|
Redstate...
Nancy Pelosi Is
Right: Elections Shouldn’t Matter As Much As They do
In an ideal world, of course
Posted by Academic Elephant (Profile)
Wednesday, April 13th
Speaking at Tufts University on April 8th, House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi had one of those marvelous moments of self-revelation in which a
usually polished politician speaking casually and without a script
among like-minded friends says what everyone is thinking–what everyone
knows to be true–in this case what is considered an unquestionable
“fact” by their audience. As you can see from the video, there was not
a murmur when Pelosi circled around to her punch line that “elections
should not matter as much as they do.” She went on to lament that the
lack of “shared values” had lead to the unpleasantness of last Friday
in Congress with all the shouting and staying up late and worries over
who would get to keep their Blackberrys.
The thing is, Pelosi is right. Elections are burdensome things. They
are expensive, intrusive and all too frequently unfair. Even when you
win, the cycle of fundraising and campaigning distracts from the
business at hand.
Elections are particularly burdensome when you lose. Then their
inconvenience becomes glaringly apparent. New crops of politicos have
to be trained over and over again to do the same tasks as their
predecessors. Perfectly able, even accomplished lawmakers are routinely
tossed out on their ears to make way for the ignorant and green.
Majorities and minorities ebb and flow, leading to confusion over
policy and priorities. Your treasured projects, nursed and nurtured in
good faith, are threatened by the newcomers who do not share your
values–who may in fact be devoid of values altogether and may nip those
tender shoots in the bud.
Really when you look at it from Pelosi’s perspective, it all seems at
best counter-intuitive and at worst barely civilized.
There has been some well-founded outrage at Pelosi’s apparent disdain
for the democratic process stemming from post-2008 mid-term sour
grapes. I suspect, however, that the root of the problem for those of
us who find her remarks disturbing rather than self-evident is less the
word “election” and more the word “shared”–as in the values Pelosi
believes we must all have in common to achieve a utopia free from those
burdensome elections.
Variants of “share” are popular in President Obama’s rhetoric as well,
and I expect we will hear it several times from him this afternoon. I
have noticed it as a curiously condescending word choice from a
politician who is in my age group recalling what you would expect to
hear from a parent or teacher, a disconnect he does not appear to see.
It seems he understands the term differently. This new “sharing” is
transitioning from being the free exercise of generosity–a learned
trait for most humans–to being an obligatory act of subjugation to the
state. You do not learn to share as a moral choice; you are told to do
it. Should you attempt not to share what is yours–be it values or
money–this government seems increasingly eager to put you back on the
path of righteousness.
I find I am not comfortable with this obligatory sharing. I am one of
those who do not consider pregnancy to be a punishment or gainful
employment to be a prison. I am not eager to share my values with those
who disagree on the first point or my money with those who differ on
the second. As we consider the calls for us all to just get along,
Nancy Pelosi’s off-hand comment serves as a useful reminder of what too
much compromise–too much sharing–can get us.
As unfortunate as it may seem at times, elections must continue to be
our burden to bear.
Read it with a link to the video at Redstate
|
|
|
|
