{"id":10953,"date":"2012-12-27T10:50:02","date_gmt":"2012-12-27T17:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=10953"},"modified":"2012-12-27T10:50:02","modified_gmt":"2012-12-27T17:50:02","slug":"george-will-and-the-chestnut-of-the-people-are-lethargic-and-that-is-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2012\/12\/27\/george-will-and-the-chestnut-of-the-people-are-lethargic-and-that-is-good\/","title":{"rendered":"George Will and the chestnut of “The people are lethargic, and that is good”."},"content":{"rendered":"

Staring at a George Will article waving against boogey men and straw-men on to “Mandatory Voting”. \u00c2\u00a0It’s all relatively well taken care of with this Atlantic pushback<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0I tend to stray short of “Mandatory Voting”, though it works out well enough in Australia without any magical elixir, but tend to think everyone should be registered as a default spot. \u00c2\u00a0George Will sees no evil in the whole “Voting Fraud” pushes under Republican Governors across the nation.<\/p>\n

But something I like to focus on. \u00c2\u00a0This is a recurring statement of proud bold principles…<\/p>\n

Second, the stakes of politics are agreeably low because constitutional rights and other essential elements of happiness are not menaced by elections. Those who think high voter turnout indicates civic health should note that in three German elections, 1932-1933, turnout averaged more than 86 percent, reflecting the terrible stakes. The elections decided which mobs would rule the streets and who would inhabit concentration camps<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mm hm. \u00c2\u00a0There’s some truth in this — like Eisenhower’s goal of weaning off from a Crisis Government — or a quote from someone I heard recently “No matter Bush was, it’s not the End of the World; No Matter how bad Obama is it’s not the End of the World”, but it’s an easy out of complacency. \u00c2\u00a0The same Bush — Obama despair from this was bemoaning the creation of of Government under the model of Business. \u00c2\u00a0 I suppose we get into the realm of politics in the late 1800s under the Gilded Age, where between 1876 and 1896 we turned over Presidents every time and had no real cause except a different set of office workers. \u00c2\u00a0The Captains of Finance ruled. \u00c2\u00a0Skip to the mid 1900s — 1960 through 1980. \u00c2\u00a0Turmoil…<\/p>\n

Of course, then there’s the Soviets who in the early 1980s turned through three Soviet Premiers in quick secession, trying to stake their claim to old unchanging Appartiks.<\/p>\n

Dateline Japan<\/a>: \u00c2\u00a0The victory puts Mr. Abe, 58, a\u00c2\u00a0former prime minister\u00c2\u00a0and an outspoken nationalist, at\u00c2\u00a0Japan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s helm as it faces the growing burden of its aging population,\u00c2\u00a0years of industrial declineand the\u00c2\u00a0challenge of an increasingly assertive China. The change in prime ministers is the seventh in six years, a high turnover that is itself a sign of the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inability to escape its long economic funk.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dateline Egypt<\/a>: \u00c2\u00a0Mohammed Morsi sought to present the drafter charter as the turning of a historic page for Egypt, but his speech did little to ease the suspicions of those who fear he and his Muslim Brotherhood are entrenching their power. He offered no concrete gestures to an opposition that has so far rejected his dialogue and vowed to fight the constitution<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Abe may turn over to the next figure in pretty quick order. \u00c2\u00a0Morsi may stick here for a long time. \u00c2\u00a0Unrest seethes about both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Staring at a George Will article waving against boogey men and straw-men on to “Mandatory Voting”. \u00c2\u00a0It’s all relatively well taken care of with this Atlantic pushback. \u00c2\u00a0I tend to stray short of “Mandatory Voting”, though it works out well enough in Australia without any magical elixir, but tend to think everyone should be registered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10954,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10953\/revisions\/10954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}