Washington -- Stuart
Is politics a moral endeavor?
In the very long run, yes, it is. Moralists have never had
an easy time of it. Socrates died of an overdose of hemlock administered by
agents of the state who thought he was corrupting morals. Jesus was nailed to a
cross. Cicero, a very wordy moralist and an arch small “r” republican, was
first banished from Rome and later murdered by the emperor’s assassins. And, of
course, if the British were able to prevail over George Washington, he would
have been hanged, along with everyone who had signed the Declaration of
Independence.
Cicero has come down to us as a republican martyr whose
assassination has been described vividly by the second-century A.D. historian
Appian:
As he leaned out of the litter and offered his neck
unmoved, his head was cut off. Nor did this satisfy the senseless cruelty of
the soldiers. They cut off his hands, also, for the offense of having written
something against Antony. Thus, the head was brought to Antony and placed by
his order between the two hands on the rostra, where, often as consul, often as
a consular, and, that very year against Antony, he had been heard with
admiration of his eloquence, the like of which no other human voice ever
uttered.”
We may rightly doubt there is a necessary connection between
politicians and morals. That was the whole point of Machiavelli’s The Prince, was it not? Mark Twain, a
moralist himself, told us that moral men shine in politics more than in other
professions, the implication being that the backdrop is considerably darker in
politics than in most professions.
If there is a place in politics for morality, cynics tend to
think, it may be found most often on the back benches.
Are older politicians more or less moral than younger ones?
That is a question worth tackling. One would think that men
and women politicians approaching the grave – Biden is 80 years old, former
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi 82, and Democrat leader in the Senate Chuck
Schumer 72 -- would consult some sort of moral breviary before their legacies
are finally interred. On the other hand,
the moral lives of politicians are short, usually done-in by political
chicanery of some sort, while the Machiavellian lives of politicians are long.
People tend to judge the straight and narrow path in
politics in the light of principles sustained or betrayed. But most politics is
the result of choices on lesser matters, many of which cannot be properly
characterized as moral. And politicians, like the common run of humanity, are
circumscribed by the choices they make, moral or not.
Political choices are citadels that must be defended against
all hazards, and politicians are the prisoners of their past choices. It might
be useful to divide most politicians into two camps; derivative and creative,
rather than red and blue, or women and men, or Democrats and Republicans,
remembering always Otto von Bismarck’s quip that "People never lie so much as before an election,
during a war, or after a hunt."
Is President Joe Biden a derivative or a creative politician?
He is almost wholly a derivative politician, and a superb
plagiarist to boot, trying to break free, after a half century in politics, of
his past choices. Hypocrisy – the compliment vice pays to virtue – can be very
liberating, providing one does recognize a moral standard and
has at one’s disposal an operative sense of shame. On the question – Does Biden
have a sense of shame? – the jury is out. We know positively that his son
Hunter does not.
Biden’s political life was shaped in the vortex of 1960’s
politics. Agile changes to suit the prevailing and revolutionary political winds
are now his operative principle. Usually, he finds himself addressing an
audience of political influencers whose souls – I speak here hyperbolically –
were formed in that moral maelstrom, and his message, such as it is, has found
a home among others who have shared the same narrow and claustrophobic amoral political
barracks.
Nothing can be more obvious in Connecticut politics than that
Democrat postmodern progressives have prevailed over both moderates and center
right conservatives.
Are you sure?
Of course. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Connecticut by
a two to one margin. In the General Assembly, postmodern progressives have
attained a nearly veto proof majority. All the state’s constitutional offices
are held by Democrats. The Governor’s office has been held, since the Jodi Rell
administration, by Democrats. Most of the higher court judges in the state have
been appointed by Democrats. College administrators across the state are almost
uniformly Democrat and postmodern progressive in political orientation. The
larger cities in the state have been ruled by Democrats for nearly half a
century. Schools in urban areas are regularly producing practical illiterates.
The state is financing non-performing schools and definancing non-unionized
urban religious and charter schools that are, in many respects, superior to
failing public schools that are happily financed by its victims. Last but certainly not least, opposition to
one party rule in the state among media savants has entirely collapsed. This
lack of critical opposition to the party in power must rest, many people are
convinced, on ideological and temperamental predispositions.
Why are there no viable third party alternatives in Connecticut?
There are two reasons. Neither Democrats nor Republicans
will cheerfully admit a third party that is not a pale and temporary reflection
of one of the two major parties. To put the thing in religious terms, Democrats
have much to lose and Republicans nothing to win with the institution of a
third shadow party. Democrat postmodern progressives have created a Heaven on
Earth in Connecticut’s political realm. Republicans are convinced there can be
no salvation outside the Republican Party and, it must be admitted, they do
have a solid point. If you want to change the political substructure in
Connecticut, you can only do so by wielding a big Republican stick. Third parties
are counsels of despair.
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