None of the above
Garvey, John
OF SEVERAL MINDS John Garvey NONE OF THE ABOVE WHERE I DRAW THE LINE We're moving toward a presidential race that promises to be every bit as embarrassing as the last, with a few sideshows...
...It isn't just the stubbornness of the contending parties, but the realization, on both sides, that the issues are too deep to be decided by a majority opinion...
...It isn't a question of the money we have, but of the size of the enormous debt we have accumulated over the years...
...You simply cannot promise a national health-care program and a tax cut for the middle class at the same time, but it is being done...
...It is astonishing today to look at the transcripts of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and see that nineteenth-century American audiences were willing to listen for hours to reasoned debate on subjects of deep importance to the nation...
...I voted that way during the Vietnam era, and could never bring myself to vote for a candidate who was good on all issues —except those involving race...
...we pay outrageous sums of money for health care, and there seems to be no end in sight to that problem...
...What about the dividend we ought to get with the end of cold-war military spending...
...America and Greece have the lowest tax rates in the West, but Americans insist that they suffer under an unfair burden...
...During this coming election I will once again be with the nonvoters, and this choice has nothing at all to do with apathy...
...Single issue voting...
...The money isn't there...
...As the Republicans seem to be moving away from this stance toward opposition to abortion and the support of a repeal of Roe v. Wade, there are calls for a return to the "big tent...
...Then, if you are lucky enough to be elected, you either raise taxes or fail to deliver on the program you can't afford, and ask forgiveness, and you hope desperately that no one pays much attention to logic...
...I suppose it depends on the importance of the issue to you...
...Presidents are elected by a minority of the people, since many people eligible to vote don't bother...
...This may be why such questions as slavery, abortion, and capital punishment prove so divisive...
...I worked for awhile for state government and recognize the real achievements of Bill Clinton, who has done some interesting and creative things in Arkansas, or at least knew enough to allow good staff people to get them done...
...It all reminds me too much of those rare occaCommonweal 28 February 1992: 9 sions when I find myself noticing sports —there's the same eagerness to know what is going to happen next, and the same sense that whatever is about to happen really is pointless...
...This is sometimes called apathy, as if people would vote if only they understood what was at stake...
...While the justice of the Gulf War can be debated by reasonable people, there is something murderously shallow about a man who can be jubilant about it...
...I have known people who were scrupulously honest in their business lives, because, curiously, they thought of this part of life as more genuinely important than their family lives...
...I think it is frustration, rather than apathy, and that the people who think voting is largely a meaningless exercise are, on the whole, right...
...The solution of our politicians is to refuse to raise taxes, and (since even the most basic costs of government inevitably rise) cut out services to the poor or those who are not sufficiently organized to frighten the pols with a possible loss of office...
...Beyond this, there is a deeper question of character...
...There is something undeniably entertaining about a bunch of self-important people all trying to convince us that they are the answer to our prayers...
...or a rabid supporter of capital punishment...
...I always distrust the interest that I (and the press) take in things like the scandals surrounding this presidential race, or in even more startling events, like George Bush's interesting display in Japan...
...Why aren't Democrats urged in a similar direction, allowing members and candidates to be prolife...
...Commentary on the most sensational of these—the charges, floated in a tabloid, that Clinton had a long affair with a woman who has sold her story for money—has focused on what ought to be obvious: a candidate's private life should have no bearing on his or her suitability for office unless it involves something that might compromise national security or lead to manipulation or blackmail, as Kennedy's affair with a Mafia moll certainly might have done...
...Faced with the understandable feeling that they are not well governed, that the material quality of their lives is in decline, that their choices make little difference, a lot of Americans simply don't bother to vote...
...You see that people won't tolerate a higher tax rate, so you promise not to raise taxes...
...But any change will require a profound shift on the part of the press, and a consequent shift in the way politicians behave...
...No Democratic candidate seems willing to challenge this...
...it matters only because we find the spectacle diverting, not because it has any real importance...
...And that could be—but look at what they found diverting, in that case, and at what diverts us...
...An issue of profound importance is being avoided here, for the usual cowardly reasons...
...Where the issue of abortion is concerned, the Democrats have become the prochoice party...
...It will require citizens to understand that democracy requires patience and attention...
...Unfortunately, as long as the Democrats remain so unambiguously on the side of permissive abortion laws, nothing on earth could make me vote for a Democrat...
...It shouldn't be this way, and doesn't need to be...
...At the same time, the attention that politicians and the press pay to the polls reveals the worst thing about democracy...
...Most liberals I know wouldn't think of voting for an otherwise qualified anti-Semite...
...This is why politicians lie: they believe that the polls force them to...
...it is only a question of more or less debt and debt service...
...OF SEVERAL MINDS John Garvey NONE OF THE ABOVE WHERE I DRAW THE LINE We're moving toward a presidential race that promises to be every bit as embarrassing as the last, with a few sideshows thrown in already: Mario Cuomo's indecision, questions about Bill Clinton's fidelity, Bob Kerrey's tasteless jokes, etc...
...This schizophrenia is not admirable, but it does happen...
...You bet...
...I like Paul Tsongas, who seems the most honest and the one least prone to pandering...
...The Republicans were assured for awhile that the party was a "big tent"—it could include prochoice as well as prolife members and candidates...
...And in a sense they do: we get less for our taxes than do people in more highly taxed countries, where not as many people go to college (not at all a bad thing) but, when they do, college does not bankrupt parents, students, or both...
...It makes followers of politicians, who must avoid anything like a disturbing idea, however true it might be, or however essential it might be to decent government...
...I don't think it is...
...They don't act quite as well as Reagan did, but they are every bit as concerned to seem sincere...
...If a man is capable of lying to his wife, might he not lie to you as well...
...If it is a constant pattern, maybe—but maybe not...
...10: 28 February 1992 Commonweal...
...You see that they want a national health-care program, socialized medicine—though as good Americans we avoid the "S" word—and so you promise that too...
...While democracy is valuable primarily for negative reasons—it does help keep many forms of tyranny and the arbitrary use of power at bay—a form of government based on the opinion of the majority is not very good at advancing some of the deepest questions that societies have to wrestle with...
...Nothing on earth could persuade me to vote for George Bush...
...You could argue that they were bored, that there was nothing else to do on long, hot Illinois afternoons...
...This will remain true as long as the press (and by this I mean not only major newspapers but television and USA Today, the news sources a lot of the nation actually pays some attention to) doesn't feel that it has a duty to challenge politicians, to point out the emptiness of the debate, and to educate voters rather than spend all their energy on reporting what the polls, which are no more than a reading of the shallows, are saying about the daily feelings of an undereducated public...
...he is also, probably for that reason, least likely to make it—a little too Mr...
...Rogers-ish...
...Television, a lazy press, and a frightened Congress have damaged democracy, maybe irreparably...
...Some of them even seem like decent people...
Vol. 119 • February 1992 • No. 4
