Philosophy
Alexander Hamilton said ?The masses are asses.? Thinkers as far back as Plato agreed. Pure democracy puts power into the hands of the great unwashed. Political parties are not mobs bound together by rough ideological similarities. To be successful, we have seen in recent decades, they must have coherent policy ideas, systematic approaches to branding and concept marketing, and an intentional and well-designed approach to governing that targets key voting blocs.
It is with this in mind that our Founding Fathers created a representative democracy designed to allow the people to put representatives in power, but to give those representatives more power than the normal voter.
It is the same reasoning that the Democratic Party used in designing its selection procedure for determining a presidential candidate. Voters elect most representatives to a committee convention, but a number of party insiders, termed superdelegates, make up about 20% of those who actually pick the nominee. The idea is to provide a check on the power of the voters whose passions at a given time in history may not align with the wisdom and intentions of those creating and marketing party policy and what they perceive as the party?s (and therefore the nation?s) best interest.
In a race as tight as the current primary, this 20% may be significant, indeed, may be the tie-breaking and thus deciding factor. Does this structure undermine the democratic integrity of the process or does it simply make it more stable? Does it lead to rationality or stasis?
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Philosophy
Is it good to have a check on the voters?
Alexander Hamilton said ?The masses are asses.? Thinkers as far back as Plato agreed. Pure democracy puts power into the hands of the great unwashed. Political parties are not mobs bound together by rough ideological similarities. To be successful, we have seen in recent decades, they must have coherent policy ideas, systematic approaches to branding and concept marketing, and an intentional and well-designed approach to governing that targets key voting blocs.
It is with this in mind that our Founding Fathers created a representative democracy designed to allow the people to put representatives in power, but to give those representatives more power than the normal voter.
It is the same reasoning that the Democratic Party used in designing its selection procedure for determining a presidential candidate. Voters elect most representatives to a committee convention, but a number of party insiders, termed superdelegates, make up about 20% of those who actually pick the nominee. The idea is to provide a check on the power of the voters whose passions at a given time in history may not align with the wisdom and intentions of those creating and marketing party policy and what they perceive as the party?s (and therefore the nation?s) best interest.
In a race as tight as the current primary, this 20% may be significant, indeed, may be the tie-breaking and thus deciding factor. Does this structure undermine the democratic integrity of the process or does it simply make it more stable? Does it lead to rationality or stasis?
- Dc Congressional Representation
Today is the 51st anniversary of the ratification of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution which granted the residents of Washington, D.C. the ability to vote electors for the Presidency to the electoral college. Folks who live in the District...
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One of the easiest traps to fall into in writing philosophy papers is the strawman fallacy where you take someone's position you disagree with and attack a weaker version of it instead of the strongest possible version as required by what logicians...
- Why Lieberman Will Be The Gop Vp Nominee
I was a little surprised at the reaction Monday to my prediction that Joe Lieberman would be McCain's selection for VP. Let me explain why I think it is pretty much a done deal. (1) Politically simpatico Their positions on most issues, especially...
- Weisberg And His Wayback Machine, Or How Horrible Hippies Have Harmed House Hopes
Jacob Weisberg's article, "Dead With Ned: Why Lamont's Victory Spells Democratic Disaster" in Slate has been attracting a lot of attention. The gist is that just as in 1972, those darn anti-war Democrats are going to scare voters away. The party's...
- The Rise Of Politically-infected Pseudo-ethics-speak
Before we talk about ethics, we need to look at the the crap that passes for ethical discourse in the media. To be clear, there is a huge difference between real moral consideration and the politically-infected pseudo-ethics speak that we get bombarded...