No Second Chance
Mar 17, 2016 19:00:19 GMT -5
Post by Michael Downing on Mar 17, 2016 19:00:19 GMT -5
bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2016/03/no-second-chance.html
No Second Chance
In her landmark analysis of American government The God of the Machine, Isabel Paterson notes that political power, while easy to grant, is not so easy to revoke:
Further, political power has a ratchet action; it works only one way, to augment itself. A transfer occurs by which the power cannot be retracted once it is bestowed....The difficulty of taking back powers once granted is illustrated in the repeal of the Prohibition Amendment; although it was demanded and carried by overwhelming sentiment of the citizens, the article of repeal contained a proviso which would retain numerous Federal jobs; it was impossible to make a clean sweep of the pernicious usurped power. The Prohibition Amendment was an assertion of absolute government, the indication of complete decomposition of the body politic.
This is a special case of a more general phenomenon: the disproportionate power of groups with short, coherent agendas. This is part of the reason a group that has in some way “gotten a piece” of the power of the State possesses political influence far beyond what would be imagined from its numbers alone. Not only can it wield coercive power in its own interest; it also has greater motivation, greater capacity to raise resources, and more flexibility in creating alliances with other groups.
This mechanism also operates within recognizable groups. Robert Conquest’s observation that:
The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies. ( Conquest’s Third Law of Politics )
...is yet another expression of that general law: one that embeds itself in any group that grows beyond a certain, rather intimate size. Which brings us to my main subject for today: the “major” political parties, particularly the Republican Party and the existential crisis it faces due to the rise of Donald Trump.
The aim of the High is to remain where they are. – George Orwell, 1984
The “political circus” video embedded earlier contains statements and expresses attitudes by a number of individuals, each of whom possesses his own motivations. Do their statements reflect the whole of their motivations? Probably not; they’re politicians de facto, and even when a politician tells the truth, he never tells the whole truth. But of this we may be reasonably sure: each of them firmly believes that he belongs in the innermost cabal that steers the Republican Party.
Perhaps some of them sincerely believes that he has the good of the party and the United States of America at heart. Perhaps all of them do! But that motivation will forever be counterpoised to each one’s desire to remain in his position within the party – and that desire is likely to be the stronger of the two.
The rise of Donald Trump, an “insurgent” candidate whose past behavior, statements, and affiliations cast serious doubt on his authenticity as a Republican, threatens those power brokers. Should Trump capture the party nomination, he will also capture the party itself. For Trump is a Tyrant of the old style:
You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. [C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters]
Donald Trump seeks to hold all power in his own hands. Should he gain the GOP presidential nomination, he would countenance no opposition from within the party. He’d destroy the party rather than permit it. Yet the establishment that precedes him would fight fiercely for its position...and after the dust had settled, there would be no major party dedicated to the limited-government principles expressed in the Republican platform. Granted that elected Republicans haven’t exactly lived up to those principles in recent years.
No Second Chance
In her landmark analysis of American government The God of the Machine, Isabel Paterson notes that political power, while easy to grant, is not so easy to revoke:
Further, political power has a ratchet action; it works only one way, to augment itself. A transfer occurs by which the power cannot be retracted once it is bestowed....The difficulty of taking back powers once granted is illustrated in the repeal of the Prohibition Amendment; although it was demanded and carried by overwhelming sentiment of the citizens, the article of repeal contained a proviso which would retain numerous Federal jobs; it was impossible to make a clean sweep of the pernicious usurped power. The Prohibition Amendment was an assertion of absolute government, the indication of complete decomposition of the body politic.
This is a special case of a more general phenomenon: the disproportionate power of groups with short, coherent agendas. This is part of the reason a group that has in some way “gotten a piece” of the power of the State possesses political influence far beyond what would be imagined from its numbers alone. Not only can it wield coercive power in its own interest; it also has greater motivation, greater capacity to raise resources, and more flexibility in creating alliances with other groups.
This mechanism also operates within recognizable groups. Robert Conquest’s observation that:
The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies. ( Conquest’s Third Law of Politics )
...is yet another expression of that general law: one that embeds itself in any group that grows beyond a certain, rather intimate size. Which brings us to my main subject for today: the “major” political parties, particularly the Republican Party and the existential crisis it faces due to the rise of Donald Trump.
The aim of the High is to remain where they are. – George Orwell, 1984
The “political circus” video embedded earlier contains statements and expresses attitudes by a number of individuals, each of whom possesses his own motivations. Do their statements reflect the whole of their motivations? Probably not; they’re politicians de facto, and even when a politician tells the truth, he never tells the whole truth. But of this we may be reasonably sure: each of them firmly believes that he belongs in the innermost cabal that steers the Republican Party.
Perhaps some of them sincerely believes that he has the good of the party and the United States of America at heart. Perhaps all of them do! But that motivation will forever be counterpoised to each one’s desire to remain in his position within the party – and that desire is likely to be the stronger of the two.
The rise of Donald Trump, an “insurgent” candidate whose past behavior, statements, and affiliations cast serious doubt on his authenticity as a Republican, threatens those power brokers. Should Trump capture the party nomination, he will also capture the party itself. For Trump is a Tyrant of the old style:
You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. [C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters]
Donald Trump seeks to hold all power in his own hands. Should he gain the GOP presidential nomination, he would countenance no opposition from within the party. He’d destroy the party rather than permit it. Yet the establishment that precedes him would fight fiercely for its position...and after the dust had settled, there would be no major party dedicated to the limited-government principles expressed in the Republican platform. Granted that elected Republicans haven’t exactly lived up to those principles in recent years.