The End of Illusions About Democracy?

There’s no magic about democracy. Merely having formal democratic procedures gains you nothing but a more vulgarized class of political exploiters. Political machines will use those procedures, at least when they decay into populism, to gain control of the electoral processes that they might use governments to provide services for their clients. Honest, courageous politicians will be few and far between since the machines will have a strong incentive to weed out any possible candidates who have moral integrity. For what it’s worth, this was and is my main reason for a strong skepticism about Governor Palin — I have confidence the Republican Party bureaucracy wouldn’t have allowed her to be chosen unless they already owned her soul or knew it was up for sale for a price they were willing to pay.

When democracy, or any other system, works, it’s because of men like George Washington who are willing to take a moral stand and worry about the consequences afterwards and a Washington will succeed only if men of lesser stature but significant moral integrity are willing to follow him.

The moral integrity which can found a good polity, democracy or other, consists of a willingness to give life or fortune to do what’s right. Americans, and nearly all those of the modern West, are far more likely to decide before hand how they wish to live and then to look at the possible moral stances they can take. When we make our decisions in this way, most of us will naturally choose a prosperous and orderly life, unless we’re in that small band who need danger. This is why we need to take the first step with our moral foot rather than our calculating foot. If we’re lucky, we can do what’s right and also be blessed with a prosperous and orderly life, but we can’t assume such.

Somewhere, Mark Twain pointed out that Americans, given a choice, don’t really choose to engage in activities that might be a part of any Heaven conceivable under Christian beliefs. In the context of his work, he was speaking of a more general belief that Americans talk a good moral talk but make their major decisions on the basis of self-interest. Those who know much about Mark Twain know his main moral allergies were set off by the middle-class who choose their moral rules according to the amount of support they give to a safe, comfortable life. Sins are allowed so long as they don’t endanger safety, comfort, and middle-class respectability. In other words, Mark Twain was talking the sort of fellow who could be very upset about teenage promiscuity and abortion in the United States and would also support the use of criminal military technology such as napalm against other human beings, even civilian populations. Such a man is more interested in maintaining property values than he is in serving God and man. Such a man is more interested in bourgeois respectability than he is in carrying his cross. Modern democracies seem to have produced masses of such creatures who are usually pleasant and neighborly while being morally stunted, at least by Christian standards.

Does democracy really nurture such men, encouraging them to become the sorts of cowards who place no value on any state that might be truly labeled ‘freedom’ because such a state carries risks of suffering or at least lack of luxuries? Does democracy merely allow such men to reveal themselves as such? Is the real problem the sort of populist democracy favored in the modern West, a democracy which sighed in relief when moral giants such as George Washington grew old and gave up power? “Now, we can choose the sorts of self-serving scoundrels who will flatter and bribe.”

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Who engaged in the orgy of profiteering that led to the gutting of our banking industry, our construction and real-estate industries, perhaps our insurance industry, and even much of our manufacturing industry?

Us.

Who has taught many peoples about the globe to hate and fear the United States and its citizens when those peoples mostly admired us and mostly trusted us not so many years ago?

Us.

Who unleashed the corporations who did so much to corrupt our children and our own selves with truly mind-numbing and perverse entertainment?

Us.

We have met the enemy and he is us. And he looks like an ugly and cowardly beast in that mirror.

Let’s stop talking about democracy as if it were a primary good and start talking about moral integrity. It might be an embarrassing and humbling conversation, but it might also be the beginning of a cleansing of American souls and slso our public squares.

Explore posts in the same categories: Moral issues, political fraud, politics, The U.S. vs. the World

Tags: Moral issues, political fraud, politics, The U.S. vs. the World

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