Joe Scarborough commiserated with actor Robert Redford over the president’s “blind spot on the environment.” (Ditto Bill O’Reilly.)

The other Bush initiative I endorsed was the attempt by Congress to uphold Terri Schiavo’s inalienable right to life—a decision very many conservatives now rue.

Update III: Did I hear Bush claim Hamas took over Gaza by violent coup? This is what the neoconservatives would like their acolytes to believe. This pie-in-the-Palestinian-sky helps neocons downplay the failure of their democratic evangelizing. Hamas, of course, won the 2006 elections fair and square. Even J. Carter conceded that much, if I’m not mistaken, as did other observers like him, who rushed to the PA to watch their Palestinian protégés practice democracy. The neocons will never admit that a democratic heart does not beat in every breast. In their cultural relativism they are no different from the lefties. Neocons are simply lefties who like war.

Updated: O’Reilly Won The Battle But Lost The Debate

Christianity, Constitution, Democracy, History, Israel, Media

The excerpt is from my new WorldNetDaily.com column, “O’Reilly Won The Battle, But Lost The Debate”:

“O’Reilly’s defense of the Christmas display was inadequate ..He fiddles with the icing rather than the cake…

O’Reilly defends the country’s founding faith on … the frivolous grounds that it is a State-designated holiday; a harmless and happy day. This is O’Reilly’s problem. He’s forever arguing his case from the stance of the positive law.

Christmas ought to be defended on the basis that Christianity is America’s founding faith.

To defend Christian America with reference to Un-Christian State law that has all but banished Christianity from the public square is worse than silly.”

The complete column is “O’Reilly Won The Battle – But Lost The Debate.”

Update (Dec. 20): HITLER AND DEMOCRACY. Ken Kelley asserts:
History records Hitler’s accent to power without a vote by the people.

Perhaps history taught in the public schools. Writes Ian Kershaw, professor of modern history at Sheffield University, author of Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution:

“Hitler came to power in a democracy with a highly liberal Constitution, and in part by using democratic freedoms to undermine and then destroy democracy itself. …The Nazis’ spectacular surge in popular support (2.6 percent of the vote in the 1928 legislative elections, 18.3 percent in 1930, 37.4 percent in July 1932) reflected the anger, frustration and resentment — but also hope — that Hitler was able to tap among millions of Germans.”

Hitler was democratically elected as Chancellor of Germany in 1933, writes “Atlas of the Twentieth Century.”

“However, because the office of Chancellor was not filled by popular election, it might be more accurate to say that Hitler was constitutionally chosen to be the Chancellor of Germany, a democratic nation. The point is, there was nothing about Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor (30 Jan. 1933) which violated the Constitution of Germany. President Hindenburg legally selected the leader of the largest party in Parliament to head up a coalition government. It has happened hundreds of times throughout history without being considered undemocratic.”

This is exactly how democracy, “The God That Failed,” works. A leader is elected with a slim majority. He puts together a coalition which guarantees he’ll have a majority in parliament, and together they proceed to put one over the people.

Democracy is despotism by any other name.

Updated: O'Reilly Won The Battle But Lost The Debate

Christianity, Constitution, Democracy, History, Israel, Media

The excerpt is from my new WorldNetDaily.com column, “O’Reilly Won The Battle, But Lost The Debate”:

“O’Reilly’s defense of the Christmas display was inadequate ..He fiddles with the icing rather than the cake…

O’Reilly defends the country’s founding faith on … the frivolous grounds that it is a State-designated holiday; a harmless and happy day. This is O’Reilly’s problem. He’s forever arguing his case from the stance of the positive law.

Christmas ought to be defended on the basis that Christianity is America’s founding faith.

To defend Christian America with reference to Un-Christian State law that has all but banished Christianity from the public square is worse than silly.”

The complete column is “O’Reilly Won The Battle – But Lost The Debate.”

Update (Dec. 20): HITLER AND DEMOCRACY. Ken Kelley asserts:
History records Hitler’s accent to power without a vote by the people.

Perhaps history taught in the public schools. Writes Ian Kershaw, professor of modern history at Sheffield University, author of Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution:

“Hitler came to power in a democracy with a highly liberal Constitution, and in part by using democratic freedoms to undermine and then destroy democracy itself. …The Nazis’ spectacular surge in popular support (2.6 percent of the vote in the 1928 legislative elections, 18.3 percent in 1930, 37.4 percent in July 1932) reflected the anger, frustration and resentment — but also hope — that Hitler was able to tap among millions of Germans.”

Hitler was democratically elected as Chancellor of Germany in 1933, writes “Atlas of the Twentieth Century.”

“However, because the office of Chancellor was not filled by popular election, it might be more accurate to say that Hitler was constitutionally chosen to be the Chancellor of Germany, a democratic nation. The point is, there was nothing about Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor (30 Jan. 1933) which violated the Constitution of Germany. President Hindenburg legally selected the leader of the largest party in Parliament to head up a coalition government. It has happened hundreds of times throughout history without being considered undemocratic.”

This is exactly how democracy, “The God That Failed,” works. A leader is elected with a slim majority. He puts together a coalition which guarantees he’ll have a majority in parliament, and together they proceed to put one over the people.

Democracy is despotism by any other name.

Updated: Deifying Democracy

Democracy, Elections 2008, Political Philosophy

A lot of gushing is going on about our wonderful democracy at work—the allusion being to the long lines and high turnout. Not to rain on anyone’s line, but:

America was not conceived as a democracy—majority rule was never the intent here. In a democracy, majorities get to decide what is up for grabs. In a republic, where the central government has limited and clearly enumerated functions, majorities merely determine who is to be elected.

We are thus subject to the whims of the national majority, or, rather, of its ostensible representatives.

It is these representatives who triumph in this or any election, certainly not that fictitious entity “The People.” While it seems obvious that the minority in a democracy is openly thwarted, the question is, do the elected representatives at least carry out the will of the majority?

The answer is No. The People’s representatives have carte blanche to do exactly as they please. As Benjamin Barber wrote:

It is hard to find in all the daily activities of bureaucratic administration, judicial legislation, executive leadership, and paltry policy-making anything that resembles citizen engagement in the creation of civic communities and in the forging of public ends. Politics has become what politicians do; what citizens do (when they do anything) is to vote for politicians.

In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy E. Barnett further homes in on why the informed voter ought to have little incentive to exercise his “democratic right”:

If we vote for a candidate and she wins, we have consented to the laws she votes for, but we have also consented to the laws she has voted against.

If we vote against the candidate and she wins, we have consented to the laws she votes for or against.

And if we do not vote at all, we have consented to the outcome of the process whatever it may be.

This “rigged contest” Barnett describes as, “‘Heads’ you consent, ‘tails’ you consent, ‘didn’t flip the coin,’ guess what? You consent as well.'”

Update I (Nov. 5): Wrote Michael Oakeshott in The Claims of Politics:

“Political action involves mental vulgarity, not merely because it entails the occurrence and support of those who are mentally vulgar, but because of the simplification of human life implied in even the best of it purposes.”