Reflections on Modern Democracy
Democracy – but only when it goes your way!
Over the years of watching the democratic process I’ve noticed something important. People tend to reject democracy, indeed, fight it tooth and nail, when it doesn’t go their way. But when it does, well, it is the tops.
Consider the case of California’s Proposition 187. Then governor Gray Davis of California was maneuvering to essentially gut this referendum, one that won with over 60% of the votes. So let us recognize that the leader of the Democratic Party in California has no problem rejecting what the majority of the people want when he and his friends believe that the people are wrong.
Former California governor Gray Davis, a typical representative of the cronyism prevalent in the US merchant State. What eventually tripped him up wasn’t his attempt to gut prop. 187 by legal maneuvering, but his perceived poor performance during California’s energy crisis. Many of his energy advisors were the very speculators who benefited the most from the crisis. It was one affront too many. Davis was the first member of California’s ruling caste to fall prey to a recall, after 117 previous recall attempts throughout California’s history had failed, and only the 2nd politician in US history to suffer this ignominious fate. During the boom of the 1990s, Davis had greatly expanded government spending, landing California with a near $35 bn. deficit when the bust inevitably struck.
Photo credit: Patrick Fallon/Bloomberg
Now if you believe in democracy regarding the handling of certain problems in society, whether people actually have signed up for that process, you will go along with the verdict regardless of whether you like the outcome. That is a principled defense of democracy.
During all the health (Obama) care reform debates it is liberal Democrats who said, repeatedly, that their demand for a government supervised health care system merely expresses the will of the public and thus has ample legitimacy behind it.
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