Sunday, May 01, 2005
Snopic: Political independence
In vogue these days is the proud enunciation of political independence. Party membership is eschewed, as is voting the party line. Behind this, I believe is a pretentiousness that is astounding and wholly unfounded. Dennis Miller is a prime example of this. He was recently on The Daily Show espousing his belief that global warming is not all that bad. He claims to have seen the research. Simple question, why on earth would a comic believe that he is in any way qualified to judge the merits of climatology research? Does he really think he’s got a clue compared with the zeitgeist of intelligent and well trained scientists who have devoted their education and careers to the field and who almost unanimously believe there is a crisis brewing?
The audacity of any one of us questioning the science of which we know next to nil is amazing. The frequency of this behavior is mind-boggling.
But the audacity shows up for countless other politically important topics. We are supposed to be informed citizens, but the fact is, on almost every issue, the facts are beyond our training, expertise or attention span. That is why we have representative government, so that smart people can be elected to spend the time required to make tough decisions.
In California, we have taken this independence to an even greater absurdity. Almost every important issue is now voted on by referendum instead of through the legislature. This is about as horrible a form of democracy as I can imagine. “Let the people decide” is the ethic, but the “people” are, by and large, idiots on the issues. We are not experts in landfill placement, stem cell research, education, criminology, or economics. But for some reason we are expected to be one every Election Day. So instead of careful consideration of the facts presented by experts, we get independently minded fools, educated on issues through sound bites and empowered by talk radio who delude themselves into thinking they are making an informed decision. And democracy suffers because no one is held accountable to the bad decisions; no compromises are struck to soften the blows; and disjointed governance results.
It is time to return to party loyalty, stop thinking that the masses should know about, or care about, every single issue and place the burden of governing on the representatives. If they blow their chance, they’ll get their comeuppance at the next Election Day.
The audacity of any one of us questioning the science of which we know next to nil is amazing. The frequency of this behavior is mind-boggling.
But the audacity shows up for countless other politically important topics. We are supposed to be informed citizens, but the fact is, on almost every issue, the facts are beyond our training, expertise or attention span. That is why we have representative government, so that smart people can be elected to spend the time required to make tough decisions.
In California, we have taken this independence to an even greater absurdity. Almost every important issue is now voted on by referendum instead of through the legislature. This is about as horrible a form of democracy as I can imagine. “Let the people decide” is the ethic, but the “people” are, by and large, idiots on the issues. We are not experts in landfill placement, stem cell research, education, criminology, or economics. But for some reason we are expected to be one every Election Day. So instead of careful consideration of the facts presented by experts, we get independently minded fools, educated on issues through sound bites and empowered by talk radio who delude themselves into thinking they are making an informed decision. And democracy suffers because no one is held accountable to the bad decisions; no compromises are struck to soften the blows; and disjointed governance results.
It is time to return to party loyalty, stop thinking that the masses should know about, or care about, every single issue and place the burden of governing on the representatives. If they blow their chance, they’ll get their comeuppance at the next Election Day.
