The Worst Form of Government

Winston Churchill, in my humble opinion perhaps the greatest non-American American in history, famously said of democracy that it was the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time. And the beauty of democracy lies in that it allows the people, be they rich or poor, young or old, urban or rural, and in the recent history of democracy, regardless of race, gender, or level of income, to have a voice. That voice will be heard loud and clear in less than two weeks, and the results will speak volumes about where we stand and where we are likely headed as a society.

That’s right, we get the final say, not the cable news pundits, the ones that line up for one candidate or the other and offer predictable and often lame defenses of their candidates on often indefensible positions, at least the ones on the right side of the box. Those boxes remind me of the Brady Bunch intro, and I’d love to see a true independent show up last in Alice’s box sometime to give us a little perspective that isn’t so predictably partisan.

It won’t be the so-called elite liberal media that makes the call either, although I would argue that they are neither elite nor liberal, and the media part is somewhat questionable as well. Perhaps a better moniker would be the mediocre middle of the road sounding boards, which is basically what they do, not challenging positions or asking pertinent follow-up questions lest they be accused of bias.

And it won’t be the pollsters, who love to tout the accuracy and relevance of their work, despite the fact that they are sampling such a small percentage of the population and mostly contacting people by land line. I for one rarely even pay attention when my land line rings anymore, figuring it to be just another sales call, and I certainly won’t pick up the phone when I see opinion research on the caller id as I’ve been burned before thinking I was going to finally get to partake in a political opinion survey, only to end up stuck on the line talking about how I feel about the service at my bank. Plus polls don’t even factor in the growing number of people who use only cell phones. No, the only poll that I put much stock in is the one that will occur on November 4 when civic minded Americans from coast to coast will register their verdict.

It is still of course far from certain who will win the ultimate poll. I am clearly on record for a long time now as predicting an Obama rout, I see as many as 35 states and close to 60% of the popular vote, because quite frankly the American people are finally seeing the light. They are finally rejecting the divisive politics offered by the McCain campaign in favor of the inclusive approach offered by Obama. They are finally wising up to the fact that raising taxes, back to the pre-Bush levels, on people making over a quarter of a million is not going to take any money out of their paychecks, nor is it going to cause a catastrophic loss of jobs as all the rich people either move to Ireland, or decide to stop working and go on public assistance so they can avoid paying higher taxes.

The American people are tired of waiting for the benefits to trickle down, all while the price of everything keeps bubbling up. We in the middle and working classes, in other words regular people that generally lack access to the means of production and work for someone else so that we can pay our bills and enjoy our weekends, we are tapped out and fed up, and Barack Obama offers us the best hope we have had in my lifetime of having a leader that actually gets it.

Redistribution is not the same thing as Socialism, and if you don’t believe me just grab a good dictionary and look up the words. Any government that collects taxes, which is basically every one in the history of governments, engages in some form of redistribution, it is simply a matter of who benefits and who pays. Socialism has become a dirty word in the same vein that the term Liberal was until recently, or Pacifism until we finally overshot our wad in Western and Central Asia. I am not an advocate of pure socialism anymore than I am of pure capitalism, there always has been and always should be a blend of the two, and on this there are legitimate differences of opinion between liberals, moderates, and conservatives. But socialism is the government controlling both the means of production as well as distribution, which with some notable exceptions, such as President Bush’s recent proposal to nationalize parts of our banking system, is not what our government engages in, nor is it anywhere close to what Obama and a Democratic Congress would do.

So despite the often bitter tone of the campaign and the good deal of plain silliness that has occurred, from Joe the Plumber to Sarah the Fashionista, we will get to make the final call on this whole thing. We will continue a tradition begun in 1800 when after a bitter and divisive campaign, full of mudslinging and accusations against both candidates, Thomas Jefferson narrowly defeated John Adams, thus ending rule by the Federalist Party and transferring that power peacefully to the Democratic-Republican party of Jefferson. What we now take for granted is actually a quite remarkable feat when you consider how infrequently power has peacefully changed hands throughout human history.

So we should show up and vote, sit back and watch the results on our network of choice, and when all is said and done, if we are patriotic Americans, we will support the winning side whether we voted for them or not, accept the results despite all the conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines and irregularities, and stay active in our politics so that we might have a voice in what happens to this great nation and society that we all hold so dearly. Adams and Jefferson would want no less, and so to I suspect would McCain and Obama.