Friday, November 19, 2010

Cats & dogs

DOMINIC BNONN TENNANT SAID:

In fairness, Jesus' ministry was not political. If it had been, he would presumably have done a great deal differently. A spiritual ministry will tend to spiritual needs; necessarily at the detriment of the kinds of short-term needs which are the domain of politics. A political ministry would presumably tend to those short-term needs, at the expense of long-term spiritual needs. So I'm not sure how much we can infer from the gospels about Jesus' stance as a hypothetical political candidate.

Except that my post was directed at evangelicals who presume to take a WWJD approach to justify their views on universal healthcare, amnesty, environmentalism, foreign aid, &c. If you want to say that we can’t extrapolate from the example of Jesus, then that undercuts their religious appeal.

I'd also add that, as a non-American, the US political system strikes me as a truly bizarre monstrosity. Americans seem to think that Democrat or Republican are basically the only two political views a man can take; and never the twain shall meet. And I'm no political expert, but from where I'm standing in a country with a spectrum of political parties ranging from strong socialist to the other extreme, Democrats and Republicans look pretty similar. Both right wing. One just slightly further left than the other.

Several problems:

i) To my knowledge, New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy, and in parliamentary systems, from what I’ve read, a candidate can’t run directly for the top office (prime minister), unlike a presidential system, where anyone can run for president (or national or statewide office). Rather, the prime minister is “elected” by the ruling party. In that respect, candidates are even more beholden to the party line (pun intended) in parliamentary systems than they are in presidential systems. But perhaps New Zealand is different.

ii) From what I’ve read, New Zealand has a national population about half the size of NYC, and less than half the size of LA county.

Obviously, in a continental nation the size of the US, political movements must affiliate around large voting blocs to compete on a national stage. It’s a blunt instrument. So the dominant political players aren’t going to mirror the finely-shaded ideological continuum of a country with a fraction of the total population.

iii) In a presidential system like ours, just about anyone of any political stripe (from far right to far left) can run as a Democrat or Republican in the primaries (for mayor, governor, senator, congressman, president, state attorney general). It’s not the two-party system that’s weeding out ideological diversity, but primary voters. They have a roster of candidates to choose from, even among Democrats and Republicans. And they can also vote for third-party candidates.

iv) I don’t see how you can rationally treat the Democrat party and Republican party as near equivalents. Just consider the types of voters who comprise their respective constituencies:

The Republican party caters to hawks, businessmen, libertarians, gun-owners, prolifers, conservative Christians, law-and-order types, &c.

By contrast, the Democrat party caters to deviants, peaceniks, sob sisters, global warmists, abortionists, atheists, euthanasiasts, public-sector employees, selected minorities, &c.

8 comments:

  1. What an ending sentence.

    Word Verification: canter. And I say she sure can!

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  2. "Cats & dogs"

    No real difference between 'em. They're both mammals. So they're really equivalent.

    ;-)

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  3. No, there are laws that stack the deck. The two major parties are given an edge over other parties by primary election laws, by laws that allow the two major parties to put their endorsements on the ballot, by laws that don't allow two parties to endorse the same candidate, by laws that make primaries "party ballots" rather than true primary elections, etc.

    If the deck were not stacked by laws (and propaganda), third parties would be more significant than they are. Indeed third parties would have arguably swept the polls in the most recent election, had the deck not been stacked. People were not voting for Democrats or Republicans, they were voting against incumbents. If you don't live in a cave and you talk to people rather than interacting electronically with internetoids you know that people are frustrated and angry that the two parties aren't giving them a real choice and voting in a way that reflects that anger, but still aren't savvy enough to abandon the mantras that has been drilled into them since childhood, that voting for third parties is a "wasted vote," that third parties are "extreme," etc.

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  4. Steelikat,

    I empathize with third party movements. I vote Republican most of the time because it's better than Democrat, but I'm not a Republican.

    But the bottom line is that third parties are *NOT* electable right now. Indeed, voting third party these days (if you're a conservative, at least) isn't just a wasted vote, it's a vote for the worst candidate.

    Rather than complain about how it's "unfair" though, you have to do the ground work. Third parties will win national elections when they win local elections in large numbers. So if you want a third party movement, start local. Don't try to run a third party presidential candidate--get a majority of your state's town mayors to be from your third party. Then you'll be able to get your state third party, and work your way up. That's how it works.

    Of course, that assumes that the rest of the people actually want your specific third party too... But that's another issue.

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  5. Except that my post was directed at evangelicals who presume to take a WWJD approach to justify their views on universal healthcare, amnesty, environmentalism, foreign aid, &c. If you want to say that we can’t extrapolate from the example of Jesus, then that undercuts their religious appeal.

    Yes, it certainly does. The very concept of WWJD as a governing principle in life strikes me as the kind of lazy, simple-minded idea that could only arise among pampered, under-educated middle-class Westerners. I suppose that's why it appeals to teenagers so much.

    As to the political comments, as I say, I'm not political expert. I was just offering my uneducated perception as a lay outsider.

    The Republican party caters to hawks, businessmen, libertarians, gun-owners, prolifers, conservative Christians, law-and-order types, &c. By contrast, the Democrat party caters to deviates, peaceniks, sob sisters, global warmists, abortionists, atheists, euthanasiasts, public-sector employees, selected minorities, &c.

    It's hard to tell if you're being tongue-in-cheek or not. Presumably the situation is actually a little more nuanced than that. In my own line of work I know quite a few small business owners who are almost certainly Democrats. And I know others who are almost certainly Republicans—but only because of one single issue (taxation of freelancers). They'd fall into the Democratic spectrum for pretty much everything else.

    Your comment really highlights why the US system seems so strange to me. The dichotomization of politics into two "blunt instrument" parties seems to incline people towards the sorts of gross generalizations you give above. It makes for a very easy "them or us" mentality, when presumably any given person may have at least some sane views (and some insane ones) regardless of which party they align themselves with. Indeed, you draw that out when you say that just about anyone can run as Democrat or Republican.

    As I say, I'm not someone who really dabbles in politics, but from what I've seen in some online discussions, many Americans seem to think that if you're a Republican you must be a gun-owning big-business type, and if you're a Democrat you must be a yuppie (the overwhelming majority of Apple and Google employees, for example, are all Democrats). And let's not even start on the confusion that ensues when you try to explain that other countries' election processes don't involve "Democrats vs Republicans"!

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  6. Except that my post was directed at evangelicals who presume to take a WWJD approach to justify their views on universal healthcare, amnesty, environmentalism, foreign aid, &c. If you want to say that we can’t extrapolate from the example of Jesus, then that undercuts their religious appeal.

    Yes, it certainly does. The very concept of WWJD as a governing principle in life strikes me as the kind of lazy, simple-minded idea that could only arise among pampered, under-educated middle-class Westerners. I suppose that's why it appeals to teenagers so much.

    I think most of your political comments are fair. I'm pretty uneducated in politics. But this…

    The Republican party caters to hawks, businessmen, libertarians, gun-owners, prolifers, conservative Christians, law-and-order types, &c. By contrast, the Democrat party caters to deviates, peaceniks, sob sisters, global warmists, abortionists, atheists, euthanasiasts, public-sector employees, selected minorities, &c.

    …it's hard to tell if you're being tongue-in-cheek or not. Presumably the situation is actually a little more nuanced. In my own line of work I know quite a few small business owners who are almost certainly Democrats. And I know others who are almost certainly Republicans—but only because of one single issue (taxation of freelancers). They'd fall into the Democratic spectrum for pretty much everything else.

    Your comment really highlights how people outside the US see its "blunt instrument" parties as inclining Americans to make gross generalizations about each other. An easy "them or us" mentality. Presumably, the reality is more complicated: any given person may have at least some sane views (and some insane ones) regardless of which party they align themselves with.

    Indeed, you draw that out when you say that just about anyone can run as Democrat or Republican. It's not as if Republicans must be a gun-owning big-business types, and Democrats must be yuppies.

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  7. Dominic Bnonn Tennant said...

    "The very concept of WWJD as a governing principle in life strikes me as the kind of lazy, simple-minded idea that could only arise among pampered, under-educated middle-class Westerners."

    I don't see what social class has to do with it. As far as that goes, pampered rich kids with Ivy League degrees can be just a simple-minded. So can poor kids.

    "It's hard to tell if you're being tongue-in-cheek or not. Presumably the situation is actually a little more nuanced than that. In my own line of work I know quite a few small business owners who are almost certainly Democrats. And I know others who are almost certainly Republicans—but only because of one single issue (taxation of freelancers). They'd fall into the Democratic spectrum for pretty much everything else."

    Many businessmen may be doves and/or social liberals, but they generally vote the GOP ticket because they prefer less regulation as well as lower small biz/corporate taxes.

    "Your comment really highlights why the US system seems so strange to me. The dichotomization of politics into two 'blunt instrument' parties seems to incline people towards the sorts of gross generalizations you give above. It makes for a very easy 'them or us' mentality, when presumably any given person may have at least some sane views (and some insane ones) regardless of which party they align themselves with."

    There's nothing the least bit strange about that. In the nature of the case, a political party, especially one that's big enough to wield real power, will be a loose coalition of interest groups which share enough in common to pool their resources. At the same time, like any broad-based consensus movement, the individual must, to some extent, subordinate his personal set of aims, beliefs, and ideals to a lowest common denominator. That's the tradeoff. Power in numbers. You can have greater ideological purity, but that comes at the expense of fewer allies, and with it, diminished (or nonexistent) political clout.

    "It's not as if Republicans must be a gun-owning big-business types, and Democrats must be yuppies."

    That's a caricature of what I said. I didn't say, or suggest, that all Republicans buy into the same package.

    Some Republicans are hawks, businessmen, and social conservatives. Some are 2 out of 3, while others are 1 out of 3. It's just a question of priorities, which is voter-relative. Does your party offer you enough on what you care about the most, in relation to the opposing party(ies), for you to let the other issues slide?

    BTW, your comments betray an ink-blot reaction. I didn't say anything about Republicans in my original post. I didn't say anything about the two-party system. You're the one who introduced that into the discussion.

    As a matter of fact, we don't have a two-party system in the US. We have many parties, of which two happen to be dominant because most voters choose to vote for one or the other.

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  8. Thanks Steve, that gives me something to think about.

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