Common sense about today’s political class
I am re-reading Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and came across a passage that, though about the problems with monarchy, applies perfectly to today’s political class. Some readers might see this as fitting Obama and the Democrats currently in power, just as some might think it better describes the Republicans or the previous administration. It might most clearly seem to be about political families, like the Bushes and the Kennedys, people who, as children, expected to govern one day, much as a prince expects he will one day be king. But Paine’s words describe the entire political class — career politicians and bureaucrats of both major parties with enough ego to want to govern:
Men who look upon themselves as born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
Think of members of Congress who have not worked in a business in decades, or ever, whose professional lives have for years consisted of self-aggrandizing committee meetings and speechifying — think of them confidently telling people how some new regulation will or will not affect businesses. Think of members of Congress who voted for a thousand-page bill that they have not read (and even if they have) confidently explaining how this will improve the lives of people subject to their whims, subject to the votes they cast in an act of party loyalty or as a political trade in order to receive funding for their home state or support for their own pet projects. As Paine writes a page later:
Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.
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I was reading Common Sense myself earlier this year and the quote you cite jumped out at me too. Paine was a very smart man who knew how to think and write in principles, which is why his observations are so timeless.
What does it say about us that all of our Founding Fathers were of the political class, none more so than James Madison (virtually the Federalist Papers personified), and looked upon themselves as born to reign and others to obey? Perhaps it is heartening that somehow we managed to survive them.
Parsifal -
No, those men were NOT -of- the “Political Class.”
They struggled to create a government of expressly limited powers; thus to limit the forming of such a “Political Class” in this nation, until the time of Woodrow Wilson.
They were, for the most part, of the economic and academic elite to whom the broader base of freeholders and laborers looked for guidance, and persuasions, but not orders , intimidations, seductions or favors.
Contrast that with today’s seekers of offices and unelected positions in governments and academia
Their concern was not the desire to frame a form of limited government but one that would protect them from “mobocracy.” They so feared that the “mob” might not look up to them for the guidance they were certain they were the only ones qualified to give that they created a cockamamie, increasingly creaky electoral system to ensure that their political class would have the best chance at continued power. Not to mention totally disenfranchising — to say the least — the “other Persons” not honestly recognized as slaves. “Three-fifths of all other Persons,” the Constitution says, shall be counted for purposes of taxation and representation. It has been said, by the way, that this means a slave was defined as three-fifths of a person, but this is incorrect, for that definition would imply that slaves (or, at the time, the males among them) were entitled to three-fifths of a vote, or to three-fifths of the rights of free citizens. Rather, the “three-fifths rule” acknowledges slaves as a source of power and wealth for their owners — i.e., those of the political class primarily but not exclusively in the southern states. If you want to think there was a period of political Eden when men with horny hands of toil gazed adoringly upward at their angelic-natured betters who had only the public weal in mind and no one was looking out for No. One, go ahead and do so, but it totally ignores the reality on the ground — that people were looking for offices and political plums as soon as the ink was dry on the Constitution and those who had the plums in their gift wanted something in return. A difference in degree but not in kind from the reality on the ground today.
“that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.”
^^^ The problem for politicians who make decisions based on polling data.
If they knew their constituents, they wouldn’t need the polls, and wouldn’t be subjected to the errors associated with polling (wrong questions, badly phrsed questions, unrepresentative samples, etc).
Thomas Payne’s Common Sense was much better than Glenn Beck’s Common Sense, imo. Good read.
“selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance”
This is precisely why there is virtually no aspect of our daily lives that is devoid of government’s paw prints, or claw prints, if you prefer.
The “ends justify the means” mentality has empowered our politicians to buy each others’ support (aka, bribe) for their half-baked, self-aggrandizing legislation.
What if citizens bribed each other to get their way? Or workers? Is it any wonder why Congress has consistently been polling below 50% for the better part of this decade?
Congressmen beholden to special interest groups. Record deficits. Ineffective, burdening regulation. Endless wars with ambiguous objectives.
Why do we employ these people solve our problems when they can’t even solve their own???
Why does Ben Nelson get to extort money from the federal till to benefit exclusively Nebraskans in exchange for voting for a measure designed to benefit citizens of all the states? (Regardless of what you may think of the measure itself.) If this becomes the pattern of bargaining for all legislation, on whatever issues, in the future, we’ll be no better than Italy, where bribery is the grease of all electoral (and other) transactions. We’re supposed to be better than Italy; that’s why Italians came (and come) here.