At Fri, 2 Apr 1999 08:42:09 -0800 (PST), you wrote:
>
>> The fact that [Ventura] a professional wrestler - perhaps the only
>> class outside of used car dealer less trusted in the US than politicians
>> (in fact people enjoy the fake soap-opera camp) cannot be a counted as a
>> factor that worked for him.
>
>I might have thought at one time that Mr. Dees had at least /some/
>tenuous connection to reality, but I no longer have to give him the
>benefit of that doubt.
>
>Can you honestly say with a straight face that Mr. Ventura's job
>as an entertainer had /nothing/ to do with his getting elected?
>And I suppose Clint Eastwood became mayor of Carmel on the strength
>of his zoning plans, and Sonny Bono went to congress because he
>had some good ideas on the economy? Was Shirley Temple really
>the best candidate for ambassadorship to Ghana?
>
I never expected Mr. Crocker to be wired in to the procession of Minnesotan politics, and now I am confirmed that it was wise not to offer him doubt's benefit. Jesse Ventura is reasonably wealthy, but did not use either his own or PAC money to run for governor, depending instead on college volunteers he gathered while speaking at universities around the state, individual contributions small enough to be legal, and old-fashioned door-to-door campaigning. It is also reasonable to assume that when one is electing one's leaders, that bad publicity is not necessarily better than none, and pro wrestlers are notorious dissemblers. Although he had gained a reputation for blunt honesty while hosting a talk radio show which had tempered this stereotype, his breakthrough came when he soundly trounced both the Democratic and the Republican candidate in a statewide televised three-way debate. When people (whose interest had been piqued by the earnest young Vote-for-Ventura students) tu!
ned in in droves to see it, the election was all but over. When voters can hear them unfiltered by the media, ideas still count. In this case, they were decisive.
>
>In modern American politics, name recognition matters, and money
>matters, and ideas are a distant third if that. This is the
>natural and inevitable result of that moral perversion we call
>democracy: give the majority the power to rule everyone, and they
>use that power to enforce mediocrity upon us all at gunpoint.
>
That's what a constitution is supposed to prevent, and why we have an amendment system; to plug loopholes whenever acquisitive beureaucrats find or create them. However, like the medieval witchburnings, too much profit and too many jobs are supported by the War on Independent Consciousness for it to be ended until it has run its generational course (it is just a matter of time, like Tienanmen doomed Chinese Communism 30 years hence, when the friends and relatives of the persecuted rise to power - the medhemp referenda are stormy petrels, signalling the sea-change already underway).
>
>It is not possible to work "within the system" to dismantle the
>system. Since democracy itself is repugnant, it must be replaced.
>
With what? Or or Mr. Crocker just another nihilist like Barazov ("That is not our affair. The foundations must be cleared first.") in Ivan Turgenev's "FATHERS AND SONS"?
Neither the extreme of strongman totalitarianism nor that of radical anarchism is socially/culturally tenable; there had better be something somewhere within the golden mean with which to replace it. There still has also been no refutation of my contention that separation of powers and constitutional democracy are necessitated by the exigencies of fairness and proportionality in a populous area peopled with individuals with conflicting interests with which any civilized human would demand that their social/cultural system be endowed. Instead, this cogent and unrefuted analysis was deleted from the reply, to avoid the uncomfortable experience of addressing it.
>
>My preferred method of doing that is non-violent "underthrow":
>either simply leave and start society somewhere else, or else
>acquire sufficient economic power that the government becomes
>impotent and irrelevant. E-commerce has potential for the latter,
>so I am enthusiastic that might happen.
>
The experiences of Leary and Gates would beg to differ with you.
>
But if neither of those
>work--if the democracy tries to force you in line with its guns--
>then free and honest people have no choice but to shoot back.
>
Or truckbomb federal buildings? Another question: is this the advice you would give to members of NAMBLA, or other pederasts and child molestors? Some people NEED to be forced in line, for the good of all of us.
>
>Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
>"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
>are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
>for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
>
>
>
Joe E. Dees
Poet, Pagan, Philosopher