No, I Didn't

[arisbe]

Vote for Bush. Even though I pulled his lever.

I was voting against the other clown. The one who invented the Internet. The one whose wife wants the government in charge of popular music.

I was wrong.

When the Democrats left office they left behind them at least one strong and effective policy against terrorism. Hijacked aircraft were to be intercepted and forced down. Immediately. No discretion. No exceptions. No excuses. And the world knew it.

On June 1, 2001, Rumsfeld's Pentagon trashed it. Now there would be no interceptions. Except on the order of Donald Rumsfeld. And on September 11 there was no such order. None that we know of. And nobody cares.

So one bright Tuesday morning I stood behind the glass walls of a Manhattan office tower and watched a neighboring tower burn. And then another one.

I don't like Kerry any more than I liked what's his name. But I don't think I'll make the same mistake twice.

Comments

[muelos.livejournal.com]

I realized not that long ago that my voting strategy has always been AGAINST rather than FOR. I always try to craft my vote to keep the worst guy (IMO) out. The candidates that I actually like never, ever make it out of the primaries.

Unhappy Is the Head

[keith418.livejournal.com]

Yes, leaders are always disapointing us one way or the other.

Re: Unhappy Is the Head

[muelos.livejournal.com]

Good point. In the big picture, they're damned if they do, and they're damned if they don't. Different people want different things from their leaders, and they'll always have unrealistic expectations about them.

In a democracy, though, people can do more than complain, they can vote one disappointing politician out and another one in. It largely depends on how you prefer to be disappointed, I think. I'd rather be disappointed by lack of "progress" than by deprivation of liberty, for example.

Damned

[keith418.livejournal.com]

As AC reminds us: "The principle of popular election is a fatal folly; its results are visible in every so-called democracy. The elected man is always the mediocrity; he is the safe man, the sound man, the man who displeases the majority less than any other; and therefore never the genius, the man of progress and illumination."

How can even the most well-meaning of those in a democratic society ever break out of that sort of pattern - of producing leaders more concerned about "safety" than anything else?

Re: Damned

[muelos.livejournal.com]

"Safety" may be less of a concern to our leaders than continued personal standing. War is an excellent excuse for maintaining a grip on power that might otherwise be considered unreasonable. The kind of man who is most likely to achieve and hold power in a democracy is the one who can put on the best show. People want to hear about progress, they want to hear about big ideas and grand, utopian visions, what they don't want to hear about are the boring details, the caveats, the complications, the limitations, and the financing.

How can a democracy break out of the grip of demagogues? Good question. Education might help, but can it ever be sufficient? Who knows?

Education

[keith418.livejournal.com]

Demands many things - like passion, and educators with passionate involvement in their subjects. Those afraid to offend cannot educate.

If you try to please everyone, because you believe everyone to have equally worthwhile opinions, you wind up pleasing no one. Democracies have certain basic contradictions. People who grow up in democratic societies, and embrace their myths, often have trouble challenging themselves away from those ideals - even when they need to.

Some leaders don't really believe in the ideals they are supposed to lead with. They aren't very challenging. This makes them poor leaders.

Re: Education

[muelos.livejournal.com]

Well, I think the U.S. is going to remain a democracy for a while, at least nominally. Given that egalitarianism is one of the fundamental precepts of democracy, any politician who eschews it is going to have to be pretty good at pretending to embrace it if he wants to get the votes he needs.

Bush

[keith418.livejournal.com]

1) Bush think his crusade and policies are morally correct. Therefore, he is less interested in whether they will work or not, than he is in feeling good about the fact that he is a "good person" for making them.

2) Bush surrounded himself with people presenting one basic, and seriously flawed, view of the world. Those dissenting from this view were frozen out - i.e., Colin P., and the ones now writing tell-all books about how messed up his administration was/is. All leaders who surround themselves with yes-men and lickspittles run into this sort of problem. The people he promoted into positions of power were crooks like Chalabi, but he failed - and fails - to see how his own poor understanding contributed to his own problems. He cannot be "wrong" because he's morally right.

3) The Bush government is all about keeping secrets and hiding from pulic accountability. Rather than hold itself accountable for its many errors and flaws, they attempt to cover things up and retreat into more secrecy. This, of course, backfires when the secrets all come out in public. All governments need a certain amount of secrecy, but when leaders are tempted to use a culture of secrets to cover-up their own errors and lapses, they misuse the privilege for ignoble ends.