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All Along the Watchtower

~ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34

All Along the Watchtower

Tag Archives: Democracy

The end of history?

06 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by JessicaHoff in Faith, Politics, Pope

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Democracy

I am grateful to the kind friends who commented on my last post. I thought, and prayed, hard before writing it and publishing it. Aware, as I am, that so many are suffering at this time, I didn’t want it to seem as though I was claiming anything special for myself; we all carry our crosses.
Neo made the point that he did not like the word ‘sustainability’ because it has so often been used as a political tool. I had meant to add some reference to Pope Francis’ words here. Both in Laudato Si! and in more recent speeches, the Pope has spoken movingly of the need to find a better way of our living in this world.

Our hope, as Christians, may be on the world to come, but we are to bear witness to the hope that is in us in this one. Looking around, hope is in short supply. Our political life here, and in America, seems marked by huge chasms

One of the things which we seem to be losing is the sense that we have to live in this world together. What do I mean? Until recently it was not uncommon for politicians and public figures to disagree profoundly without being overly personal about it. There was an acknowledgment that even if our viewpoints were profoundly different, they were held in good faith. That was basic for the sustainability of our democracy. All elections have losers, and if the reaction of the winners is that the losers deserved to lose because they were morally repugnant, then what incentive is there for the losers to accept their fate? Indeed, what incentive is there for the losers to accept the system itself?

Jesus tells us to render unto Caesar the things that are his; but what if he claims all things? If Caesar insists that in terms of public life we ‘keep our religion to ourselves’ and that it belongs strictly to the ‘private sphere’, who is it gets to define ‘private’? Not having made too good a job of this when the Churches had the upper hand, it may seem as though we Christians should just keep quiet, but what’s the use of not learning from experience?

As the churches withdrew from dominating the political sphere, a variety of alternatives emerged, one of which was representative democracy. At times in the twentieth century it seemed to be on the way out, Fascism, or Communism, seemed the wave of the future. Word War 2 saw off fascism and the Cold War ended with the failure of the Soviet Union. It was, some said, “the end of history” and representative democracy was the wave of the future.

That doesn’t seem to have happened. Instead, as the Pope puts it in his new encyclical:

Today, in many countries, hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools. Employing a strategy of ridicule, suspicion and relentless criticism, in a variety of ways one denies the right of others to exist or to have an opinion. 

That’s not a partisan point. If I look here on Brexit, people with my opinion have tended to insult Brexiteers, ridculing them for what seems to us their failures of understanding. At best, we have failed to understand what drove so many people in that direction; at worst we have written them off as stupid, venal or unscrupulous. In turn, Brexiteers have tended to insult “Remoaners” as elitists who are in the pay of the Eurocrats and have no love for our own country. And so, to quote Pope Francis again, the result is that:

Their share of the truth and their values are rejected and, as a result, the life of society is impoverished and subjected to the hubris of the powerful. Political life no longer has to do with healthy debates about long-term plans to improve people’s lives and to advance the common good, but only with slick marketing techniques primarily aimed at discrediting others. In this craven exchange of charges and counter-charges, debate degenerates into a permanent state of disagreement and confrontation.

If we cannot find a better way of conducting ourselves then representative democracy will whither on the vine. It’s a hard thing to do, it requires us to respect each other and acknowledge that the possession of a majority does not give the ruling party a right to ignore other opinions and to ride roughshod. Yet that’s what is tending to happen. If we do lose it then I suspect we will regret it.

As Christians we owe to Caesar what is his, but we owe to God that sense of being equal in his eyes and unless we acknowledge that in the way we treat each other, then we fail at a fundamentla level.

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Sowing the seeds?

16 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by John Charmley in Faith, Politics

≈ 44 Comments

Tags

Democracy, Elections, history, Trump

anti-trump-protests-erupt-across-america

‘In victory, magnanimity’, Churchill counselled. There are those on the Right who would say that having triumphed electorally, they should now give the Left a dose of its own medicine; but is that wise? If it was, at least in part, the festering resentment of so many at the way the Left behaved in power that sparked the Trump triumph and Brexit, is it really wise to behave in the way they behaved – and assume that the consequences will be different? Democracy is a hard school, one of its disciplines is to remember that one day the people you don’t agree with will be in power. I doubt, somehow, that many of those Democrats who approved Obama’s over-use of Presidential powers will be very keen on that tactic should President Trump go down the same route. By its nature, democracy is hostile to the idea of one party hegemony – which is why it is so often subverted by those who, finding themselves in power, think it would be a good idea for them to be there permanently. It is no such thing.

In the UK over the past four decades we have had two very long periods of one-party dominance – the results were good for neither the country, nor the part concerned. Both the Thatcher and the Blair governments did some things which, with a stronger opposition, they would not have done, and as the Tory defeat of 1997 and the more recent disintegration of Labour have shown, a long period in power can be followed by a long one in opposition. Churchill’s very long political career embraced both long periods in power and long ones out of it – so when he advised magnanimity, he spoke with wisdom from experience.

For a Christian there can be a difficulty here. If a party seems very hostile to our religion, should we not, goes the temptation, do whatever we can to keep it out of power? But we cannot do wrong in order to do what we think it right; down that slippery slope lies, at the end, something like a dictatorship – unless someone is of the view that it is possible to ensure that a programme of re-education can ensure that people will vote ‘the right way’; the Soviets tried that – and we know how that turned out.

The Church takes no particular view on which is the best political system – Caesar must get on with it. But it does take a view on what lies within God’s province and how Caesar ought to comport himself. So we have every right to take an active part in democratic politics – but no right to scream and shout and throw fire-bombs if the the result does not go our way. Does the electoral system sometimes throw up odd results? Yes. Do the people sometimes do something which seems very stupid? Yes. But that is part of the price we pay for living in a democracy. It is very dangerous that so many liberals seem to have taken the hump about recent events in the USA. What would they have said had their opponents behaved in the way they are now behaving? We should have heard much about the stupidity of the mob and the ignorance of the people – much as we do now from them. They appear not to be getting a quite simple message – which is that much of the electorate is fed up with being insulted and patronised. To carry on insulting and patronising them after you have lost seems colossally stupid – and surely, given the pride such people take in their education, they really ought to know better? Their attitude has already legitimised right-wing riots in the future – I think they should stop there and get on with using their superior expertise to show why they were right and their opponents were wrong. That’s what this democracy thing is all about – so can we just please get back to it?

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Democracy in action

14 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by John Charmley in Politics

≈ 37 Comments

Tags

Clinton, Democracy, Trump

download

Protesting against the result of a general election is something many of us have wanted to do. In 1997 I was utterly sure that Blair was a fraud and that his internationalist instincts would cause trouble. Gordon Brown stopped him taking the UK into the Euro, but no one stopped him backing a disastrous invasion of Iraq. That did not stop the country electing him twice more; now, many of those who voted for him thrice share the doubts I had in 1997. That gives me the right to say ‘told you so’ – but it did not give me the right in 1997 to set fire to anything, break windows or otherwise express my crossness that the electorate had been duped; but then I am a conservative and a pragmatist. So now, when I see people in the USA protesting, I ask myself what they hope to achieve? They have clearly forgotten that Trump has never been a Republican and that many Republicans did not like him. They are also ignoring the many reasons Americans voted for him. I couldn’t say that Trump was to my taste, and were I am American I should not have voted for him. But I would not throw my hands up and whine, still less would I demonstrate in the streets – what sort of example does that set?

So, a vulgarian, a man who has expressed racist and sexist views is President-elect? He shares these characteristics with many voters. Perhaps we should only have a democracy that allows people who share my world-view to vote? Oh, wait, that’s not democracy! Perhaps people with views I hate shouldn’t be allowed to be President or Prime Minister? Oh, wait, that’s not democracy! Or perhaps I should work harder with those who do think like me to persuade others we are right? What, get involved in that mucky business of canvassing and persuading the hoi-polloi? Yes, that’s what democracy is about. But the media is against me? Well it wasn’t exactly with Trump was it, but that didn’t stop him? Ah, but it takes money. Well, again, that might require getting your hand dirty and asking for or raising the stuff. Can’t be bothered with all that? So much easier then just to spout off and, when someone else wins the election, to act as though you are a small child whose ball has just been taken away. That, too, is democracy, of course, and people have a perfect right to protest – peacefully.

The sad fact is that the tone in which both the Brexit campaign here and the Presidential election in the USA were conducted has left a well of toxic matter in the body politic. There are reasons why election campaigns should not be conducted like internet trolling, and one of them is that afterwards, in a democracy, everyone has to get along. When any large section of the population feels not only offended, but frightened, this is not good for democracy. For the past few years it is those of us on the conservative and religious side of things who have felt threatened by the actions of government as it seems to have been determined to enforce its ideology of political-correctness on us whether we wanted it or not. Now liberals feel something similar in the USA. Perhaps both sides will now realise that pushing your agenda with total disregard for the consciences of others is not a good idea; democracy is  not a zero-sum game.

No doubt, like all Presidents, Trump will encounter reality and come to terms with it. In the meantime, those who disagree with him should take time out and ponder why they failed. Mrs Clinton is said to blame the FBI. She should take a look in the mirror if she wants to see the real reason she failed. She gave every impression, as did many of her supporters, that she was entitled to become President; that is not democracy’s way. Politicians have given every impression of considering themselves an entitled class – the electorate has given its verdict on that. More humility and a better commitment to public service might be places to start. Whining about someone else winning is not the place to start. In victory, Trump would be wise to adopt Churchill’s motto of ‘magnanimity’.

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Accepting democracy?

10 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by John Charmley in Lutheranism, Politics, Uncategorized

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

Democracy, US elections

And so it begins. Does anyone really listen to what ‘celebrities’ have to say about politics? If so, I hope someone has hired a jumbo jet to take those anguished ‘celebs’ away from the agony of having to live under President Trump. Meanwhile the special snowflakes have taken to the streets to express the depths of their anguish; counselling services are probably fully-booked for months to come. Do American civics classes explain how the US system of government works? It isn’t fearfully complicated – people vote, the electoral college meets and then the President gets elected.  If 46% of the electorate decide not to vote that’s their business – you can’t infer anything from it, and certainly not that the President-elect is not legitimately elected. Opinion polls have no constitutional status, and the fact that they all called this wrong suggests that they take up another line of work – entrail reading, perhaps?

The language used by the self-selecting liberal elite about Trump and his supporters is as bad as anything Trump has said – so if they think they are occupying some sort of moral high ground they might take a reality check. Trump will be the next President. If he’s as big an idiot as they say, tough, everyone will suffer; if he’s as good as he says he is, everyone will benefit. That’s how this democracy thing works. There isn’t some sort of limited liability here; we are all in it together. So, if you think the media are rubbish, don’t buy it – it will change or die. If you don’t like your politicians, get involved and try to change things; that’s how this democracy thing works. If your total involvement is you meant to vote but didn’t get round to it – tough. Rule of the people by the people demands the people get involved. Those who do get to influence the result. But they still have to run that past the vast majority who don’t really follow politics. Now you can, as the Clintonistas are doing, express your contempt for the great uneducated unwashed, but don’t be too shocked if they follow your example. Rainbow coalitions of minorities are fine, but if the majority get the idea that identity politics is where it is at, don’t be too shocked if they play that card back – and as there are more of them, they may just win. The take away here is that identity/grievance politics are divisive and corrosive and risk undermining democracy.

Here in the UK and there in the US there are a lot of liberals who appear to be giving the impression that democracy is acceptable only when it delivers what they want. Those for whom it has not been delivering have spoken, and there are more of them bothering to vote. The choice before our political classes is clear. One hopes, for all our sake they get the message. 

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