The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 8 of 16)

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Lawrence Henry replies: Thank you. I should have remembered that. Pitfalls of Google. I did find the song attributed to Willie Nelson as author -- and he's pretty old.

p> BREAD AND PRAGMATISM br> Re: Hugh Thomson's letter (under "Pragmatism") in Reader Mail's More Fumbles : /p>

Mr. Hugh Thomson asks, "Why should Gov. Pawlenty 'save' Minnesotans from the consequences of their decision...to put Democrats into office? Put another way, why should the adults save the children from the consequences of their choices?"

This is a rather juvenile approach to politics. Put bluntly, the governor -- indeed, any elected official -- is not a rubber stamp who merely validates the choices of the people. Ours is a representative, not a direct democracy, and an elected official owes his constituents his best judgment in order to provide good governance. And that is what Governor Pawlenty is doing -- providing Minnesotans with good governance, whether they deserve it or not.

The notion that a Republican governor should simply allow the citizens of his state to stew in their own juices because he does not support the positions of the majority party in the state legislature endorses what is, in effect, a dereliction of duty. As governor, Pawlenty's mandate is to leave his state in better condition than he found it. Thomson would have him wreck the state by his passive acceptance of Democratic spending initiatives, just to get even with the citizens of Minnesota -- whose interests Pawlenty has sworn to protect -- for electing Democrats to public office. This is petty-minded tom-foolery. Imagine, for a moment, if Franklin Roosevelt had taken Mr. Thomson's path with regard to rearmament and support for Great Britain prior to Pearl Harbor, and decided to do nothing, to punish the people of America for electing isolationists to Congress. Other than Pat Buchanan, who else thinks the world would be better off today?

Mr. Thomson seems to wish that we lived under a parliamentary system, in which the will of the legislative majority is law. Perhaps he likes the notion of clear-cut political decisions unmuddied by compromise. Maybe he needs to live in such a system for a while, where (as one parliamentarian once told me), "Fifty percent plus one means we can do whatever we want." The founders, who lived under such a system, rejected it as legislative tyranny, instead promoting divided government and a system of checks and balances that allow majority rule while protecting minority rights, because legislation can only be passed through consensus and compromise. This is guaranteed to drive partisan ideologues insane with frustration. That's the general idea, Mr. Thomson. Get used to it. It protects you when you are in the minority, just as it frustrates your ambitions when you are in the majority. Everyone must settle for half a loaf, or for no bread at all. This requirement for a broad-based consensus is what provides the stability that has allowed the U.S. to be governed under one Constitution, amended but largely unchanged, since 1789.

p>If you think this is a bad system, look at some of the others that have been tried elsewhere. br> -- Stuart Koehl

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