Can an honest and thoughtful debate be part of the campaign?
A review of our current politics and a wistful look at the Constitution
by Dr. Jim Thursday May 29, 2008
I've been bothered for a long time about our politics. Debate, deliberation, evaluation of the law, a search for understanding in diverse views, tolerance of those who are different and more seem to have been disappearing for years. I am not naive to believe that our 200 year national politics has been free of "dirty" politics, smears and dishonesty, but I do believe that we have done better than we're doing now and wonder if it is possible to get the dialogue back on track.
In light of the upcoming, or rather already leaked, book by former White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, it in which it is starkly revealed just how low the executive branch has sunk, it would be a good time to revisit the ideas of the founding fathers and try to imagine how the national debate should look. The founding fathers were deeply suspicious of abstract ideas and encouraged asking questions and testing ideas. Grand theories were okay, they said, but better we should stick to fact and necessity. The entire notion of the Constitution is that we have devised a system of government loaded with checks and balances and a Bill of Rights that is meant to yield a "deliberative democracy" in which all citizens are actually required to take part in the process of putting out ideas, debating them, testing them, and ultimately distilling a blend of mutual consent. We are supposed to believe that we may not always be right and be ready to revisit assumptions.
The idea of free speech allows us and encourages us to debate and disagree. The idea, as laid out in the Constitution, envisions "deliberation and circumspection" culminating in a basket of ideas that allows the participants to expand their base of knowledge, challenge previously held perspectives and in the end arrive at better, more fair agreements than would have arisen in a lop-sided or forced structure of centralized power.
The Constitution's goal was to put the breaks on passion or prejudice or bias and temper those emotions with judgement and reason, yielding in the end to the good of the country, not the good of an individual's needs or "feelings".
But now we find ourselves in a time that elections are about attack ads, sound bites, fringe issues, and the parsing of every miniscule bit of inane side-show freak news. (think flag lapel pins, whose "associate" said what, sexism, racism, age-ism, Fox versus MSNBC, and so on). Imagine, if you can, if the national debate were redirected to a discussion of the best way to become energy independent, the best way to restructure failing school systems, how to engage in the international arena or how to re-franchise the disenfranchised members of our split society. Are we too far gone? Have we been "Roved" into a world we cannot back track from? Have we become inured to the world of "Willie Horton" politics forever?
If anything during the rest of this campaign year I would hope that Americans of all political beliefs begin to push back against the detritus of modern politics. It is time to say "no more". Do not give credence to Swift Boat style ads, Do not allow trivia and fringe issues to dominate the national debate. Force the candidates, their supporters and their teams to focus on intellectual dialogue. It is not beneath us, as a nation. If we allow ourselves to be pandered to, they will continue to divide us, misdirect us and ultimately embarrass us and weaken us as a nation. If that isn't the message from the McClellan book, than the best we can hope for is a White House that plots our destiny behind our backs, takes away our Constitutional Individual rights to be part of the process and enables those in power to consolidate their power to their benefit, not ours.