Saturday, November 05, 2005
More right-wing populism
It’s not often that I side with the New York Times when a conservative takes them on, but in this instance, I have to kindly disagree with Captain Ed’s latest. He chides the Times for critiquing the California initiative process. The rise of right-wing populism has been one of the most unfortunate developments of the past quarter-century, and Captain Ed falls right into the trap. He writes:
Direct democracy allows voters to hold their own check on legislative arrogance. It's telling that the New York Times demeans this power and encourages its abandonment in favor of an entrenched political class that has demonstrably become less accountable to the electorate.
But who put those people in power? If the citizenry can’t be trusted to put competent people into office, then why should we trust them to decide on complex issues that have been whittled down into yes/no propositions?
The Times is right (for once) in these two sentences: Measures placed on the ballot by citizen initiatives are by their nature missing the devil of the details. The questions are designed to be brief, often to the point of being misleading or confusing. A chief example was a ballot initiative a few years back in Houston that was designed to do away with racial quotas. A last minute change in the wording made it sound as though the city would do away with all affirmative action programs. Well, as the left has been telling us these many years, affirmative action and racial quotas are not one in the same thing. The voters rejected the proposal when it probably would have passed had the language not been altered.
Referenda also fail to offer up third-way options. All issues are boiled down to simple yes/no options when neither might be particularly palatable. This style of government makes interplay and negotiation less possible. Log rolling – decried by some but ultimately a necessary part of politics – is made impossible, and there is no real opportunity for the different sides to come together and discuss the issues in a fruitful way. The choices are basically two extreme options.
And whether we think the view elitist or not, it is simply true that citizens do not have the necessary knowledge or information to make completely informed decisions. Some voters are quite intelligent, but even the super-smart may barely be cognizant of the policy ramifications of the initiative before them. We like to bash politicians in this country – and they often merit it – but they do have a higher degree of experience with the issues, and are more competent to make informed decisions.
Finally, our Framers were ever fearful of a democratic society’s ability to be swayed too much by the passions of the moment. Direct democracy fails to temper these passions, and as runs against the very ideal of our republic. And if this sounds arrogant, well take up your beef with James Madison. From Federalist 63:
As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought in all governments, and actually will in all free governments ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice and truth, can regain their authority over the public mind? What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped, if their tyranny of their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens, the hemlock of one day, and statues on the next.
Direct democracy allows voters to hold their own check on legislative arrogance. It's telling that the New York Times demeans this power and encourages its abandonment in favor of an entrenched political class that has demonstrably become less accountable to the electorate.
But who put those people in power? If the citizenry can’t be trusted to put competent people into office, then why should we trust them to decide on complex issues that have been whittled down into yes/no propositions?
The Times is right (for once) in these two sentences: Measures placed on the ballot by citizen initiatives are by their nature missing the devil of the details. The questions are designed to be brief, often to the point of being misleading or confusing. A chief example was a ballot initiative a few years back in Houston that was designed to do away with racial quotas. A last minute change in the wording made it sound as though the city would do away with all affirmative action programs. Well, as the left has been telling us these many years, affirmative action and racial quotas are not one in the same thing. The voters rejected the proposal when it probably would have passed had the language not been altered.
Referenda also fail to offer up third-way options. All issues are boiled down to simple yes/no options when neither might be particularly palatable. This style of government makes interplay and negotiation less possible. Log rolling – decried by some but ultimately a necessary part of politics – is made impossible, and there is no real opportunity for the different sides to come together and discuss the issues in a fruitful way. The choices are basically two extreme options.
And whether we think the view elitist or not, it is simply true that citizens do not have the necessary knowledge or information to make completely informed decisions. Some voters are quite intelligent, but even the super-smart may barely be cognizant of the policy ramifications of the initiative before them. We like to bash politicians in this country – and they often merit it – but they do have a higher degree of experience with the issues, and are more competent to make informed decisions.
Finally, our Framers were ever fearful of a democratic society’s ability to be swayed too much by the passions of the moment. Direct democracy fails to temper these passions, and as runs against the very ideal of our republic. And if this sounds arrogant, well take up your beef with James Madison. From Federalist 63:
As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought in all governments, and actually will in all free governments ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice and truth, can regain their authority over the public mind? What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped, if their tyranny of their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens, the hemlock of one day, and statues on the next.
# posted by Paul Zummo : 2:22 PM
