It’s an old manipulative first year con law question, much like when Donald Sutherland in Animal House thinks he’s being risque asking if Milton’s “Paradise Lost” asserted being evil is more fun while Sutherland munches an apple. We dwell on it here after reading Cass Susstein’s item “The Enlarged Republic – Then and Now.”
For those of you who’ve followed Sunstein’s writings since the 1980s it’s familiar stuff. He delves into the history and context of the Federalist Papers as a means of arguing their relevance for our nation today. He starts off summarizing the project thusly:
Publius’s project was to reconceive republicanism—a body of thought with ancient origins in Aristotle and Cicero whose modern forms had been elaborated in different ways by Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Montesquieu. Emphasizing self-rule by the people, republicans insisted on the importance of civic virtue and generally believed that self-government works best in small, homogeneous republics. According to the argument of the Federalist Papers, however, such small republics tend to destroy themselves. The reason lay in the power of factions—well-organized private groups with passions or interests inconsistent with the good of the public as a whole. Publius believed that in a large republic, a heterogeneous public could counteract factional power and serve as a creative force, promoting circumspection and introducing safeguards against bias, error, confusion, and even oppression.
Sunstein gives us thumb nail sketches of the large republic/constitutional Federalist argument and the small republics/civic virtue notions of the antifederalist. And like Donald Sutherland, he cops out just by asking the question — always the safe career choice.
We all talked here together about demotic societies, their characteristics and consequences. Watching recent events this last month does little to change our diagnosis. Although in broad constitutional terms, the system’s infrastructure performed as designed — the House is deliberately the outlet for the passions of ‘the people’ (including ill-advised ones). The Senate is the cooling saucer and the President has veto.
If Obama intends to restore liberal democracy after the Warlord’s imperial criminality he must do more than repeal this or that or close some base, etc He must figure out a way for accountable deliberative government to function once more. Just item 206 on this GTD list.
Aldershot says
Re basketball, this struck me during the campaign:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/open_university/archive/2008/07/23/obama-s-jump-shot-for-the-ages.aspx
What an unusal post.
Aldershot says
Doc, thanks for the Tweety retrospective. I can’t help but have a soft spot for the dumb lug. It’s just amazing he’s so transparently hostile toward HRC. I’ve only been watching him for a couple years now, so I don’t know if he’s getting worse, some sort of mental degeneration? His sotto voce ‘oh, god’ when Jindal appeared was the limit.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Olbermann is in full self parody mode there, no doubt.
Anon says
Olberman is kinda embarassing with this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#29922624
Tweety had a Freudian slip refering to Michelle Bachmann – calling her Michelle Obama. Tweety tries hard to repress his deep anxiety about the new First Lady.
Imagine a drunk Tweety at Old Ebbit Grill telling a plastered David Brooks that he, Tweety, also objects to Michelle’s un-Mamie sleeveless arms – Those toned undeniably black arms that yell at Tweety the times are a changin’ He thinks of Maureen Dowd in her JFK manse and wonders why the standard of womanliness seems to be shifting again.
Anon says
re Tweety and basketball – we know some people who played minor league baseball for a year or two. They were cosmically better baseball players than 98percent plus than excellent players in college – Yet, they (like Michael Jordon) were not nearly good enough to be bench warmers on the worst pro team.
Obama is a pretty good basketball player, but now that he is famous and liked he probably overrated – He probably could not have made the team at Occidental or Columbia – He probably was competetive at Harvard intramurals. But still – way way below the pro level – even factoring age. But we can’t play very well, so what the heck.
Tweety is a joke.
Anon says
Pitchman Billy Mays is on Leno w/Dana Carvey – funny stuff.
Anon says
We recall a reluctantly respectfull Ira Stoll of NY Sun fame writing about windsurfing – One of the Kennedy’s called Kerry a “boardhead” and they discussed some of Kerry’s actually impressive skill on the board.
Stoll is/was an ideologue but also is too smart to deny the obvious and pretend windsurfing was bad.
The gop windsurfing meme was just the ne plus ultra of GOP embrace of stupidity and macho panic.
As you note – it’s extremely difficult and Anon can admit to being a failure at it despite being a good swimmer and a pretty good sailer.
Kerry was also an excellent hockey player = Tweety just avoided that topic
Dr Leo Strauss says
Tweety’s mind is a garage sale of wounded male stereotypes from the 1950s to mid 60s. To which he compares himself constantly and in self loathing expresses his failure to measure up.
Hillary’s a catalyst for all those anxieties and more because of his generalized, pervasive and barely concealed misogyny. Her mere presence as a public figure defeats his Enzyte intake. Add his cafeteria Catholicism with its ideological fear of matriarchical power and presto.
Alot of complex gunk there. Even his rare attempts to praise Hillary betray anxiety, discomfort and Nutrasweet insincerity. It also plays out when Tweety today blurted approval that Obama’s ‘a jock’ simply because he enjoys playing basketball. Something he’d never say about windsurfing, which is actually difficult and requires significant upper body strength even to get going.
Perhaps we must await Dr. Krauthammer to weigh in authoritatively via a column. If only the Realm could be added to the mix . . .
Aldershot says
Re Matthews, it was striking how stern he looked and indignant he sounded when speaking about Hillary’s assertion, as if she were un-American or something…something a right winger might actually say. But when he turned to the subject of Bam’s online townhall, he was all cheerfulness and smiles, even as he suggested a Potemkin Village feel to the affair.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Speaking of decadent, there is a coming boomlet in Roman declinism and Amurikuh this Spring. A couple of these books actually look interesting and may even have an index!
http://www.artsjournal.com/flyover/2009/03/americas_reflection_in_roman_p.html
Anon says
Law enforcement people accross the border are aleady paying with their lives and they get paid very little money. Obviously some are corrupt, but the real story is that some are not and they have little reward. Tweety is decadent
Anon says
What possible rational could Tweety object to the obvious drug problem? It’s absurd – the idea that a poorer smaller country could prevent drugs from entering a richer nation is ridiculous – aside from stupidity and faux-populism what was Tweety’s rationale?
Aldershot says
He was talking about violence at the border and used the words federales and coyotes, which he pronounced ‘coyotays.’
And coincidentally, Chris used the phrase ‘talk turkey,’ in another segment.
And stand by for Tweets to ride Hilldog for the duration. Tonight he took great exception to her saying it was the US’s fault things were so bad at the border because we provide a market for drugs, and also ship the automatic weapons down there. But the root reason, I’d say, is that the Mexicans were screwed over in NAFTA.
Yes, Doc, the Snapple sun is cool.
Anon says
Btw Doc, the Snapple sign was a brilliant touch.
Anon says
Aldershot, we missed it – what did he say?
Aldershot says
Lol!
Brother Pat sure was fluent in Espanol, tonight.
Anon says
Fineman: Chris, did you hear Aldershot ? She called us blatherers
Mattthews: Regular guys like us can’t catch a break.
Buchanan: Elistim
Matthews: Aldersnot.
Aldershot says
Anon, heh, good capture of Tweety’s fatuous blather.
Anon says
Tweety: Pat’s making a good point – If we – regular sort of folks – still keep losing money in our 401ks, in our stock options, in our defferen compensation
Buchanan: People still think Michelle is angry – Angry black woman.
Fineman: But in Godfather terms, he’s not yet grown-up Michael. We’re still in part two, Chris.
Tweety: Remember the scene at the cemetary.
Fineman: We’re not there yet. These zombie banks have not been delt with yet. But , Krugman aside, they think they can unload some of those assets …
Buchanan: Calvary cemetary – That was – You know, a Catholic nod.
Tweety: Well Obama’s going to Notre Dame, Pat.
Fineman: Pro-choice.
Buchanan: Outrageous.
Tweety: My gut tells me so.
Fineman: Chris, you spoke at Fordham, You’re
Tweety: So if Geithner kills Bruno Kirby’s character, what will happen to my 401k
Buchanan: Obama will lose West Virginia.
Anon says
Fineman: Yeah, good point Chris.
Tweety: What I want to know is when this guy is gonna get our 401ks back to normal value.
Fineman: GE, yeah tell me about it – Chris, recall the scene in the Godfather when DeNiro killed the kingpin in Little Italy during San Gennero?
Tweety: That was Godfather Three.
Buchanan: Part Two, actually. But Chris the Scotch-Irish aren’t gonna care …
Fineman: Anyway – Chris, Geithner still has to kill off, so to speak, some of the previous bad bank debts.
Tweety: Bruno Kirby – that was Bruno Kirby – Howie, you nailed it, Geitner is Bruno Kirby.
Fineman: No, what I meant was …
Buchanan: Chris, the Scotch-Irish – those bitter Bible voters that
Anon says
Fineman: Chris, it turns out Geitner is no longer at the kids table, so to speak –
Tweety: Are they letting him carve the Turkey?
Fineman: The Turkey, Um – ah – Well they’re letting him sharpen …
Tweety: Is he carving the Turkey?
Fineman: Well, taking your Thanksgiving metaphor ..
Tweety: Christmas, it’s all about the pork.
Fineman: Well Geithner is a big fan of The Godfather – so he got past Salozzo.
Tweety: Well so he’s no longer Fredo, but until I see the steak knife, I mean the Turkey knife – He’s still just visiting the adult table
Anon says
Poor Chuck Todd – a bright guy – was slightly behind the CW shift on the meme of “sacrifice.” As if the post 9/11 sacrifice issue were still relevant and regnant. He may as well have asked Obama why is was seeming to ignore the openness issues the Dems raised during the Nixon years.
Anon says
It’s sort of interesting that Newsweek – a magazine that creates and nurtures the conventional wisdom – begins the CW shift by refering to the conventional wisdom as if it were a mere observer it.
Anon says
The CW monkees have already started to shift re Geitner – while not yet fashionable, it’s only a matter of time before Fineman introduces some cultural tropes about Geitner to Tweety to allow Tweety to change his tune – Maybe he’ll tell Tweety Geithner loves the Godfather or that he learned some valuable lesson from some ancient Irish relative to that allowed him to turn the banking issue:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/190804?from=rss
Dr Leo Strauss says
0bama didn’t panic might be the out – it was his iron will standing against defeatism at The Nation, NYT and HP that saved
the Armythe 24 hour news cycle.Anon says
Ofcourse – no sense of irony allows Scheuer to see himself as the emblematic Westerner showing his malady
trying to lecture an actual moderate Muslim. Ah – but
he too braggs about his Jesuit education (something
an actual well educated Jesuit would never do)
Anon says
“Mr. Zakaria’s distaste for Islam stems, it seems, from a common Western malady, an inability to differentiate between modernization and Westernization. Most Muslims – Islamists and others – appear to be eager, innovative users of modernity’s tools, whether armaments, communications, consumer goods, or information technology.”
~Michael Scheur
(Fresh from Alec Station, Scheur
lectures a technologically savvy
moderate Muslim about … hmmm?)
Anon says
Arinna, it seems, really wants Geither defenestrated. Why? There must be some angle – there is always is.
Anon says
Meant to say “weight the benefits” Scheur’s making us lazy.
Anon says
Another thing we often found funny/sad about Scheur is his defense of renditions – He doesn’t seem to have the basic analytical skills to factor in the costs, so as to way the benefits – It’s as if he just writes off what happened in Italy as something that does not count – sort of like Bush/Cheney failing to budget the Iraq war –
Judging by some of Sccheur’s mouthing off on cultural politics, he probably just sees the Italians acting against the interests of the ‘west’ (in a Buchananist sense) and so the cost is actually a hidden benefit in that it polarizes right/left in Italy etc and the actual need to get the Iman off the street is secondary.
Maybe the judge was pro choice or something like that.
Anon says
Sometimes Scheur does often seem like a double operating for the benefit of the neocons – Obviously Fareed has his own agenda, but he is obviously brighter and smoother than Scheur (“I don’t care how non Americans are mistreated”), so why insult Fareed’s mind?\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Surely David Frum would prefer debating (and wiping the floor) with this fella than fighting (and sighing) the rabblement with the “big tent.”
Aside from Scheuer’s apparant failures at “alec station,” his unnerving habit of conspicious over-politeness and faux-military deference calling ordinary reporters “sir”/”maam” all the time has a “Police Squad” comedy feel to it.
Basically – he’s like a so-so blogger. It’s as if the Agency just hired someone to read FBIS clippings and pontificate about s***
Anon says
We have to say that Bernanke was correct, if impolitic, to call Cong. Manzullo’s question “poorly worded.”
Manzullo was seeming to confuse what people may/may not have lost due to their own stock/bon choices in 401ks with the AIG et al bailouts
Manzullo was doing something totally normal in the Tweety-verse, but it makes no sense. He was looking for a soundbite and he ended up getting the wrong one.
Anon says
With Scheur personal insults, unclever attempts at irony, and use of improperly contextualized seeming-sacastic prejudiced phrases like “little brown brothers,” masks intellectual insecurity and inadequate depth of understanding. Is it any wonder why the neocons had no good opposition? Is it any wonder why anti-interventionism fails to persuade a public ready to listen? Ron Paul’s ineffectual cackling at a bemused/annoyed Bernake is impressive by comparison.
http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=14448
Dr Leo Strauss says
Hudson Institute as the Front conduit should find a cut out and subsidize Scheuer.
Anon says
Newt was just babbling on Tavis – blah blah blah 12 solutions blah. He still has not found his thread.
Anon says
Gasparino’s lack of self-awareness is too boring to be funny. He tries to mask his mindless cheerleading for greedy faux capitalists with laughable faux-contrarianism.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-23/give-them-their-blood-money
Anon says
re Society of Cincinnati – That led to the birth of the Columbian Order (St. Tammany society) in Bron Martin’s “long room.” (filled with its own mythos)
re Geithner – Funny how Geithner is fashionable once again – Just as the hollow vapid Nicole Wallace reveals her ignorance and indifference to losing New Orleans so she can call Geithner “Brownie”
It was a telling moment of Bushian rot – Wallace defended Brownie when NO was sinking – So the double dishonesty was that she supposedly thinks Brownie was good – not a fit epither for an insult.
Ah, but Tina and MoDo and Frank Rich might accept her into their chatty salon with a witty apercu or two.
But suddenly the markets love Geithner again – Just as Tweety was starting to cry for his head
DrLeoStrauss says
Readers In D.C. Area — this might be entertaining:
______________
From: [deleted]
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 2:12 PM
Subject: Wednesday, March 25th – Simulated Explosion
Good Afternoon Lafayette Centre and Army and Navy Club Building Tenants,
Please note that there will be a simulated explosion for the filming of a TV pilot. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Office of Public Affairs has advised that there will be a simulated explosion on Wednesday, March 25th between 9:30 AM and 12:00 PM Noon near the Key Bridge in DC that will produce a 20 to 30 foot fireball that should last approximately 2 minutes.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thanks and have a great day.
[deleted]
DrLeoStrauss says
Curmudgeon and Anonymous, thanks for the thoughtful enhancements. Indeed, Anonymous, Jefferson does exude that slight whiff but agree infinitely preferable to the current blight.
The topic of the Founders and their ideological motivations is fascinating. What you’ve shared already stimulates ideas for further conversations, particularly as American self-image in this historically rare moment of elasticity is as much in flux as the Dow.
A small addition to your thread — one aspect which rarely gets much analysis is how much the Constitution was as much a military document as well as economic and political. Because of the Washington Mythos, the militaristic nature of the Constitution and creating a new government ‘with sharp military teeth’ has been whitewashed. (This controversy merely part of the framework of divergent views and objectives Anonymous sets forth). The myth of the volunteer force and the citizen soldier during the War is merely that. The hard cadre Washington led were actually few in number, bitterly resentful of the stay at home ‘patriots’ and the Society of Cincinnati just one manifestation of how close things came before and immediately after Washington resigned in December 1783.
Having said all that, being a fan of open source, bottom up contra top down one still could not imagine a Leviathan so utterly lacking in self awareness. It almost makes one want to light a Galois and exclaim ‘Clouseau!’
Anon says
This Bush gal bolsters our inclination to support Geithner – note the “Tucker-esque” use of lame straw man arguments and unclever attempts at safe irony – plus the absurd link to the foolish Brownie helping to lose a city – Also , the underlying critique is one that Geithner is not fashionable but once was – Interesting to see a conservative embrace the hollow Dowdism and trying to be like Frank Rich.
We think Tina is being clever with this hire
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-22/obama-has-his-brownie-moment
Anonymous says
At Curmudgeon: That was Madison/Hamilton, (of them) you are right. Jefferson (and likely Washington too) envisioned a broader-based and open-ended landed aristocracy (you might almost call it a pre-cursor educated middle class). Republican democracy. They might have even had some sense of an industrial revolution, but one that was decentralized/cottage industry. The industrial revolution economies of scale (in terms of extraction and manufacturing) demanded and __ another paradigm, centralized banking and an establishment oligarchical culture… …now, with so many countervailing trends through the last few centuries it’s as easy to overgeneralize as it is to get bogged down in the depths of nuanced qualifiers, but… what my point was coming around to is something like this: The centralized hub/spoke model required manufacturing consent and an only semi-educated workforce; the elite was relatively small. A postmodern economics (the kind that is actually capable of producing things of value) calls for
{this post isn’t going to happen; I’m just not able to articulate this at the moment. Struggling with the correct formulation/articulation of the argument…I need to get back to some other work… however, I will attempt some rough sketch..}
…the modern(post) knowledge economies starting in the late 20th century… the rise of the educated middle-class (the ‘public Ivies’ figure prominently here in the innovations technological and scientific:ie Berkely, UofMich…, and also spawned a kind of culturZeitSomethingPerson that challenged (and still does; this may be the defining political fight of current decades) the traditional oligarchy for power)
The economic activity(more decentralized, networking, small, localized operations with global reach via networking) coming out of this camp is more suited to the paradigm of Jefferson/Washington, indeed there are a lot of parallels…
{sorry this is really not articulated, really need to ring off though…}…
So,(my simplistic view is) Madison/Hamilton (and Movement) paradigm is rulers/ruled, with a very strict establishmentarianism… Jefferson/Washington actually held some idea of democracy being an immanent flux coming from an /educated/(as in self-educated) landed-aristocracy(not strictly hereditary, more meritocratic) (and there was a lot of land, so went the idea) citizenry. I’m not the greatest historian, but I think this is something like the republican Roman model, before it went all decadent and lead-poisoned, or maybe some of the Greek states as well. Self rule, but not by the/a rabble, rather by a large, broad-based, differentiated (therefore competitively tempered) ‘aristocracy’ of sorts. It should be clear this seems to us a more appropriate operating paradigm to contemporary contingency than the weird Pharaonic fantasies of the oligarchic twats still yet in nominal control… (and will we ever pry their dying hands off the (controls of the)flaming wreckage?… maybe not)
(sorry again for the lack of explanation, qualifiers..)
(…)
…know the Doc not a fan of TJefferson, lolz… ‘Jacobin’… still prefer his Virginia to the NOVA so well lampooned on this site.
More to the point,in pragmatic terms(special interests, lobbying):
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/03/16/how-rich-countries-die/
Curmudgeon says
The problem with the US system is that it continues to work as the founders intended even though times have changed on since 1788. While the formal procedures of democracy have changed–for instance with the expansion of suffrage–the American system is still geared to protect most of the same sectional interests the founders intended it to protect.
The US system was designed primarily to protect the interests of the wealthy against threats posed by populist sentiment. While the definition and sources of wealth have changed considerably over the years, the institutional dynamic of protecting the interests of the wealthy against the interests and needs of the poor remains intact.
As a result, America’s economic wealth has been hijacked by the klepocratic bonus bandits of Wall Street and the grasping desires of a managerial class which has no vision beyond lining its own pockets by suppressing wage growth and defrauding shareholders. Together, these people have formed an oligarchical elite who have effectively denied Americans political liberty of choice in order to protect the wealth the oligarchs have taken for themselves. In this, the oligarchs have done no less than to steal the collective future of the American people.
All of the recent disasters in the United States–from the mortgage meltdown to the crude looting of AIG insiders and even the existence of movement conservatism stems directly from the institutional priorities established when the United States was founded. These are all projects pushed by moneyed elites protected by the constitutional structure of the United States. These are projects that would have been obstructed in a healthy polity which considered the extremely wealthy as one interest group among many rather than the dominant political player. This favoritism, however, is largely what the founders intended.
The problem with the United States is not that it has abandoned the vision of its founders. The problem with the United States is that the vision of the founders has survived unaltered for far too long.