"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
m...
I appreciate that you take the time to respond to my whining, Ed.

It looks more like frustration than whining.



Ed Huntress wrote:

You may find this strange, but I've never, ever thought of electing a
president in terms of what they're going to do in my best interest. It's
always been the country's best interest, and I assume we'll all be better
off when that's what they do.

Ok, so looking back, was that a valid assumption?

It's hard to tell. I've voted for the winner less than half the time. g
But I can't imagine living in this country and voting for a narrow, personal
interest that might help me but which wouldn't be good for the country as a
whole. It's just not in my makeup.

On the other hand, they usually aren't in conflict.


IS the country better off?

I guess the question is, better off than what? Or, would we have been better
off if my candidate always won? I really don't know. That's a question too
big for me to answer.


Is it good for the country to have such a great difference between the
rich and the poor?

Definitely not. That's bad news, and it needs to be addressed...but very
carefully. If I knew how to do this I might be somebody's economic
consultant right now. g


And what about the shrinking "middle class".
It's not shrinking because more of them are getting rich.

That's a reflection of the issue you just listed above. We're gravitating
toward something closer to a natural equilibrium of laissez-faire
capitalism, with the percentages breaking down very closely to the ratios we
had in 1929. The natural equilibrium, as we have to keep re-learning, needs
to be bent a bit and a new equilibrium established, closer to what we had in
the '50s and '60s, in order to have social harmony and to satisfy our sense
of justice. I'm afraid that means a bit of social engineering. It requires
some compromises.


We had a great run for a while, but are we really better off?

Well, that's a philosophical question, which I generally try to avoid. My
short answer is, no. But it's not purely based on material considerations. I
don't like the mood right now; we're out of big projects and national goals.
We need some.


Maybe that's why I find both of our current candidates acceptable. I
believe they're both pursuing the country's best interest as they see it.
McCain doesn't bother me because I don't think he's a doctrinaire,
ideological conservative. And Obama most certainly is no doctrinaire
liberal. They both have a pragmatic, one-problem-at-a-time approach, to
greater or lesser degrees.


I think it's the "as they see it" part that bothers me most.

Hey, we're electing people, not computer programs. They all have ideological
beliefs to some extent, and ideologies are always wrong.

I favor the leaders who combine intelligence, pragmatism, a genuine
willingness to listen, and as much evidence of wisdom and reason as can be
had. Especially pragmatism and wisdom.


I would doubt anyone who thinks he has answers to today's problems.
Most people still wonder what the questions are...

Well, I don't agree completely. I think there are plenty of economists who
know exactly what's going on, for example. They just don't know how people
are going to react to one corrective program or another. That's always the
big unknown.



So I can't identify what you wish you had here, in terms of choices, and
what you find objectionable about the candidates we have. If you're
suggesting you want some more choices, I suggest you look first at Italy
and Israel to see what that implies. My opinion about that has been
shaped by a year of studying comparative politics in Europe more than by
the sketchy history we have of multiple parties in the US, but my
conclusion is that real multi-party politics inherently stinks to high
heaven. It's all a matter of coalitions ganging up on other coalitions,
broad national interests be damned.


BINGO.

The coalitions I'm speaking of are the ones you see in multi-party,
parliamentary systems. Two-party systems tend to form their coalitions at
the party level. By the time they get into government, they're forced to
compromise. Some multi-party systems NEVER involve compromise. It's all a
case of carving up the beast to satisfy one narrow interest or another. The
key example in modern times is Italy. In contrast, the US government usually
operates on compromise. This has gotten a little battered lately, but it's
the natural tendency of two-party politics.


And, pardon my high school education, but wasn't the original idea to
PROTECT the individual from the whims of the masses?

That's one of the original ideas. But the other side of it was to allow the
majority to decide what government is going to do. Balancing the two is the
ultimate challenge for democratic, individual-rights-based constitutional
systems.


AND from the whims of our government?!

You are the government. But you have only one vote. The same applies to
everyone else. If it's running on whims, we're the ones who put it in place.
All of us.



As for big business having an excessive amount of political power in this
country, yes, during most of our lifetimes. We have four important elites
in this country -- business/professional, academic, military, and
political. They're all pretty open meritocracies, compared to the elites
of most other countries. Fortunately the military elite remains
subservient. The academic elite, which ruled during Kennedy's and
Johnson's administrations, and part of Carter's, are not held in very
high esteem these days. So the political and business/professional elites
are in charge. And an elite necessarily will be in charge. There is no
successful alternative.


Why?

Because they want to be?

Because they're the only ones capable doing the job. They win elections
because people like them better for high office than run-of-the-mill
citizens. "Elite" means the best, the educated, the well-brought-up, the
intelligent, the ambitious, the most ethical. Those are the ones I vote for.
I don't want second-rate preppies who got C averages in college, like Bush.
I don't want Joe Sixpack with a beer in one hand and the red button in the
other. I don't want a half-educated dingleberry like Palin, with the
maturity and judgment of a high school sophomore, just a heartbeat from the
presidency.


Because they would rather tell me what to do than allow me to tell them
what to do?

This is a representative democracy. You don't get to tell them what to do.
You pick one out and put him or her in charge.


Seems a self serving idea at the least.

Every society in history that's had any success at all has chosen most of
its leaders from one of those four elites I mentioned.



We may be near the end of the business/professional's reign of power;
they're currently regarded about the same as the way we regarded the
academic elite around 1966 - 1978. They're now regarded as failures in
terms of governance, as any individual elite will be if their expertise
is interpreted too broadly or for too long. The popular impression now is
that their interests are not really the country's interests.

Now we're expecting the political elite to put it all in perspective and
to rise to the top, keeping business and academic elites' ideas in check
to serve the interests of the country. That's a big order, since we've
allowed the business elite to acquire so much power, and for its
tentacles to reach into every corner of society.



You can't expect high-level politicians to turn it all around at once.
We've been too acquiescent in the process ourselves. I look for the
apparent motivations of the candidates and the likelihood that they'll
put elite ideas in perspective, and that they'll find a way to implement
some shifting of power towards the ideal political, the politics as
Aristotle described it, by using power to undermine power. At the same
time, I'm looking for real intellegence and popular support for a leader
so they'll be able to make some positive things happen.

That doesn't feel to me like a self-interest focus, although, in the end,
I'm talking about my own ideas of how things should be, so I guess that's
self-interest. It isn't narrow economic self-interest.

Yep.
But neither are my concerns.

Does that sound alien to you? Or are you thinking of something similar,
without going to so much length to describe it? g


No, actually, I think you have touched on some of the things that bother
me most.


Elitism will always be with us.
And always be our curse.

I'd like to know what you think "elitism" is. Until the election of 1968,
most people recognized we were voting for the elite of our society. It was
Richard Nixon in that campaign who turned it into a code word for something
bad. It was a part of the same program that gave us the Southern Strategy,
in which "state's rights" was code for leaving the southern states alone to
continue racist policies.


I don't have your faith in politicians.
I think I once did. But no longer.

Faith isn't the right word. I think I recognize the inherent limitations of
our system of government. But it's the best one I can think of.


It comes back to motives.

Business wants money.
Politicians want to stay in power.
Academics want to grade us.
Evangelist want to save us.

Who, of all the groups on earth, can help us live together?

That's a good question, Richard. I don't think you'll find the answer in
"groups." I think you'll find it in individuals.

--
Ed Huntress