Friday, March 15, 2013
more awesomeness from Bruce
Bruce Wilder 03.14.13 at 7:26 am
Conservative Republicans do not want the elected government to govern. They don’t want to govern, even when they, themselves, are elected!
Look at the young Republican leadership in the House. They are all celebrity spokes-model politicians, preening for their photo-ops, working-out, tending their tans and their hairlines. Not one of them has any interest, whatsoever, in the actual, responsible exercise of political power. They’re there to read the lines written for them by lobbyists and enact the programs and budgets desired by the business corporations.
Their conservative libertarian economic philosophy is laissez faire. They really don’t think the government should be responsible for much of anything, beyond blowing things — and terrorists — up, in far-off lands. Many do not want to concede to the state, even a monopoly on legitimate violence, domestically.
Accountability to an electorate hardly matters, if you don’t think the government should be doing anything for people. The “47%” in such circumstances are just rent-seeking welfare cheats — how could they be anything else, if government has no legitimate role in providing public goods or social insurance? Or, policing markets? Frustrating “the takers” is a public duty.
If all taxes on business and all regulation of business is a dead-weight loss, a burden, that holds back “growth”, then opposition to taxes and regulation is opposition, in essence, to government.
If you do think that government should be doing much of anything, and certainly nothing in opposition to the rich and the powerful business corporations, then what’s democracy, except a potentially hazardous and largely superfluous exercise in public relations and propaganda? The “popular will” is just an expression of the madness of crowds, of a potential mob, which should be frustrated for the good (of all who matter).
The election of a Congress, to a conservative Republican, in accordance with democratic norms, is, at best, an ceremonial exercise, a ritual of the civic religion, of little more practical significance than the election of a Pope. Sure, they might be annoyed that so many on the left are proud as pumpkins to have elected a black man, President, and may be that indicates racist resentiments. And, maybe it’s just an opportunity to demagogue their authoritarian followers, to whom racist ideas make intuitive sense.
But, the big picture, with regard to their anti-democratic tendency, is neither racism nor a certain cavalier cynicism toward the forms of electoral democracy. The big picture is that these conservatives seek a neo-feudal of domination of the political economy by billionaires and the emergent caste of corporate CEOs.
Politics is an opportunity for celebrity fame, not public service, in the service of social and economic domination, for individual, personal gain, at the expense of the undeserving and probably ungrateful mass of losers.
19
Bruce Wilder 03.14.13 at 7:29 am
If you do NOT think that government should be doing much . . .
Bruce Wilder 03.14.13 at 7:41 am
A plutocracy and a democracy cannot co-exist in the same country. You have to choose. You are for the plutocracy or you are against. The Republicans have chosen. Most non-partisans and most Democrats, too, refuse to even admit that plutocracy-or-democracy is a mutually exclusive choice being pressed upon them. They want to pretend that we can have a high-minded debate over the role of government, that we all want the good of the country, but simply differ ideologically over policy means, and can arrive at compromises that “move us forward”. And, if we are frustrated, we can blame the other side for being “racist”, as if financialization of economy by an elite of parasites has anything to do with race.
22
Bruce Wilder 03.14.13 at 7:46 am
The essence of democracy is not arithmetic, but government of the people, by the people and for the people: a government, which is responsible and accountable for defending, policing and developing the commons and the commonwealth, and which respects every individual as a person, and acknowledges that the vast majority are capable, or can be made capable, of self-government, individually and in community.
Bruce Wilder 03.14.13 at 7:26 am
Conservative Republicans do not want the elected government to govern. They don’t want to govern, even when they, themselves, are elected!
Look at the young Republican leadership in the House. They are all celebrity spokes-model politicians, preening for their photo-ops, working-out, tending their tans and their hairlines. Not one of them has any interest, whatsoever, in the actual, responsible exercise of political power. They’re there to read the lines written for them by lobbyists and enact the programs and budgets desired by the business corporations.
Their conservative libertarian economic philosophy is laissez faire. They really don’t think the government should be responsible for much of anything, beyond blowing things — and terrorists — up, in far-off lands. Many do not want to concede to the state, even a monopoly on legitimate violence, domestically.
Accountability to an electorate hardly matters, if you don’t think the government should be doing anything for people. The “47%” in such circumstances are just rent-seeking welfare cheats — how could they be anything else, if government has no legitimate role in providing public goods or social insurance? Or, policing markets? Frustrating “the takers” is a public duty.
If all taxes on business and all regulation of business is a dead-weight loss, a burden, that holds back “growth”, then opposition to taxes and regulation is opposition, in essence, to government.
If you do think that government should be doing much of anything, and certainly nothing in opposition to the rich and the powerful business corporations, then what’s democracy, except a potentially hazardous and largely superfluous exercise in public relations and propaganda? The “popular will” is just an expression of the madness of crowds, of a potential mob, which should be frustrated for the good (of all who matter).
The election of a Congress, to a conservative Republican, in accordance with democratic norms, is, at best, an ceremonial exercise, a ritual of the civic religion, of little more practical significance than the election of a Pope. Sure, they might be annoyed that so many on the left are proud as pumpkins to have elected a black man, President, and may be that indicates racist resentiments. And, maybe it’s just an opportunity to demagogue their authoritarian followers, to whom racist ideas make intuitive sense.
But, the big picture, with regard to their anti-democratic tendency, is neither racism nor a certain cavalier cynicism toward the forms of electoral democracy. The big picture is that these conservatives seek a neo-feudal of domination of the political economy by billionaires and the emergent caste of corporate CEOs.
Politics is an opportunity for celebrity fame, not public service, in the service of social and economic domination, for individual, personal gain, at the expense of the undeserving and probably ungrateful mass of losers.
19
Bruce Wilder 03.14.13 at 7:29 am
If you do NOT think that government should be doing much . . .
Bruce Wilder 03.14.13 at 7:41 am
A plutocracy and a democracy cannot co-exist in the same country. You have to choose. You are for the plutocracy or you are against. The Republicans have chosen. Most non-partisans and most Democrats, too, refuse to even admit that plutocracy-or-democracy is a mutually exclusive choice being pressed upon them. They want to pretend that we can have a high-minded debate over the role of government, that we all want the good of the country, but simply differ ideologically over policy means, and can arrive at compromises that “move us forward”. And, if we are frustrated, we can blame the other side for being “racist”, as if financialization of economy by an elite of parasites has anything to do with race.
22
Bruce Wilder 03.14.13 at 7:46 am
The essence of democracy is not arithmetic, but government of the people, by the people and for the people: a government, which is responsible and accountable for defending, policing and developing the commons and the commonwealth, and which respects every individual as a person, and acknowledges that the vast majority are capable, or can be made capable, of self-government, individually and in community.
# posted by Frank @ 11:01 PM 
