So, What's So Great About Democracy In Action?

The Geek enjoys irony. He thinks that one cannot be a historian without a well developed appreciation of the ironic in human affairs--particularly the political parts of life. There is something sublimely ironic about the current US administration fretting publicly about the lack of democratic progress in Russia. The current administration and some wallahs in congress seem particularly upset by the fact that Vladimir Putin has been slowly and certainly with a patience unseen in Russia since the early days of Joe Stalin, aggregating power into his own hands.

The New York Times gave vent to the latest distress in the current administration and congress only yesterday. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/world/europe/15diplo.html?em&ex=1192593600&en=51d9d6f4b8978a4a&ei=5087%0A. It's worth a look (and a chuckle).

Admittedly, the current US president thinks he is the greatest practitioner of personal diplomacy in the past few centuries. He is entitled to his misapprehensions, his delusions of adequacy, but not at the expense of realistically assessing American national interests.

Russia under Putin has been seeking to (re)establish its status as a Great Power in sharp opposition to the current administration's desire to decree that since the end of the First Cold War the world is strictly unipolar. To do this, Putin has garnered power into his own hands--with the seemingly willing collaboration of others in the Russian government and its supporting infrastructure.

The current US administration would be well advised to recall that Russia has little real experience with democracy. Beyond that, the current administration and the wallahs in congress would do well to consider whether democracy is a system which recommends itself to Russia--or many other countries.

We Americans have made a fetish out of democracy without really examining what the word might mean outside of the theoretical pages of a political science or civics textbook. Before shaking our heads with either frustration or outrage over the practices of Vladimir Putin, we might take a good, hard, critical look at democracy in action here in the good old United States of America.

Consider the words of SecState Rice during her Moscow visit. “If you don’t have countervailing institutions, then the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development.” She was criticising the lack of an independent judicial system or legislature in Russia.

Has she looked around Washington lately?

Has Dr Rice noticed, for example, how Vice-President Cheney has beavered away to gather power to the Executive Branch at the expense of the other two branches? Did she even notice back when she was National Security Advisor that she and then SecState Powell were kept out of the loop regarding the invasion of Iraq?

Did she notice the perversion of intelligence? Did she notice the manipulation of Congress?

If she did, then where is the accuracy of her anti-Putin comment?

If she didn't, then is she aware enough of time and place to be this nation's top diplomat?

Others who have criticised Putin might look around the acres inside the Beltway and wonder about the real meaning of democracy given a few realities. The chance of changing members of congress in recent elections (except by death or resignation) is lower than in England during the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century--the era of rotten and pocket boroughs. The wallahs in congress resemble a school of fish, changing direction in a flash in response to opinion polls or, more likely, the dictates of large campaign contributions.

The inside-the-Beltway-critics of Putin might modulate their tongue wagging if they considered who is represented in congress, voters or donors. We all know the answer to that.

They might be a little less eager to complain about the slow down in democratic reform in Russia when they consider the relative stupidity of American foreign policy as practiced by the current administration or the complications introduced by ideologically blinded members of the Surrender Now! crowd in congress. The critics of Russia under Putin might bite down on their carping if they took a good look at the realism by which Russia defines its foreign and domestic interests in comparison with the US.

None of the foregoing considers other historical and systemic flaws in the American brand of democracy. It doesn't take into account the long evolution of an expanded franchise. Neither does it examine the questionable impacts of this expansion. There is no mention of big city machines, let alone a detailed account of the negative impact on democratic processes by either big money contributors, focus groups, negative campaigning, or the primacy of political operatives and strategists such as James Carvelle or Karl Rove.

Then there are the questions regarding the American version of an independent judiciary. Where's the independence in a system which allows regulators to be legislature, executive, and judiciary? Where is the authentic independence in a Federal judiciary which allows, no, demands ideological litmus tests for appointments and confirmations? Or in state systems depending upon the election of judges?

The US political system including its more-or-less democratic aspects was designed to be inefficient. The practical politicians who served as architects of our system understood that only conflict between central and state governments as well as within the central government would assure sufficient inefficiency to protect the rights and liberties of the citizens. Their intentions were good. Their knowledge base was appropriate.

But they could not foresee the future. They could not see the rise of the administrative state and regulatory law. They could not forecast that the day would come when the three branches of the central government would combine forces to subjugate the states, almost achieving the Hamiltonian goal of reducing states to mere administrative entities.

Certainly the drafters of our system could not guess that the day would come when the combination of population size and technological developments in communications would require that politicians engage in an endless race for the money. A race that assured that the larger the contribution, the louder the voice.

The Geek is no fan of authoritarian systems. Quite the contrary. He is too much of an anarchist at heart to accept the dictates of authority.

He regrets that Russia is not a flourishing democracy. Someday it might become one. Even more the Geek regrets that the US is not living up to the democratic ideals it so righteously proclaims to others. He hopes that some day we might live up to the standards of our rhetoric.

Until that Utopian day, the Geek would be pleased mightily if our government wallahs could cool the hypocrisy.