Why it's going to be hard to rebuld the United States that was

[pecunium]

Democracy is hard. It is, in fact, probably the hardest system of goverment people have tried.

It is fundamentally unstable. Get a large enough group together, and it will fail, because it becomes too unwieldy (the estimates of largest stable size which come to me are about 5,000 people; for direct, one person: one vote, on all decisions of note). Too many people, and too much lag time in the making of decisions, as well as the ablity for a demagogue to sway a majority, and so oppress a large enough minority that things fall apart.

We get around this, in the modern age of large states, but having a system which puts my vote in the hand of another, who is holding a number of other proxies. This has flaws too, because the population can get so large that either the number of proxies is guaranteed to make it impossible to satisfy the constiuency, or the number of delgates to the "thing" will become too large to get business done.

But, so long as some criteria are met, these are both survivable.

But, right now, according to this poll of Rightwing bloggers, it seems we're screwed.

First, the good news. This is a small, and non-random poll of self-responders, so it's not likely to be really accurate.

If it is, the one of the fundamental requirements of democracy is in grave danger.

Do you think that a majority of Democrats in Congress would like to see us lose in Iraq for political reasons?

Yes (53)-- 84%
No (10) -- 16%

That's a terrifying ratio.

Because the primary belief required of the citizens of a democracy is that the general interest of all is pointed in the same direction. That those in political opposition aren't evil, merely mistaken, at worst misguided. It's why democracies value a level of homogeniety; why the myth of the melting pot is so strong in the United States.

When a significant part of the population believes the rest aren't looking out for common interests... the system is in trouble. If the belief gets to be too large, if too many of the minority come to this way of thinking, that state is doomed.

A smaller number, will leave. A larger number will foment discontent. In some cases they will rebel. The U.S. did this to create itself. Later it had several rebellions testing just what the social contracts were (Shay's and The Whiskey Rebellions, as well as the Civil War).

The things these bloggers believe isn't that the "Democrats" think the war is lost, fruitless, a waste of blood, treasure and stature in the world; no, they think the "Liberals" want us to lose, and so lose place in the world and become a lesser power.

They don't believe this is because of a difference of opinion, or understanding... they think it is being done, just to gain political power, and lord it over them.

That's a problem, even if they are just a small segment of the Republican Party it's a problem, because these are the people who have the pulpit. They weren't chosen at random, they were chosen because they have fame. They are shapers of seconday opinion and this is a corrosive idea.

If this is what they believe, they are likely to poison the well, and make a happy medium impossible, which will further the spread of this way of thinking, and so the cycle will continue, until the strain is more than can be borne, and the United States could pass from the stage.

Comments

[firepower.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely spot-on. I still think it's going to become a truism that the real enemies are within.

People who think that the administration started this war to turn on the cash spigots to CACI and Halliburton...I don't really have a rejoinder to that. And I don't really have a rejoinder to the notion that Democrats are nothing more than bellwethers of public opinion, espousing whatever they think will propel them into power, up to and including stopping the war in Iraq.

I weirdly see more value in both of these propositions than in the ideas that we're in Iraq for "the long term," because we're not, or to "support the troops," because we don't, or that we're there to "give them democracy," because that wasn't the reason either. Wishful thinking doesn't change the fact that we went on this adventure because we wanted a vision of national unity without having to engage the real and worsening problems of everyday Americans' lives. I see both extremes as presenting valid views...and moderate assertions about the war as invalid, boring, selectively blind, opportunistic, avaricious and cowardly.

There are great reasons to tear this country apart coming from both ends of the spectrum, and little but cynicism from the center.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

You wrote:

When a significant part of the population believes the rest aren't looking out for common interests... the system is in trouble. If the belief gets to be too large, if too many of the minority come to this way of thinking, that state is doomed.

I am seeing that in the reaction to the lack of federal response to the Feb. 24 tornado in Dumas Arkansas. FEMA has been slow to non-responsive in helping this city get back on its feet, and our congressional delegation thinks that the problem might be political- our state 'flipped' Democrat this past election. I heard it not only from the state House member, but also from our senators, the governor, and the congressmen. FEMA basically told us that we're on our own, citing out state's budget surplus as the main reason that they won't help out financially. OTOH, they rushed to help out the tornado victims in Georgia and Alabama- both Republican strongholds. It's gotten really ugly.

The well is being poisoned even as we speak. Between things like this and the onslaught of the theocratic right into government, I don't see a bright future for this country. It isn't a 'liberal' thing at all- it's religious.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Empires grow. Empires decline. That is the lesson of history. Those who refuse to learn the lessons of history - usually because of a believe that they actually HAVE learned those lessons, or were chosen by their god and so the lessons don't apply to them - are condemned to learn those lessons the hard way.

That's the lesson of history.

Another lesson of history is that a receipe for screwing the body politic is to be ruled by aristocrats. Hint, you don't have to have 'lord' before your name to be an aristocrat.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I'm unclear as to what "lose in Iraq" might mean at this point.

[qp4.livejournal.com]

In the parlance of the day I tend to lean towards the "liberal" ideaology. If I voted it would probably be Democrat.

That said I tend to believe there are "liberals" that want us to lose the war. I tend to believe there are a large number of our countrymen out of perhaps some misplaced sense of guilt about their own lives that hate the United States. Much as a depressed person hates and wishes harm on their self.

WoW!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

I like this post, but isn't the poll just a way of asking a question to ensure the answer? "When did you stop beating your wife?"

While I agree with what you say, I find it hard to recast the Bushies' desire for war in Iraq in any way that means the well has not already been poisoned. Their desire for the general interest never seems to coincide with mine, and I distrust their motives and "common good" probably as much as they do mine.

At least it caused me to look up Spengler before I commented, but it does seem we're at the late stage of empire & fruiting.

[sethg]

I am reminded of a tip from Daniel Davies' One-Minute MBA class:

"Fibbers' forecasts are worthless. Case after miserable case after bloody case we went through, I tell you, all of which had this moral. Not only that people who want a project will tend to make innacurate projections about the possible outcomes of that project, but about the futility of attempts to 'shade' downward a fundamentally dishonest set of predictions. If you have doubts about the integrity of a forecaster, you can't use their forecasts at all. Not even as a 'starting point'."

I think this principle can be applied to the poll you cite. Look at the first paragraph:

"Right Wing News emailed more than 240 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to answer 8 questions. The following 63 blogs responded,..."

We don't know that the 63 respondents are a fair sample of the 240 who were polled, and we know that the right-wing blogosphere is not a fair sample of America. So I don't see how we can project from that poll and know how many readers take those blogs seriously, or how many Americans actually see "the Democrat party" as an Enemy Within that must be neutralized. We can't even use the poll as a starting point for an estimate.

We certainly know that there are some Americans who think that way, and some of them can be very very dangerous. But we didn't need a poll to tell us that; just ask anyone who worked in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building--or any doctor who performs abortions.

My wife was on the Brandeis riflery team, and she says that after she is no longer nursing, she'd like to join a gun club and brush up on her skills. I'm hoping that I'll be able to take some classes, too...because we need a few more Democrats in this country who know how to handle firearms. :-/ (There's a T-shirt design in there somewhere...)

Insufficient information to conclude "these bloggers believe isn't..."

[(Anonymous)]

Quite possibly these bloggers believe both that "a majority of Democrats in Congress would like to see us lose in Iraq for political reasons" and also that "the war is lost, fruitless, a waste of blood, treasure and stature in the world." Granted support for a surge implies some degree of hope but I suspect some (e.g. Pickett and Skorzeny respectively) supported the various gambles of Pickett's Charge or the Battle of the Bulge without any real faith either would succeed.

It is quite true that many Americans, including some of today's Congresscritters, celebrated the fall of Saigon and did in fact "like to see us lose" in Vietnam for political reasons - and that regardless of whether the ARVN would or would not have repelled the NVA invasion if given the aid then President Ford requested. This makes credible, at least in the sense of not impossible, a notion that Congresscritters "would like to see us lose in Iraq for political reasons."

Curiously enough some Congressional Democrats who speak for an immediate exit from Iraq also speak in favor of intervention in Darfur without making it clear why there are greater prospects for success in Darfur.

For another example of the defects of Democracy consider the Washington Post which finds it intolerable that the District should be prevented from imposing the will of the people by so slight a thing as the Bill of Rights.

"We get around this, in the modern age of large states, but having a system which puts my vote in the hand of another, who is holding a number of other proxies." Consider too the difference between Burkean Representation and the notion of implied referendum in which the proxy holder truly votes proxies - that is the representative's vote in assembly is weighted by the number of supporters not by district.

CEM

[blackbirdcd.livejournal.com]

The country, as a whole, needs to get through this with some level of healthy dialogue. If it does not, then it will crumble into a miserable shadow barely resembling its former self. That may be what it takes to set the stage for a superior replacement.

I doubt we'll have a total collapse of the Federal State, but we may have enough of an economic downslide to pull the entire nation off of the superpower list.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of similarities to the race problem, here in the UK and in the USA. And I think terrorism-fear is fuelling it. The rhetoric of immigration--even entirely legal immigration and migrant workers, as is happening in the UK--is based on an us-and-them worldview of the sort that can wreck democracy. They aren't like us. We don't have to listen to them...

And it doesn't take many people to react to that, to feel that they don't have a voice, and so have to do something, for terrorism to happen without any need for a James Bond villain pulling the strings. Guy Fawkes didn't need a Blofeld or a bin Laden.

As for the survey that sparked your posting, it's likely so full of holes that you could use it as a fishing net. It's so loaded a question that you'd be drummed out of Las Vegas if you were caught with it in a casino.

[chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, go to the November archives of all those right wing blogs, and you will find hundreds upon hundreds of comments (occasionally by the bloggers themselves) about how states that went "Defeatocrat" DESERVE to get bombed by terrorists. Yet suggesting that Republicans want Terrorists to attack the US for political purposes is considered ridiculous...

[droops.livejournal.com]

I've seen that attitude (us v. them) expressed by both parties and by people of all different types of political belief. It has been manifesting itself on the national level for decades, and has worked it's way down into the state and local levels too. It isn't all-pervasive, but it does have an insidious effect over time.