The Infidel quotes a great article from The Economist about liberalism, noting that no one seems to represent true liberalism at the moment. The article ends with this line:
"All we need now is the political party."
Slam dunk.
I'm increasingly disenchanted with our (effectively) two-party system. We need a bit more chaos in the ranks, not to mention more palatable options that actually reflect where people stand. If we had more political parties, one of the first casualties, Allah be praised, would be the milquetoast (and largely dishonest) centrism that affects so much of current politics. Politicians from many parties would be able to argue for their agendas with far more conviction and far less pressure to compromise their principles, which would be based on narrower party platforms.
The intensity of political crossfire in such an environment would be, in my opinion, therapeutic (at least until small parties started to form huge coalitions, leading us back to something like a two-party system again).
Today's politicians are called on simultaneously to play to their constitutents and to skew centerward. The constitutents themselves (i.e., we, the people) are ideologically squeezed, especially in the Democratic party, where a single nominee is somehow supposed to represent all the diverse interests under the "big tent." None of this is salubrious for the nation, in my opinion.
So, yeah-- another major political party (or two, or five, or ten) might be nice. Do you, Dear Reader, think it'll happen, or are people too damn loyal to their elephants and donkeys? And another question: if we had more political parties, do you think it'd be harder for a presidential nominee to argue that his views represent the most people and/or the best course for the nation? While I'm in favor of diversity (whether we're talking politics, art, or cheese), I'd also like to explore diversity's limits.
Switching gears...
The Marmot picks up the "values" question as well. In his recent post on the subject, he recoils from the Christian right and from Bill Bennett's virtue-claims. He writes:
Granted, people have been warning of the great Christian coup since Reagan, and while I've been back to the States only once in the last eight years, last time I checked, A Handmaid's Tale it wasn't. For that matter, we survived eight years of Clinton without the nation becoming a people's republic or Roman orgies in the streets. I'm going to assume for now this is nothing more than post-election gloating from some quarters of the GOP (who probably had a lot less influence on the election results than they're given credit for) and scare-mongering from some quarters of the Democratic Party.
I'm glad to see that conservatives are disengaging themselves from Bennett's claim and keeping the focus where it rightly belongs: on the war. None of this is to suggest that values played no role in the election, but I think they were over-hyped by this whole exit poll nonsense.
I'm leery of liberal generalizations that lump conservatives together in the "dumb hick religious bigot" category. I think there are some dumb religious hicks among the conservatives, but they aren't the whole story. I'm just as leery of the conservative attempt to paint liberals as over-idealistic religion-haters. Considering how hard-fought this campaign was by both sides, it should be obvious that the liberals include among their number quite a few well-grounded pragmatists. It should also be obvious that, while the black vote skews almost totally lib/Dem at election time, many blacks are, in fact, religiously conservative. The lib/Dem camp isn't entirely composed of religion-haters. All generalizations should be taken with a grain of salt-- including the one in this very sentence!
Annika gives me the shout-out and writes:
The truth is, though traditional "values" motivated a lot of Bush voters, the argument that "values" won the election ignores young conservatives like me. i recognize that gay marriage prohibition will likely die a natural death within my lifetime, and i'm more focused on the fact that there's a bunch of people out there who want to kill me. That, more than anything else, was why Bush got my vote.
And now: the postal scrotum! (That's "mail bag" for you linguistically uptight fuckers.)
Scott emails:
Hi Kevin,
You're right, I think I over-read your points before regarding "values and ownership". I think we are in heated agreement the claimed ownership is, at best, a red-herring. Or broadcast masturbation used to fill time. A surprise, I know, that the tv news would waste our time. But still....
Here is perhaps the best explanation of the voting turnout for Kerry (and Bush) so far:
Link
The article that Lee references says that the over- and under-educated voted for Kerry (Ph.Ds and high-school dropouts). Everyone else voted for Bush*.
Back to 'values'. The hippies in my town had a tantrum/protest on Nov 4th. "To do what?", you might ask. The answer is, "Throw a temper tantrum in public."
The Most Telling Quote came from an interviewed hippy**. When asked to explain why the hippies were stopping downtown traffic during the evening commute, Mr. Tantrum explained why he was being an ass. "Because I have a right to be heard." That's right - not just a right to speak, but to make sure he's heard.
The right to swing your fist stops right at my nose. But with hippies like this, THEIR right to act out any impulse has no such limitations. And the hippies wonder why folks cheer when they get "beaten" by cops who are clearly holding back.
_Scott
* - Paraphrased, of course, but we all get the point.
** - I don't have the link handy at the moment, but the tv footage was
entertaining.
All for now. Stay tuned.
_
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