posted by Damozel |
Thought-provoking post at wingnut-/lukewarm-liberal-baiting and unstoppably progressive Sadly, No! by HTML Mencken
, discussing of where the system got broken and how liberals (the self-styled sensible sort which I guess includes me) enabled it.
Food for thought for someone like me, who is constantly looking for that middle ground, I guess. A lot of it produces that visceral yes. Like most moderate liberals, I agree in principle. Which is why the progressives probably want to spew us from their mouths.
:[T]he government operates under a Madisonian institutional framework. It is objectively conservative in the sense that it favors inertia and the status quo....The Iraq War is hard to stop because it is now the status quo. Likewise, Vietnam was hard to stop once it got going. But neither Vietnam nor the Iraq War were all that hard to start. Why? Because the Executive branch has long outgrown Madisonian constraints vis-a-vis war powers. Clinton couldn’t get health care done; he refused to stop welfare reform; but it was no sweat for him to bomb Sudan and Iraq — an act of far greater moral consequence. Liberals like to pretend the system isn’t broken in this way; but it is.
It’s just that it only looks “normally” unbroken because the unholy spectacle of reactionary Presidents like Nixon and Reagan and crypto-fascist executive teams like Bush-Cheney successfully exploiting and enlarging the breach. I’ll concede that some patching was done post-Watergate, but it was just a patch. The problem won’t go away in Jan., 2009 even if Dennis Kucinich is sworn in on that day. The problem is structural. We’ll get another patch with the next Dem president, but then some goddamned fucking future wingnut president (enabled by Sensible Liberals then, too; mark my words...) will just tear it off again and go farther, and we’ll look upon Bush-Cheney then like we look on Nixon and Reagan now.
Someone push the Constitutional reset button!
“No,” cry the Madisonian liberals, “the wingnuts will just take our freedoms away then!” As if they haven’t done a great job of that already, with war’s effect on domestic political climate being the usual means of most Great Freedom Heists. In the end it’s not the wingnuts but rather the Liberals who’d ultimately stop a move to a truly democratic parliamentary system in this country. (Bad Memories)
I ain't progressive enough for the elite of the left, but I do love this blog.
But this?
We have enough momentum now that if we elect a decent liberal (Edwards, Kucinich, Gravel — at this point, I’m thinking Dodd of all people isn’t bad, especially compared to Hillary and Obama) some things can really get done on the domestic front and the war might be ended for the most part. It won’t fix the structural problem I describe in the post, but it’s something.
That’s if we elect one of the above. If it’s Hillary or Obama, forget it. It’s perpetual Iraq then, and probably bomb Iran time, too, not to mention triangulation on domestic affairs.
All I can say is if it happens and I blow my head off, watch the Sensible Liberals cheer the war and triangulations and remember that I told you so. (HTML Mencken from the comments)
Nonsense. (Though I'll remember it, just in case.)
Comments