Mumbo Jumbo

It would really be great if the demolished-rats (democrats) would get their highminded heads out of the clouds and come to terms with the reality that the republicans are better campaigners. That is the fact. I am so sick and tired of all the whinney-wine-wines gong on about vote counts, and ballot boxes. Holy crap that's been going on since the beginning. How do they think Kennedy got to be President. It would be great if it all just came down to cheating. But that is not the case. Bill Clinton won this same bunch of people, twice. Why? Because he was smart? Because he had vision?

Well for the tiny minority of thinkers in this country that was true. But for the most part I think he won because...well look at him compared to Bush Senior or Dole. He just had the right stuff.
It is stupid to think that if only the American people really knew about Bush they would vote for somebody else. Guess what, the people did know about Bush, the sucky war, the problematic non-logic of this dumbass, but they voted for him anyway.

Progressives, me included better, remember that they live in the most conservative of all western democracies. We have 'always" been that way. In no small part that is because our democratic roots go to rural America. We arn't rural anymore, but our country was founded as an agrarian society.

Our peasentry was pretty much used to total freedom from the get-go.
Unlike European democracies that came out of butting heads with Monarchs that actually lived in the country trying for democracy; we had few restrictions. In Europe things didn't work out too well until after WWII.

We had a 150 year head start. European democracy is urban based and so is more inclusive of different peoples and ideas. This was not, and is not, a strong point in American democracy.
Jefferson was very worried about how America would end up when it too was more urban than rural. He was not sure that American style democracy would work in such an environment. And he was the quintessential rural democrat.

His version, that is to say our version of democracy, is still one of "live and let live..oh yes and don't bother me." On the surface this sounds the same as in Europe. The main difference, I think, is that American democracy, with few exceptions, has an inbread disdain for "governmental fiddling".

What will bring down the Bush types is their fiddling. Americans don't like Big Government. That is why it is such a powerful election phrase. That is actually one thing both the left and right can agree on.

It is paradoxical that while progressives strive for limited government intrusion in our lives, they also strive for big government solutions to social problems. It is also paradoxical that conservatives loath big government solutions while allowing increased governmental intrusion.
Jefferson was soooo right. When most people were releatively self sufficient, democracy worked well. However we have constructed a society like a gigantic pyramid scheme. Each one of us is dependent on the other.

This should be a good thing. But I think it presents a danger in that people are dragged kicking and screaming along while governmental solutions are applied with broad strokes. In so doing, even if the solution is come to through dmeocratic means, vast portions of the country are effected by governing decisions much the same way peasents are effected by edicts from kings. So they feel disaffected. And who gets the vote of the disaffected?

Guys like FDR, Clinton, and...gulp...Bush. Most Americans, right, left, or inbetween, feel diseaffected pretty much all of the time. "Washington" is always going to be viewed as a tyrant but many people. We need it's meddling and hate it's meddling. I am not sure how all this is going to work out.

I do think that populism and pragmatism rules as far as winning elections.

Tell them what they want to hear and let philosphers argue abut the truth.