Good Morning, Michael
Several days ago, I promised to post the rationale for my belief that
partisan politics, as practiced in the United States, are profoundly
anti-democratic. That rationale follows. I hope those who disagree
with my conclusions on the issues listed will describe their dissent, in
detail, on a point-by-point basis.
OVERVIEW
The sage advice attributed to Sun Tzu admonishes us to know our enemies
and to know ourselves. Since our political existence is a natural
manifestation of human activity, the two are mixed. Our circumstances
can hardly be stated more succinctly than, as Walt Kelly's Pogo put it,
"I have met the enemy, and he is US."
If we are to improve our political system, we must look inward as well
as outward. It is futile to rail against our political institutions
unless we are willing to harness our own nature.
The following comments specifically address the role of political
parties in the conduct of the American government, but they also show
our role in the process. Only when we see both sides of the matter will
we be able to design an electoral process that addresses the root of the
problem.
POLITICAL PARTIES
Political parties are quasi-official institutions designed to acquire
the reins of government. They sponsor candidates for public office by
providing the resources needed to conduct a campaign for election. As a
condition of their sponsorship, they require that the candidates support
the party. This gives the party ultimate control of the elected officials.
Our governmental system is defined by our Constitution, and nothing in
our Constitution expresses or implies the need for political parties.
They are an extra-Constitutional invention, devised to advance partisan
interest. George Washington clearly described the nature and danger of
such entities when, speaking of the spirit of partisanship, he said:
"It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble
the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-
founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of
one part against another; foments occasionally riot and
insurrection."
These circumstances were well understood by the framers of our
Constitution. They knew the dangers ideological differences posed and
banned the influence of the most contentious of them by establishing a
separation between church and state. They tried to forestall other
manifestations of partisan action, as well:
"When the Founders of the American Republic wrote the U.S.
Constitution in 1787, they did not envision a role for
political parties in the governmental order. Indeed, they
sought through various constitutional arrangements such as
separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and
indirect election of the president by an electoral college
to insulate the new republic from political parties and
factions."
Professor John F. Bibby
http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf
A party system developed in our nation because our early leaders used
their standing to consolidate their power. Alexander Hamilton and
Thomas Jefferson, two men who were intimately familiar with the way the
non-partisan Constitutional Convention had sidestepped some issues and
compromised others to produce an impressive document, did not have
confidence in the judgment of their peers when they felt their vital
interests were threatened.
Instead, either through ego or fear, they felt compelled to supplant
reason with passion to enforce their will. They rallied support for
their divergent views by forming political parties and creating rules to
preserve them and aid their operation:
"The Democratic-Republicans and Federalists invented the modern
political party -- with party names, voter loyalty,
newspapers, state and local organizations, campaign managers,
candidates, tickets, slogans, platforms, linkages across state
lines, and patronage."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Republican_Party_(United_States)
Which items in that list put the interests of the people above the
interest of the party?
None!
They are part of the minutia of manipulating the public, not for the
benefit of the people or the nation, but for the benefit of those who
control the party. These features advance party interest at the expense
of the public interest. They show how political parties are an
embodiment of human nature; they put self-interest above all other
considerations. They function precisely as a thoughtful person would
expect them to function.
PARTISANSHIP
Partisanship is natural for humans. We seek out and align ourselves
with others who share our views. Through them, we hone our ideas and
gain courage from the knowledge that we are not alone in our beliefs.
Partisanship gives breadth, depth and volume to our voice.
On the other hand, in politics, partisans seek the power to impose their
views on those who don't share them. They denigrate those who think
differently, usually without considering the salient parts of opposing
points of view. Two extreme examples, Communism and National Socialism,
illustrate the natural evolution of parties. Both had features that
attracted broad public support throughout a national expanse. However,
after they gained control of their governments by advocating an ideology
that appealed to many people, they degenerated into destructive forces.
The belief that parties in America are somehow different, that they
are exempt from the natural evolution of ideological associations, in
spite of the compelling evidence that confronts us daily, puts us in peril.
The danger in Communism and National Socialism was not that they
attracted partisan support; it was that the partisans gained control of
government. In general, partisanship is healthy when it helps give
voice to our views. It is destructive when it achieves power. All
ideologies, whether of the right or the left, differ from Communism and
National Socialism only in the extent to which their partisans are able
to impose their biases on the public. The danger is not partisanship,
it is allowing partisans to control government.
However, as noted, we are naturally partisan. So our challenge, if we
are to avoid the severe penalties that flow from the natural evolution
of partisanship, is to create a political system that is not dependent
on, or controlled by, political parties. We must insure that
partisanship is always a voice and never a power.
OLIGARCHIC PARTY STRUCTURE
The political parties that control all political activity in the United
States are in no sense democratic. The American people do not elect
those who control the parties. In fact, most Americans don't even know
who they are. They are appointed by their party and serve at the
party's pleasure. We, the people the parties are supposed to represent,
have no control over who these people are, how long they serve, or the
deals they make to raise the immense amounts of money they use to keep
their party in power. They constitute a ruling elite above and beyond
the reach of the American people.
When we allow politicians to arrogate to themselves the ability to write
the rules by which political power is maintained, they use that control
to guarantee their own ascendancy. That is how those who control our
political parties usurped our right to govern ourselves. It is a
tragedy that so few of us recognize (or are willing to acknowledge) that
we have relinquished our right to govern ourselves to unknown people who
proclaim themselves our agents.
CORRUPTION
Corruption pervades our political system because the parties control the
selection of candidates for public office. Candidates are not chosen for
their integrity, they are chosen after they demonstrate their
willingness and ability to dissemble, to obfuscate and to mislead the
electorate. They are chosen when they prove they will renounce principle
and sacrifice honor for the benefit of their party.
The result is a circular process that rejects virtue and is ruled by
cynicism:
* Candidates for public office cannot mount a viable campaign
without party sponsorship, so they obtain sponsorship by
agreeing to the party's terms.
* The party, assured of the loyalty of its candidates, attracts
donors because it can promise that its candidates will support
the objectives set by the party, i.e., the goals of the donors.
* From the donors, the party obtains the resources it needs to
attract appealing candidates and bind them to the party's will.
This cycle makes political parties conduits for corruption. Businesses,
labor unions and other vested interests give immense amounts of money
and logistical support to political parties to push their agenda and to
secure the passage of laws that benefit the donors. The political
parties meet their commitment to the donors by picking politicians who
can be relied upon to enact the laws and implement the policies the
donors' desire. The politicians so selected are the least principled of
our citizens, but are the only choices available to the American people
in our "free" elections.
None of this is a secret. The parties conduct their business with our
knowledge and tacit approval. We know, full well, how they operate. We
know about the 'party bosses', 'pork barrels', 'party loyalty', 'slush
funds', 'party whips', and the whole lexicon of political manipulation.
Since we know these things exist and do not prevent them, we are
responsible for the very corruption we decry.
THE MYTH OF CORRUPTIBILITY
Some believe we cannot remove corruption from our political systems
because humans are corruptible. Why should we believe such a canard?
We are misled by the high visibility of deceit and corruption in our
culture. The idea that it is inescapable leads to the self-defeating
notion that trying to correct it is futile.
The reality is that the vast majority of humans are honorable,
law-abiding people. They have to be, for society could not exist
otherwise. By far, the greater percentage of our friends, our
relatives, our co-workers and our neighbors are trustworthy people.
The reason our political leaders are corrupt is that party politics
elevates unscrupulous people by design. Since the goal of a party is to
advance its own interest, it rewards those who do so unfettered by the
restraints of honor. Once these unprincipled people achieve leadership
they infect our society because morality is a top-down phenomenon.
The idea that we can't remove corruption from our political systems
because we are corruptible is nonsense. It is a myth. The vast
majority of our peers are honest, principled people. When we make
probity a primary concern in our electoral process, the pervasiveness of
dishonesty in our society will diminish.
PASSION VERSUS INTELLECT
Political parties appeal to emotion by applying the principles of
behavioral science to manipulate the public. They mount, finance and
staff campaigns designed to inflame the passions of the electorate.
The cynicism underlying this phenomenon beggars the imagination. A few
years ago, warnings about Weapons of Mass Destruction incited us to
support our country's invasion of a sovereign nation, causing the death
of thousands of our own people and devastation of the nation we invaded.
Today, we are deluged with warnings about the threat to our financial
system, while our representatives ladle out our money (and the money of
our progeny) to the very people who created the problem (and enriched
themselves in the process) (a tiny hint of the connivance of our elected
officials in this debacle was described in the Barron's article I
mentioned in my 02/09/09 post to Juho on the "language/framing quibble"
thread).
When, long after the fact, the truth emerges, the people are presented
with a fait accompli. This sequence is repeated, over and over, ad
nauseum, with the debilitating effect that we become inured to it.
Instead of being outraged, we start to believe, "You can't fight city hall."
Well, we can fight city hall. We need not accept such outrages. We can
change the process by which unprincipled people are elected ... if and
when we have the energy to design and implement a better system.
CAMPAIGNING
A large part of the appeal to emotion at the expense of reason is
associated with campaigning. Communication during election campaigns is
one-way. There is no genuine attempt to consult the public interest and
the serious issues are seldom raised during a campaign. Surveys are
conducted to find "hot buttons" which generate a desired response and
professionals use the information to mold "messages" the candidates and
the parties feed the public in a flood of misinformation. It is a
rabble-rousing technique.
Intelligent decisions require dialogue; assertions must be examined, not
in the sterile environment of a televised debate, but in depth. The
electorate must be able to examine candidates and discuss matters of
public concern, and, with the knowledge so gained, make decisions. Amid
the clamor of political campaigns, we have no opportunity to do so.
SEPARATION OF POWERS
The U. S. Constitution separated the powers of government in such a way
as to operate as checks upon each other. Political parties easily
defeat this "Separation of Powers". They force our public officials to
vote en bloc on crucial issues, making a mockery of the safeguards we
rely on to protect our freedoms. When a single group of people with a
common interest succeeds in controlling multiple branches of our
government, it is ludicrous to imagine we have a system of checks and
balances (as is vividly shown by our experience with the deadly effects
of single party dominance.)
SEEKING IMPROVEMENT
Political parties, in their omnivorous quest for power have, during my
lifetime, gone a long way toward destroying the greatness of my
homeland. Unrestrained, they will succeed.
Are not the degradation of our national government in recent years and
the horrors of our present financial debacle enough evidence of the
depravity of party politics? We certainly have the means to devise a
better system, a system based on reason rather than passion. Do we lack
the intellect?
Those who seek good government need not tolerate the corruption of party
politics. We do not need partisanship, which sets one person against
another; we need independent representatives who will think for
themselves and reach intelligent decisions on matters of public concern.
In other words, to improve our government, we must change the way we
select our representatives.
Political systems are always an embodiment of human nature. If we are
to prevent the excesses that flow naturally from our nature, we must
apply the principles used by the framers of our Constitution to the
circumstances of our time. We must learn to harness our own nature, or
we will improve neither our politics nor our society. Since we can not
divorce our political institutions from our own nature, we must make
virtue a desirable attribute in those who seek political advancement.
That may be difficult ... but it is not impossible. We have the
technological ability to build a better system. We must use it.
The foregoing comments explain why I believe party politics are
profoundly anti-democratic. I hope those who disagree with this
assessment will explain how it errs, in detail. I'd like to be able to
consider other points of view before suggesting a way we can select
better representatives. Perhaps that will seed the careful analysis and
discussion necessary for the delineation of a more democratic electoral
method ... a political system that puts public interest above
partisanship; a method that responds to vested interests but is not
controlled by them.
Fred Gohlke
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