Can we get the politics out of governing?
As I listened to yet another absurd prescription for "solving" the Iraq War, wedged between radio programs on our pathetic medical care system and some election prognositications on how the flex of executive privilege muscle will play, it all distilled down to the subject line for me.
Can we get the politics out of governing?
Is it possible?
I'm sure there's a body of thought and debate out there. I'm not tapped into it. Comments anywhere from comparative foreign and historical government lessons, to "that's stupid" by definition.
Polarization by structure
Some students of American national politics suspect that the Voting Rights Act had a major unintended consequence. The argument goes that the VRA vastly increased the scope for gerrymandering of congressional districts...the drafters of the Act, plus later judicial interpretation, were not able to limit the use of this scope to the originally intended purpose of the Act (increasing minority representation). And it has become one of those third rails of American politics, as you all may remember...it came up recently for regular review, and a few people wanted to tinker with it, but were nearly electrocuted by the political and media reaction to tinkering with that sacred cow.
The story goes that the VRA has had the unintended consequence of polarizing the representation of the American electorate because parties (by creating "safe party districts") move median voters within the resulting districts further from the center. In this story, this hollows out the representation of the political center, and causes the "tails" or "fringes" of political opinion to receive undue weight.
I find the story compelling as a theoretical matter, but I'm not immersed in the empirical research on the subject. My point in relating the story is that sometimes strictly optional structural features of democratic institutions can be pretty pernicious (at least in theory). In the case of the VRA, one could imagine tinkering with it to eliminate its (alleged) pernicious unintended consequences. One of the states (I think Iowa) has "tied its own hands" by relegating redistricting to an impartial commission. Bravo to them; but it takes an awful lot of public-spiritedness for either party in power in some statehouse to resist the tempation to "do unto the other party as they did unto them."
Truly, we get the government we deserve.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ironhorse
Can we get the politics out of governing?
Is it possible?
I'm sure there's a body of thought and debate out there. I'm not tapped into it. Comments anywhere from comparative foreign and historical government lessons, to "that's stupid" by definition.
As long as people are free to exercise their 1st Amendment rights to criticize the government, I don't see how. There always has, and always will be conflict between and among the branches of our government. And if anything, it used to be alot more personal than it is now.
One of the things that precipitated the Burr-Hamilton duel was Burr's belief that Hamilton's faction was slandering him with a whisper campaign that he had committed incest with his own daughter. There were other things, too, but it doesn't get any dirtier than that.
Lincoln and Davis both faced relentless criticism during the Civil War.
WWII is pretty unique in the kind of unity the country displayed during wartime. If that is the standard for the cooperation we expect in Washington, we will likely be disappointed for ever after.
Frankly, I don't want to give up my right to criticize the government, its policies, and various politicians. Do you? If not, then you have to allow for Senator X to criticize Senator Y, President Z to critize the both of them, and Representatives A and B to dodge the issue altogether. We the people have elected them, they didn't come from outer space. People basically get the government they deserve, in my opinion. Our current crop is merely a reflection of the society they come from.