Idyll Reflections

Cognitive Dissonance: This link shows how much life has changed for the better in post-Saddam Iraq; this one shows an interesting statistic.

Reich's Right: A pleasantly constructive article in The American Prospect this week. Robert Reich is quite correct in noting the trend toward "permanent campaigns"/"permanent elections." However, I think that this shift began at least in the late nineteenth-century (though let's not forget about Andrew Jackson's multi-year campaign against J. Q. Adams) with the rise of "progressive" politics. Certainly, by the early twentieth-century, the adoption of direct election of senators was a shift away from political in-gaming to public pandering. Certainly, the GOP bears a unique responsibility for this shift (after all, the GOP was the progressive party during the early twentieth-century and has made use of the contemporary tactics Reich has mentioned), but progressive rhetoric bears its a very heavy burden for this as well; it encourages the notion that "the people" (i.e. the mob) are always right. It tends to place sheer mass of will over reasoned arguments, noise over speech. Certainly, the use of the recall is a tactic for further democracy; it makes the elected official even more dependent upon the will of the people. Of course, it also dilutes the authority of this will and status of the people. Indeed, permanent election is not the tool of a liberal democratic republic but of a democratic tyranny.
However, I must take issue with Reich's complaint about the election of 2000. A republic needs law well established and fairly delivered, and the methods of the Florida recount seemed hardly inclined to determining the will of the people; instead, the methods better served the delivery of the will of the vote counters. There were egregious problems with the recount process. It was not the case of encouraging a "permanent election" as much as a highly complicated dance of political and legal wrangling.

California Dreaming: With the governor's race heating up in California, so too has the rhetoric of the blogosphere. The whole Bustamante-Mecha controversy really has the fires going. Here's an intriguing post by Lowell Ponte on Frontpagemag; a somewhat shoddily researched and argued would-be "debunking" of the controversy; and Tacitus' response to it. It seems pretty hard to deny that there certainly is some "hate speech" happening in a lot of Mecha rhetoric, and there definitely does seem to be some hardcore radical history to the organization. Of course, that in no way implies that the majority of its members or the whole of its ideology supports such principles. However, as even Bustamante's defenders will note, it is extremely puzzling why the Lieutenant Governor has not come out more strongly in support of the the principles of Mecha that he supports, rather than making a few tepid statements that resolve very little. Of course, I realize that he is a elected politician and therefore wants to build enough of a coalition to win (as Lowell Ponte's article notes, Bustamante seems capable of spinning/doing almost anything to win) but couldn't he make at least some attempt at a clear elucidation of principles?
Ted Barlow's link to a piece about the NRA and its rhetoric is extremely interesting; the rhetorical twisting and venomous bias of the article give a fair testament to the grim tools of the enemies of the second amendment. Also in passing, I don't find the argument that Mecha does a lot of good for the community particularly powerful or the anecdotes about how "my experience with Mecha was very positive; we only did "good" things; it's a fine organization" very compelling. Even though some members of a society may encourage social good, the good attempted does not do away with the hate of the rhetoric. Bustamante should make a stand on the rhetorical ideology of Mecha and, even perhaps, express his own ideology. In my opinion, that's what really matters. And the blogosphere should try to continue to find out what the rhetorical ideology of Mecha really is.

I'm Back: It's been a busy few weeks, but Calidore has returned! Onwards, good sir, onwards!