Still a Democracy, Last I Checked

[kevin_standlee]

I've been mostly busy with a project at work, but I did watch the Inauguration Ceremony this morning. I'm happy to see that all of the ideological extremists who predicted The End of the World were wrong. President Bush neither suspended elections "for the duration of the present emergency," found some pretext for staying in office, or issued a telephone-book sized list of pardons. President Obama did not declare an Islamic Dictatorship or a Socialist Workers State under his Maximum Leadership this afternoon.

I do wish that someone would do a better job of calling all of the extremist loons who predicted the Death of Democracy for one reason or another and ask them to justify themselves. It wouldn't even be difficult for them, as I expect they'll easily come us with some sort of rationalization that isn't "I was wrong."

I know from listening to talk radio this morning on my way to the office that there are people out there who do in their hearts believe that American Democracy died this afternoon, because Their Guy isn't President anymore. In a sense, it's a larger-scale version of the annual grousing about the Hugo Awards, which runs "Any system that doesn't give me 100% of what I want is obviously flawed structurally."

Comments

[jimkeller.livejournal.com]

President Bush neither suspended elections "for the duration of the present emergency," found some pretext for staying in office, or issued a telephone-book sized list of pardons.

I must admit, the possibility of all the above seriously crossed my mind, and I commented that they were real possibilities at various points. However, I'm in the "I'm very happy I was wrong" camp. :)

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

Likewise.

And it's good to know that American democracy didn't die eight years ago. It may have been comatose for most of that time, but it's made a remarkable recovery.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

I am not thinking that the world has ended. I lean fisically conservative because I think in terms of Can the country afford what Obama is wanting to spend. I disagree that we need to spend our way out of depression. If we work on fixing our deficit and debt, we will long term help the economy by being able to afford healthcare for all and other Obama things. That is my big concern with Obama.

[darrelx.livejournal.com]

I know from listening to talk radio this morning on my way to the office that there are people out there who do in their hearts believe that American Democracy died this afternoon, because Their Guy isn't President anymore.

This is NO different with the roles reversed than it was 8 years ago... except Republicans didn't "boo" Clinton when he spoke at the Jan. 2001 inauguration. Even MSNBC said that it was bad form yesterday when the crowd boo'ed George W. Bush and started singing "Hey, hey... goodbye."

How many people pledged to become Canadians when Bush defeated Gore? (a lot) How many more pledged the same thing when he defeated Kerry? (many) ...but how many actually kept their promise? (almost none.)

I know that we still live in a representative democracy, but I also know how easily power corrupts... and Obama possibly has more support behind him than any president since George Washington and his party has both houses of Congress, and he somehow emerged from the most corrupt political cesspool in the nation (Illinois). That's a lot of power to be wielding. He will need to be watched extra close.