Psychoanalysis and Fantasy

In a brief scan of some opinion sites, two articles on the political scene caught my eye. While they both seem to be about completely different subjects, I think they do a pretty good job of explaining one another.

One article, "Psychoanalyzing the Loony Left", by Bert Prelutsky, is par for the course for conservative attacks on liberalism, an easy target to be sure.

Another thing about liberals I can't begin to figure out is their abiding devotion to failed economic theories. The fact that communism hasn't worked anywhere in the world doesn't cool their ardor in the slightest. The fact that Marx's brainstorm invariably metastasizes into a despotic tyranny -- be it in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Cambodia or Venezuela -- doesn't make the slightest impression on them. Neither does the fact that socialism has brought much of Europe to the brink of moral and financial bankruptcy faze them in the least.

In our own country, the most obvious failure of socialism is social security, the single largest pyramid scheme ever conceived by the mind of man. When Ponzi did it he went to jail for fraud; when Roosevelt pulled it off he was hailed as a savior. As someone or other once observed, if you're going to steal, steal big.

So why is it that leftists continue to promote these half-cocked alternatives to capitalism, the only economic program that's ever motivated people to aspire, to compete, to achieve and to innovate?

Good question. Someone ought to ask it of our majority-Republican Congress, which, even at the urging of a President of their own party, can't muster enough resolve to start the job of weaning our country off the very Ponzi scheme Prelutsky names. I dare say that he might have been better off comparing the liberal Democrats to crack addicts and the conservative Republicans to enablers. Or is Prelutzky, like a good enabler, shielding someone from the reality of the situation?

We'll revisit that thought momentarily, after I consider the second article I encountered today, which is about a subject I nearly blogged about a couple days ago when I first heard about the silly notion of a "Unity 08" ticket -- and about McCain possibly running as an independent around the same time.

Andrew Ferguson pretty much nails the coffin shut on this stillborn idea after he notes that this movement, like many other third party movements, won't take a meaningful stand on any issue.

This then seems to be the issue upon which Unity08 will build its movement, transcend partisanship, overcome ideology and unite the U.S. public: substituting one agenda (the crucial one) for another agenda (the important one).

A skeptic might point out that even if Unity08 succeeds in its great mission and a new agenda of crucial issues is placed before our politicians and the public, we will still face the knotty business of deciding what to do about them. And then what? Bickering may ensue, perhaps division -- even, God forbid, partisanship.

And before too long, we'll be right back where we started.

That some third party will appear to rescue the poor, disregarded voter from the pincer of the two-party duopoly is a recurring fantasy of U.S. politics. In Unity08 it has joined with an even more fashionable fantasy -- the techno-Utopianism of the bathrobe-and-house-slipper idealists who spend way too much time surfing the Internet and who believe their hobby will fundamentally alter human social arrangements, politics included.

Well, he almost nails it shut. He nearly gets it right when he notes that we elect representatives for the purpose of deciding how to deal with the political issues of the day. By the very nature of the process, people cannot forever evade the necessity of making some sort of stand. (That's what a decision is, after all.) He sums this truth up concisely in this way: "Vague discontent and impatience with the status quo is no foundation for a third party."

Ferguson then goes on to say, basically, that for a third party to be effective, it must be animated by actual ideas. As far as this goes, he is correct, but his too-quick dismissal above of bloggers as "techno-utopians" is, like the stagnant two-party system we have, itself symptomatic of the state of political discourse today.

While bloggers cannot alter the fundamental nature of human social arrangement, they can, like the pamphleteers of revolutionary times, help bring about the kind of sea change in the opinions held by the American electorate that would be necessary for our current political gridlock -- and the constantly eroding freedom that goes with it -- to end in some way other than some sort of calamity.

The reason for the present third party fantasy is that our two current major parties are essentially mirror images of one another, each halfheartedly standing up for certain elements of freedom (e.g., speech for the Democrats, economic freedom for the Republicans) while attacking others (e.g., confiscation of property from the Democrats and censorship from the Republicans). And members of each slam the other party for its faults as Prelutsky does above; or as I saw Jon Stewart do to Bill Bennett on the subject of gay marriage today on television.

But each is blind to its own faults. And so we get third party movements like Unity08 or enthusiasm for John McCain. These avoid controversy for two reasons. First, there is enough respect for reason among Americans that the more idealistic ones still entertain some hope that a commitment to rationally discuss the issues of the day will be enough for such a discussion to occur. Second, from whichever side of the landscape such a person emerges, he is aware that votes will be lost when people without such a commitment get offended.

Of course, the American two-party system is really just a two-coalition system, and third parties ultimately swing the debate one way or the other before being absorbed -- when they are founded on an actually good idea -- or they fizzle and get absorbed -- when they are not. Preoccupation with a third party is thus a yearning to introduce new, substantive ideas at best and wishing for a miracle at worst.

And so the preoccupation with having a third party now reflects the dim realization on the part of some that neither party as it currently is will protect our freedom. The realization is dim, because the solution to this impasse is not political, but philosophical and cultural. We have a socialist party and a theocratic party because so many people refuse to consider or admit that certain things they support, free lunches and forced prayer, are incompatible with freedom.

And so, until the loony right takes a look in the mirror rather than dodging the issue by laughing at the equally loony left -- and vice versa -- there will be no alternatives to our current state of affairs, even if a third party, founded on better ideas, actually appears. Furthermore, for such a party to win, enough people would have to be more fully-consistent in their support for freedom to elect it or for it to have a lasting effect on the political landscape. (And such an occurrence would merely reflect a deeper cultural change among the electorate.)

And so it is not the Republicans per se who are the enablers of the Democrats. It is the intellectuals who support either party or the phony solution of starting a third who are making it easier for the indecisive American people to avoid thinking about how best they can keep the freedom they have left, and regain more of what they have lost.

It's easy to write some bit of pop psychology about how insane the liberals are, or how silly a the current third party movement is. It is hard to do what is right: To openly challenge the foolishness of one's readers while appealing still to the best within them in an effort to see that what is, in fact, best for them is also best for their country.

Until more columnists start doing this, it will be up to the bloggers.

-- CAV