‘Appy 4th
Democracy — government by the people, relying on the use of voting procedures
Republic — nation where sovereignty is vested in the people, as opposed to heriditary monarchs or dictators
Dickocracy — government centralized in the hands of a self-appointed, unelected corporate oligarch who ignores existing constitutional tenets and all pre-existing lines of executive and legislative authority.
And then listens (to Chomsky):
“Instead of the comforting rationale that merit breeds success and the successful have merit, a more rational approach would be to speculate that in our society wealth and power tend to accrue to those who are ruthless, cunning, avaricious, self-seeking, lacking in sympathy and compassion, subservient to authority and willing to abandon principle for material gain.” — Noam Chomsky
There’s a lot to be said for this.
Now let me by the first to say that there’s nothing wrong with being wealthy: I know plenty of folks who are wealthy and who donate a lot of time and scratch to very worthy causes. Hell, I’m pretty sure Noam isn’t exactly in the poor house himself.
But being a politician is another beast all together. I mean, if someone wants to be wealthy, the motivation is fairly obvious: C.R.E.A.M., get tha’ money, dolla-dolla-bill y’all. But if someone wants to be a politician… well, I have no idea why anyone would want to be a politician. Consider that as a politician, you spend much of your time appearing in public reciting carefully-crafted, cliché-ridden nonsense about supporting local schools and having pride in your community and spreading the ideology of hope and building a bridge to the 21st Century, etc., etc., etc. It also involves kissing a lot of smelly and unattractive babies, telling clusters of bored old people how much you enjoy Matlock, and shaking hands with the odd nut who tells you about his BRILLIANT PLAN TO REDUCE THE DEFICIT BY SLAPPING A 9,000,000,000% TAX ON SHOOOOOOOOES!!!!! And on top of that, you have people with cameras following you around everywhere, just waiting to pounce if and when you refer to the Indian student working for your rival’s campaign as “macaca.”
The point is, being a politician is not a job that a normal person would want. While many people want to become politicians to do good and fix problems, there are many, many more who simply have big egos and enjoy power. For every Russ Feingold, there are three Bob Neys, Tom DeLays and William Jeffersons. It is for this reason that the very very very first question a journalist should ask any aspiring politician- especially a politician running for president- is, “Why the fuck do you want to do that?” Because, frankly, willingly putting yourself through all the bullshit it takes to become president is pretty damn weird.
And here comes the part where I tip my cap to the people who founded this here country. No, I’m not one of these ridiculous assholes who constantly argues from authority and quote-mines America’s founders just to back up every crappy idea I’ve got. (You know the type: “Ben Franklin once praised forced testicle shaving! That means everyone should get their nuts shaved!!”)
But I will say that they had some pretty bright ideas on how to separate power in this country. They understood that people are often selfish, greedy bastards, and that vesting great powers in a tiny handful of them is a silly idea. I know this seems like common sense to us now, but remember that back in the day, the world was filled with embarrassing loons like Mark Noonan who believed that the King of England had the right to put a surveillance camera in your toilet to make sure you weren’t jerking off on the can. But because the folks who wrote our constitution had a naturally skeptical view of politicians, I can now spank it on the crapper with impunity. And despite the fact that our system has become corrupted of late, and that we are indeed moving more and more toward what Max described as a “dickocracy,” I get the feeling that the tide is turning, and that people are no longer willing to give the creeps who rule us unbridled power.
I can hope, anyway.
God bless America, and happy 4th, peeps!
It is possible, though by no means definite, that the last six years’ dictatorial assault on principles of republics as framed in not only the Constitution, but the Magna Charta 800 years ago, may, just may have taught many more of our countrymen to appreciate that those principles meant something, not that the future had been fixed and all problems solved, but that it was better to hold on to our achievements and build from them rather than surrender to the arguments of thugs and cowards and wastrels who screamed that those principles meant nothing, that no one needed them anymore.
What El Cid said.
Happy Independence Day to whoever celebrates it, and to everyone else Happy Day.
Happy 4th, Sadlys.
I’m spending it listening to Jimi Hendrix perform the Star Spangled banner at Woodstock every hour on the hour while I sit at work. Gives me chills every time.
It is possible, though by no means definite, that the last six years’ dictatorial assault on principles of republics as framed in not only the Constitution, but the Magna Charta 800 years ago, may, just may have taught many more of our countrymen to appreciate that those principles meant something …
Y’know, seven years ago I thought that the Florida recount debacle might have touched off a new appreciation for the fine points of our electoral system and governmental procedures in a disturbingly indifferent voting population. I thought that the whole crazy episode would inspire a resurgence of interest in the political process.
Well, more people wound up voting in the next presidential election, it’s true … but more than half voted for the guy who was systematically blurring, gumming up and outright destroying the political process so cleverly constructed by the founders and subsequent generations to check and balance centers of power and wealth in favor of distributed, majority preferences (not that this was ever a clean or wholehearted ambition … but certainly it was night and day to the purely elitist and secretive power grab of the Cheney administration).
I hate to be cynical … but my conclusion is that things might get better for a time, but we Americans are dumb and venal enough to the point where the rise of another destructive, dictatorial regime is all but inevitable.
Happy Fourth!
Good morning, all. I just wrote a buzzkill of a comment and then deleted it before posting. Why not dream of a land with hope? What could it hurt?
Happy 4th.
Ah, I see DA and I are in the same frame of mind, although I have opted for the power of positive whatever. Hey, in for a penny, in for a pound:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Never forget the true meaning of christmas, kids.
Hey, Brad. I’ve always said it about cops, and I guess it applies to politicians too: The ones who WANT the job should not be allowed to have it, and the ones that should have it would have to be FORCED to take it.
Personally, I don’t have a great deal of hope for the America’s future, due primarily to the taboos against discussion of all the critical issues. But what the hell, I’ll go with the spirit of the post, and raise a glass to hope for a brighter future.
Happy birthday, Ron, wherever you are…
mikey
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” – Douglas Adams
OK, Panic!
Happy Fourth
Hey, Brad. I’ve always said it about cops, and I guess it applies to politicians too: The ones who WANT the job should not be allowed to have it, and the ones that should have it would have to be FORCED to take it.
Heh-indeedy.
You have to fight
(boom boom)
For the right
(boom boom)
To be patrio-o-o-o-o-o-o-tic!
So would a summary of the definition of “dickocracy” be “rule by the biggest dick”?
They understood that people are often selfish, greedy bastards, and that vesting great powers in a tiny handful of them is a silly idea.
People are bastard-coated bastards with a bastard filling.
I know this seems like common sense to us now, but remember that back in the day, the world was filled with embarrassing loons like Mark Noonan who believed that the King of England had the right to put a surveillance camera in your toilet to make sure you weren’t jerking off on the can.
You know, it SHOULD seem like common sense, but there’s those embarrassing loons who just swoon at the idea of a strong daddy figure controlling every aspect of their lives and keeping them safe in the shadow of his huge, throbbing cock.
I think we’d all be better off if Noonan, et al., would admit their kinks and go visit Gen. J.C. Christian’s man and his Spatula of Redemtion.
Happy 4th, everyone!
happy fourth! today i’m making cupcakes and thinking about what i want to do in the upcoming calendar year to make america a better place.
“Ben Franklin once praised forced testicle shaving! That means everyone should get their nuts shaved!!”
EXT — 18TH CENTURY PHILIDELPHIA STREET — DAY
An expectant crowd pushes in close as delegates emerge from the Constitutional Convention. A cheer goes up as JAMES MC HENERY and BEN FRANKLIN step, blinking, into the sunlight.
WOMAN: Well, Doctor, what have we got?
FRANKLIN: A Brazilian, if you can keep it tidy.
—
Happy dirty fucking hippie day you lot.
Brad and Mikey — see also Plato, _Republic_, philosopher kings being forced to rule….
If it were not for the French, Americans would all be speaking… well, English.
They would, however, be forced to properly speak it.
I can now spank it on the crapper with impunity
Hey, hurry up in there – I gotta go.
The philosopher kings are exactly what they have in mind:a society with no upward mobility (unless one is fortunate), ruled by a small group which intentionally misleads the polis.
That part of the Republic is a neo-con wet dream.
Yes, Virginia, there IS a Declaration of Independence.
Happy fireworks day, sadlys!
I’m up for some music commemorating the defeat of Napolean’s Grande Armee at Borodino by the forces of the Tsar. You, know, to celebrate America!
My family is watching British football on the TeeVee screens.
Happy 4th & enjoy your seder everyone!
So, we must continue to fight for our divine right to party?
And one of my favorite slogans from (Sadly, Yes!) the ’60s:
PIGS OFF CAMPUS!!!
(May be broadly applied to many situations.)
“America is an old country. Most of the nations of this world came into existence, in their present form, after the Second World War.”
Uhhhh….
NPR is saying that the celebration on the Capitol Lawn in DC was evacuated due to severe storms.
Is God trying to tell Washington DC something?
I will continue to argue that liberals believe government policies (Schools, health laws, employee safety laws, food safety laws, fire and police departments, etc) can and should help people, and that it is therefore possible to become a politician to do so. Republicans, meanwhile, believe that less government is *always* the answer, that government is a problem not a solution, and that people are best left to help themselves, and as such do not go into government service or politics to try to help people with it.
They’re either in it to destroy it, or for power, or for money. You wouldn’t put someone in charge of the Education Department who thinks public schools should be abolished… Oh. Bad example. Still… there’s a party out there that has an ideological chance of using government for good, and a party that by self-description and choice of heroes and rhetoric has no interest in even trying.
Two boxes: one might have something you need in it or contain a bill you have to pay, or some combination of the two, or then again it might be empty. The other one is either going to bankrupt you or be empty. Pick one, voters. Not choosing is not an option.
Republicans, meanwhile, believe that less government is *always* the answer
I think that the guy-on-the-couch Republican believes this, but the actual Power Republican only mouths it while creating even greater bureaucracy and spending ever more of our money — more government for these guys = more profits for self & friends.
. . . and that people are best left to help themselves, and as such do not go into government service or politics to try to help people
On this point all available evidence suggests you are absolutely correct — but the couch Republican will eventually feel betrayed that this philosophy he’s always supported turns out to bite him in the ass during his time of need. (Of course, there will always be enough Dems in government for him to avoid blaming any of the PoweRepubs.)
Willard Mitt Romney’s hateful policies have given us in Massachusetts a even more liberal government. Who’s to say that the same thing won’t happen nationwide.
Even the neocons at my workplace, SuperMegaGigantaHealthcareCorp, are fed up with what they see as the ‘lack of leadership’ of the Bush administration. I see plenty of signs for hope on this, our nation’s birthday.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone!
I dunno Dr. Rev. St. Brad Esq. PhD.
I have never really been completely down with the whole, “It’s the darn politicians’ fault” attitude.
As angry as we want to get at the truly dishonest, greedy, hypocritical, and cowardly things that politicians do, you have to admit that they do it for an important reason. They act this way it because they know this kind of crap works with the populace. Politicians in a republic know how to reflect the fears, desires and needs of the populace. The Politician’s personality is a chameleonic, scheming, power-hungry one- that is why they do what they do. They are the types who run for student council in high school. They want power, and popularity, and know how to get it. They have a decent sense of theatre, and can lie effectively.
I agree, of course, that we desperately need to attack the corrupt, lying, hypocritical sacks of shit for the horrible things that they do. But at some point you have to ask yourself, how is it that they have succeeded for so long? And I think you will be forced to answer that they act this way because this kind of crap works with our scared, follower-minded, incurious citizenry. So, you need to attack the politicians, but somehow you also have to alter the minds of the citizenry, that’s the deeper problem, as I see it.
Happy 4th.
Tho shock and awe has truly killed fireworks for me. Explosions by a river in a major city just aren’t the same.
thelogos- The Straussian interpretation of Republic is horrendously wrong, on a quantifiable, objective, basis. I realize that won’t stop the neo-cons, but the noble lie is a test, which Strauss and his followers have failed, miserably.
I would like to wish my neighbours down south a happy birthday. And many more to come.
As well, I want to wish my fellow citizens a happy 140th year of Confederation!
Oh, c’mon, diffbrad. We’ve got six six-inch salutes, glued up in half inch pvc with slow fuses. These are serious BANGs. I’m gonna go down after dark and arrange them on and under the fence between the condo complex and the section 8 apartments. Light them on about a one minute delay. Be totally back in my house with witnesses when they start to go off, with ferocious bangs and eye-searingly bright flashes. Ohhh, pretty!
And oh so American…
mikey
“thelogos- The Straussian interpretation of Republic is horrendously wrong, on a quantifiable, objective, basis. I realize that won’t stop the neo-cons, but the noble lie is a test, which Strauss and his followers have failed, miserably.”
Not only is Strauss wrong on The Republic, his interpretation is so absurdly beyond-the-pale looney tunes that it sounds like the product of acid-induced paranoia.
On this 4th of July, I prefer my acid-induced paranoia to be accompanied by Jimi Hendrix doing the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock.
There’s so many fireworks going off around here, there’s an actual haze in the air, smelling of gunpowder. It’s thick enough that we’ve lost the satellite signal for the TV.
mikey, the once upon a time psychedelics freak in me will always love pretty booms.
But I can’t help but flash back to the guilt I felt after I realized I was getting a vicarious thrill watching people die on tv.
junius- let’s not be unkind to lsd. It’s all their own warped minds and utter inability to recognize so much as the basic context Plato was trying to establish in choosing dialogue.
Seriously, Left, Right or Shroedinger, making things that go boom is not only completely american, I’m pretty sure it’s in the male DNA. I always liked ’em, and I don’t think there’s a downside unless you use ’em to hurt innocent people. Just blowing up a fence, or something at the beach? Thats as good american fun as it gets, and this is the day for it…
mikey
I’m building a set of sub-munitions right now I’m calling the Freddy Lewis…
mikey
Don’t use fireworks unless you know what the fuck you’re doing (and preferably have a license). My friend’s brother is now permanently blind in one eye just because he was walking down the street near a park where some teenagers were setting some off horizontally instead of vertically.
Ummm, I think if you’ve blown up people, bunkers, bridges, paddy dykes, trees, houses, weapons and a ’63 Citroen (don’t ask), they waive the license requirement.
That’s my story, anyway…
mikey
Wrongo. If less government is the answer, why did Bush Jr. preside over one of the largest governement expansions in history, and why did Clinton grow the government at a much smaller rate than both Bush Jr and Reagan?
Small government is like state’s rights – they exist only as talking points on paper.
It’s cool to be buffed out and push 800 lbs.
It’s way cooler to use your brain to push 800,000,000 lbs.
“I disapprove of what you spank, but I will defend to the death your right to spank it.”
Voltaire
I can’t hear the Star-Spangled Whatsit without thinking of the radio/TV versions of Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy. Y’see, that tune was used for the Betelgeusian Death Anthem. Just can’t get it out of my head.
Have a jolly 4th, kids. Spank ’em if you got ’em.
America is an old country. Most of the nations of this world came into existence, in their present form, after the Second World War. France is on its fifth Republic; the People’s Republic of China has been around for fewer than 60 years.
Oh, excuse me, but pig’s fat arse. Those nations, wankstain, were nations for centuries before the US happened. Bastille Day doesn’t commemorate the Italians, for fucks’ sake. And sodding China was China for about the last 1400 years, at least. Sure, they had a change of government, but they were still a nation with borders and one central government. Jesus wept, what is wrong with some people who have to be the oldest or the fastest or the bestest all the fucking time? Korea as a nation’s been around for at least a thousand years. One country, one people, one fucking government. Sheesh.
And so what if China had a sudden change of government style? I’m pretty damn sure the US has had a gradual change of government style over the years. I’m pretty sure that Ben Ferkin Franklin would be pretty damn shocked to see what the Bush junta has been doing, and how things work these days. And I’m also pretty sure that the lives of most Chinese have changed little over the past thousand years or so: most of ’em are peasants, and live the way peasants have always lived.
Mind you (she says, calming suddenly and becoming almost reasonable), Chinese society absorbed some pretty large shocks over the last couple of hundred years, and has still not just survived, but prospered. Even more, they’re capable, as I suspect much of the west is not, of looking ahead. We’re too complacent, too full of ourselves, too replete with our own cleverness, so we don’t bother striving (as a society). From what I hear, Chinese merchants and government officials take a much longer view than our own, looking ahead to secure a future, rather than looking back trying to replicate the (purported) glories of the past.
Ahhhh, go blow something up. Happy fireworks, kids.
Never read Strauss, that was my interpretation of the noble lie and the framing of the ideal city, the part I really really disliked about the Republic. If that description by Plato was test to lure his interlocutors into a trap, then I guess I failed as well. Mayhaps I should dust off my worn copy and re-read that part again.
Had a great opportunity a couple of years ago to attend a trainng session put on by California State Fire Marshals and a major pyrotechnical company, to train municipal fire authorities about pyrotechnics.
I was just sitting in, but it was illuminating. The shit is dangerous, people, if you don’t know what you’re doing.
The urge to blow shit up on the part of human beings is undeniable, but one hopes it would be tempered somewhat by common sense. It wasn’t too many months after I sat in on the fire marshals that some fucking idiot in Rhode Island thought it would be cool to set off some gerbs in a room lined with polyurethane foam, and burned 100 people to death.
I think that nut-shaving is about the ONLY activity that Factotum Franklin didn’t explore!
Otherwise – man, I wish I could dig up some bit of hope that the Amurrican polity would transmute into…a polity–but Opus Dei Sith-lords are now the custodians of our living Constitution, in the Supreme Court; and it was only recently reported that “Adolph” Giuliani is up a few lengths in the Repug candidate fundgrubbing horserace…Very difficult to drum up a little hope, right now…