And I couldn't bring myself to vote for that Nixon guy, either
So, I was having lunch with a friend of mine last week, and he was telling me how dissatisfied he was with our new congresscritter, Ann Kirkpatrick. In fact, he didn't like her before she ran for office, having been seriously turned off by her performance and attitude during a brief time when she was his attorney a few years ago.
Even so, he voted for her.
"I couldn't vote for Renzi," he told me. "He's so corrupt and he's on his way to jail."
True. I couldn't vote to return Rick Renzi to office, either. He is truly an impressive standout example of pure corruption in a sea of already festering pus. Then again, I didn't face much of a dilemma, because Renzi wasn't on the fucking ballot.
If you insist on looking at only major-party candidates (Libertarian Thane Eichenauer also ran), Sydney Hay was the Republican hopeful, taking the nomination after Renzi slithered away to his fate. Hay has a strong background in free-market economics at a time when that would seem to be a pressing need in Congress. But there are certainly good reasons to oppose Hay, especially on social issues, where she's a standard-issue, God-and-country conservative.
But to reasonably oppose Hay, you would have to know that she was on the ballot against Kirkpatrick, not Renzi.
So, here's an intelligent (yes, he is), better-informed than most, voter, who held his nose and voted for a candidate he disliked because he didn't bother to check who the alternatives were.
Tell me again why democracy is a good idea.
Even so, he voted for her.
"I couldn't vote for Renzi," he told me. "He's so corrupt and he's on his way to jail."
True. I couldn't vote to return Rick Renzi to office, either. He is truly an impressive standout example of pure corruption in a sea of already festering pus. Then again, I didn't face much of a dilemma, because Renzi wasn't on the fucking ballot.
If you insist on looking at only major-party candidates (Libertarian Thane Eichenauer also ran), Sydney Hay was the Republican hopeful, taking the nomination after Renzi slithered away to his fate. Hay has a strong background in free-market economics at a time when that would seem to be a pressing need in Congress. But there are certainly good reasons to oppose Hay, especially on social issues, where she's a standard-issue, God-and-country conservative.
But to reasonably oppose Hay, you would have to know that she was on the ballot against Kirkpatrick, not Renzi.
So, here's an intelligent (yes, he is), better-informed than most, voter, who held his nose and voted for a candidate he disliked because he didn't bother to check who the alternatives were.
Tell me again why democracy is a good idea.
Labels: popularity contest
posted by J.D. Tuccille at
4:07 PM
3 Comments:
JD I'm shocked and hoped you are only kidding about that democracy slight. Really, how much different is democracy than free market principles. Neither may be perfect and need a self-correction occasionally, but I shudder at the alternatives for either.
Well, decisions in the market primarily impact only the people making those decisions. Political decisions affect all of us.
That said, my solution isn't to dump democracy, it's to end the deification of democracy as some sort of exception to the rule that government should be strictly limited, and go back to keeping any sort of government apparatus within very tight limits.
Seems to me that the best most commentators can come up with is Churchill's remark along the lines that democracy is the least worst of all the options.
IMHO, democracy has proven itself to be a pernicious method for the political classes to subvert morality and natural justice.
Also, seems thoroughly bizarre to equate democracy with free market principles. The free market is about individual choice. Democracy is exactly the opposite.
See also Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.
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