Kevin, in his wisdom writes of the Decline and Fall of the American Republic, followed by a loyal readership commenting as to the specific reasons for such a decline.
This all began with the wisdom of Tam, on which Kevin built...
By the time FDR ran for office, our government was essentially no longer a republic. Passage of the Seventeenth Amendment (direct election of Senators) in 1913 destroyed the last vestiges of our republican form of government in favor of a representative democracy wherein "the people" elect representatives to "fix the problems (their) constituents beg them to fix" in both houses. The freedom to make "wise" (and therefore possibly unpopular) choices in the upper house of Congress had been removed by the 17th Amendment. Now running for Senate didn't mean you needed the respect of your peers in the House, it meant you needed to promise whatever it took to the populace to get their votes - just like every other politician. Thus Mencken's observation:
A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.Go. Read. Learn. Ruminate...and, perhaps Cry. - Guffaw
Walt, we should have listened to you!
h/t Tam, Kevin, Walt Kelly
Thanks for the link!
ReplyDeleteAnytime, my good sir!
DeleteWe have royally screwed ourselves by voting for free ice cream, instead of asking how much it would cost.
ReplyDelete"We The People" learned nothing.
'free ice cream' says it all. Thanks.
DeleteDemocracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
ReplyDeleteJohn Adams