September 30, 2008
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Democracy Failed?
So… I made the near fatal error of listening to the news the last few days. It’s a wonder I’m still around. But todays news and the news late last night particularly annoyed me.
You see the topic of discussion was the so called Wall Steet Bailout bill and the refrain of the day was “what went wrong?” and “how could it not have passed?”, and “who screwed up?” and the likes. People called it a “failure of leadership”. And they attacked all the people who voted against it.
And that’d all be fine, EXCEPT at the same time they would say how public opinion is OVERWHELMINGLY against the bill. The stories would speak about how representatives would get phone calls, letters, and emails from their constituent and 99% of those were AGAINST the bill.
So here’s the obvious question… if a democracy represents the will of the people, and the people are against the bill and the bill fails, how exactly is that a failure of the system!?!?!
It seems to me that that’s by definition representative democracy of work. If the representatives listen to the phone calls and letters and emails of their constitutents then they are in fact doing their jobs! If they don’t, then they are presuming that they know better than their constituents and arrogantly making policy independently of the whims of the people who just happen to have voted them into office.
The news programs though seemed to see things differently. They asked the question “how could leadership fail to convince the public of the necessity of the bailout?” A sort of who screwed dialectic. Isn’t that interesting? The very wording of the question presumes the truth of it. That the bill is necessary. That it is a good plan and that we can’t come up with anything better. Assumptions that, most Americans apparently don’t agree with.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not endorsing or rejecting the bill personally. I’m saying that even if the bill is the best thing for the economy if the people don’t believe it to be so, the bill ought not be passed. The economy can take a hit. Even if we all suffer as a consequence, the principles of democracy ought to supersede any particular crises of the moment. If they do not, then at the first sign of danger we might as well turn our government over to the nearest maniacal dictator and wish our problems away.
The goal of leaders ought not to be to “convince” their constitutents to agree with them, nor should it be to act renegade against the will of their people. Rather the goal of the leaders ought to be to educate the public of the facts and let the people come to their own conclusion. Then once the people have come to a conclusion, their job should be to *implement* it.
Anything less is an oligarchy of fools. And the jokes on us.
Comments (6)
True true true! (and why should the cash cows of wallstreet complain? theyre the ones who got the bad mortgages anyway! They shouldnt complain about a bad financial venture!) it was their fault to begin with, let them suffer! Why ought we pay for (more) taxes? =/
and rant
sorry…ive been too lazy to read most entries xD
we have lobbyists. that’s why we get screwed.
In case there’s a sudden opening for maniacal dictator? I’m pretty good with a switchblade. Just puttin’ that on the table…
I hope no one invades America with the aim of overthrowing our regime and giving us democracy. XP
well, it’s like in california… we vote on pretty much everything, we need therapy, i know. but there was this one bill for gay marriage.. 2/3 of voters in california voted against it. I know, we’re liberal and weird like that.
so what happens? they take that issue to the california supreme court. The court overrulled what the people voted and made gay marriage legal.
now the bill is up again, to make gay marriage illegal. Why? b/c the freaking people who voted against it are PISSED that their vote was overturned by one person; a judge.
so i hear ya.
anyway, as for the whole voting debacle… i don’t get how the Democrats are blaming the republicans for this not passing, when they have the majority of the seats in the House and 40% of the democrats voted AGAINST it. i mean, seriously… even IF all the House republicans voted, it would have FAILED b/c 40% of the Dems voted against it. lol.
the logic escapes me. Politicians…dems and reps, must think we’re stupid.. and you know what? i don’t blame them.. my friend, a dem, was just today, blaming the reps for the Bailout Bill failing… and i’m like… WHAT??? come on, stop believing everything your party says and THINK for a moment.
i say let the markets crash, and learn a lesson.
what i also don’t get is… Dodd, chairman of the banking committee voted back in 2005 against reforming the housing rules/regulations, etc… saying that the housing market was healthy, etc.
now what i’m suspicious about is… the reps aren’t mentioning this at all!! that the bush/reps pushed for housing reform in 2005, and the dems blocked it! why aren’t the reps talking about it? it’d be like their perfect defense! unless, they did somethign equally screwy and made a unsaid deal with the dems not to mention it, if the dems don’t mention something the reps did. lol.
politicians all!
@MayoKetchup - umm honestly I hate the partisan finger pointing. I don’t give a damn which “party” is to blame. That’s just absurd. This isn’t a game. It’s not us versus them. It’s about the future of our country. But Democrats and Republicans have both been VERY quick to blame the other side repeatedly for the “failure” of this bill. Which is doubly stupid to me since the bill failing might not BE a bad thing. And from the perspective of the people it ISN’T a bad thing. So surely you should decide what is bad before you start assigning blame?
That said what you said about Democrats failing to pass the bill is somewhat vague so I want to clarify what exactly happened. The bill failed 228 to 205 with 1 no vote.
The democrats the vote was 140 YES, 95 NO. The Republicans the vote was 65 YES, 133 NO and 1 NO VOTE.
Some things about that. Only 12 switched votes would have been enough to pass the bill. So it’s not true that even if all the republicans had voted for the bill the bill would have still failed. Had but 12 democrats or republicans or some mixture of the two voted yes instead of no it would have passed.
Secondly, the deal hammered out over the weekend it was said to have been said that the Democrats promised to deliver 140 to 150 YES votes whereas the republicans promised to deliver 75 YES votes. I guess they sort of hoped that would be enough. So, if that’s true, (it’s been reported several times in the media and no one is denying it) the Democrats barely made their goal and the Republicans missed theirs by ten.
But again like I said, I don’t care. Personally I’m more proud of the people Democrats and Republicans who voted AGAINST the bill.
The Gay Marriage thing is a little different thoguh. Judges interpret the law they don’t make it. So they aren’t supposed to follow the will of the people, rather they are supposed to decide based on the logical facts of what the laws SAY. Which in the case of CA law and most state statutes, the laws really do allow for gay marriage. That is, the laws don’t allow the state to discriminate based on sexual orientation. That being said, although I believe in Gay Marriage, if the people DON’T and they vote for representatives that support that belief then I think it’s fine for those representatives to implement laws that deny people the right to gay marriage. I think that the people are wrong and the representatives are wrong in that case about what is morally right. But again, I’m consistent, I dont’ care. The principles of supporting Democracy are more important. If we aren’t ready to tolerate gay marriage then we have to keep working to create a world where people can rather than trying to force laws upon people against their will.
BTW the housing regulation you speak of were not going to prevent this crisis. It was the overturning of other rules (systematically implemented during Clinton, Reagon, Bush 1, Carter, AND Bush II administrations) that caused most of the trouble.