Paul Revere Was Unpardonably Shrill

I see that level headed grown-ups are giving us looney leftists another lecture on shrillness. The Bush administration isn’t laying the groundwork for another undemocratic power grab with their discussion of postponing of the elections in the event of a terrorist attack. They are just being prudent. Everybody take a deep breath and calm your little selves down. This is silly.

It would be unforgiveably obnoxious to point out that little partisan impeachment episode and the very dubious election results in the state run by the president’s brother back in 2000 as evidence that the Republicans are generally willing to go to unprecedented lengths to attain and maintain power. Neither should we be suspicious of their motives after they plainly decided after the WTC attacks to continue to govern with no regard for their political opposition in the congress or their allies overseas. Taking the country to war based upon false information should not be seen as evidence of their perfidy. Some might even say that the Republicans have been systematically defining democracy down for quite some time, but it would be unattractively shrill to mention it publicly.

One could also question the timing of this newfound concern about election tampering, if one were to retreat into leftist hand-wringing. Seeing as 9/11 actually happened during the NY mayoral primary and there was much discussion of whether the city should extend the heroic Giuliani’s term, this concept of elections and terrorism is not new. One might wonder why nobody in this great country of ours this didn’t think of this sometime before now, what with all the discussion of Homeland Security and electoral reform. But, it would be crude to mention that such things are probably best debated in the US Congress outside the election season rather than dealt with by ad hoc committees just three months prior to a national election.

It is true that the many thoughtful, restrained pundits on the right have made the case that the Spanish elections were manipulated by the terrorists and certainly the administration has been far from reticent in setting forth the proposition that should a similar thing take place here it would be with the express purpose of electing the soft ticket of Kerry-Edwards. It would be unpardonably disrespectful to mention that this is crude political fear mongering for which theme the alleged antidote — postponing the elections in case of a terrorist attack — contributes mightily. (And it would be very, very silly to note that this campaign theme is illogical in the extreme because to do so would be to accuse the administration of being dishonest, which is much too hysterical.)

I know that I have been shrill in the past — as when I opposed the Iraq war because it was clear to me that the Bush administration was mendacious and incompetent to an extreme. And I was rude when I railed about the modern republican party’s undemocratic tendencies as they systematically destroyed all pretenses of bipartisanship and consensus in the pursuit of raw political power. When I have said that they are incrementally corrupting the system to such an extent that by the time we notice it will be too late, people find that to be overwrought. These observations are unattractive and uncomfortable for people of genteel disposition.

When it was revealed, for instance, that there were no WMD, that the president intended to govern radically as if he had a mandate instead of a very dicey claim to power or that his administration believed that the president has the right to ignore laws under his power as commander in chief, one would have thought that would serve as a cautionary tale about their intentions. But apparently there is still a tremendous reserve of trust in these people’s motives and our system’s magical ability to hold back every undemocratic urge with no necessity for public involvement.

Certainly, some believe that our past history of success at beating back bad political actors should be seen as a something of a guarantee that our system will always hold. But, if that’s so, it’s likely because of one little amendment to our constitution — the first one. Empowering the shrill is what keeps these people from going too far. Shut them down and the whole house of cards will fall apart.