Tuesday, August 24, 2004
(12:20 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Suspicious
Is it suspicious to anyone else that right-wingers, when looking for reasons to oppose John Kerry, immediately descend into tedious minutiae? That the burden of proof for a "liberal" statement to be true is that every aspect of it must be indisputably, absolutely true in a 2+2=4 way, while the burden of proof for a "conservative" statement to be true is that there must be some aspect of the statement that is fairly close to being technically true? If conservatives applied the same hermeneutical lens to Bush's claims in the lead-up to the Iraq War that they are now applying to Kerry's most minor claims about his Vietnam service, then I think that Bush would not be the Republican presidential nominee in 2004, period.The a priori assumption that Republicans are virtuous and that Democrats are dirty liars basically prevents conservatives from making any sense during those unfortunate periods when the leadership of the Republican party are regularly lying and trampling on basic conservative principles. I'm not sure exactly when conservative commentators became souless Republican party hacks, but it was definitely a negative development, because it's always possible that people will join a political club -- such as the Republican party -- simply for the purposes of hijacking its resources in order to gain power, rather than out of any particular loyalty to the principles with which the club generally aligns itself (kind of like people who join churches to engage in social networking, with no real faith commitment). The tendency of liberal commentators to be liberal first, rather than Democrats first (as pointed out in the Yglesias post linked above), may contribute to the constant division and ineffectuality of the Democratic party, and in that way may prevent the Democrats from ever again taking power in the same overwhelming way that the Republicans have currently taken power -- but it sure does provide more safeguards (though not absolute safeguards) against abject idiocy in those areas where Democrats do take power.
All this said, after a conversation with my very Republican grandparents this weekend, I think we'd be better off if party politics were abolished altogether. Not only would it help to offset the constant demonization of the other side and sanctification of members of one's own team (more severe among Republicans, though certainly present among Democrats), but it would also make representative democracy more representative and more democratic -- because people would have to gain recognition and support in elections based on their popularity among those they'd be representing, rather than among the elites of a political party. Our political discourse might also become more sane, rather than being a constant bitch-fest about how the media is unfair to one side or the other -- and the media could possibly investigate actual issues and the probable relative effectiveness of various policies, rather than simply "spend[ing] half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other" and calling it objectivity.
It will probably never happen, but one can dream. In fact, my subscription to this dream is what makes me so appreciate bloggers such as Jonathan Schwarz, who manage to comment on politics without ever becoming souless party hacks.
[Was I spelling souless right? Should it be soulless?]
