11 February 2011
By Jacob G. Hornberger Flip-flopping over events in Egypt, President Obama
and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have
decided that it would be a bad idea for unelected
Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak to immediately resign
from office. Their reason? Under Egypt's constitution,
Mubarak's departure from power would require national
elections to be held within 60 days. What's wrong with that? Obama and Clinton say that
the Egyptian people could not adequately organize
themselves for elections in such a short period of
time. Therefore, Obama and Clinton cavalierly suggest,
it is preferable for the Egyptian people to continue
suffering under brutal and tyrannical U.S.-supported
tyranny until September. In other words, according to Obama and Clinton the
Egyptian people are simply too dumb to organize
elections and run campaigns within a 2-month period of
time. Of course, another possible reason is that
free-wheeling elections could bring people to office
who don't like the U.S. government, especially because
it's the U.S. government that has been propping up the
dictatorship that has been oppressing the Egyptian
people for 30 years. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there special
elections sometimes in the United States that are held
within a short period of time? But of course, no doubt
Obama and Clinton would say that those elections are
run by Americans, and everyone knows how smart
Americans are. Well, actually, not so! In reality, the
powers-that-be in the United States consider American
voters to be dumb too. That's the ostensible rationale
behind ballot-access barriers all across the United
States, including burdensome petitioning requirements,
limits on campaign contributions, and tens of
thousands of election regulations, all of which are
designed to ensure that American voters are not
confused by too many candidates on the ballot. Here in Virginia, for example, rarely are voters
treated to more than two candidates for statewide
office. The reason? Horribly burdensome and expensive
petitioning requirements. For example, if a poor,
inner-city African American who opposed the racism of
the drug war wanted to run for statewide office, for
all practical purposes he would not be able to do so.
Why? First, he would be required to secure 10,000
valid signatures from registered voters, which means
he would have get about 16,000 to be safe. Could he
get all the signatures from his part of town? Nope. He
would be required to get them from all across the
state, which means he would have to spend money on
travel and hotels while securing the signatures. Then,
he would have to find places that would permit him to
get signatures, including in certain parts of Virginia
in which well-to-do white people might well not like
being approached for a signature by a poorly dressed,
inner-city black calling for drug legalization. The real purpose of ballot-access restrictions,
both at the state and federal levels, is to preserve
the Democrat-Republic monopoly grip on power. As I
have long pointed out, there isn't a dime's worth of
difference between Democrats and Republicans. They
belong to one party — the welfare-warfare party — and
their fights are over who is going to get to control
the reins of power and the largess that comes with
such power. The determination that Republicans and Democrats
have to continue their monopoly control over American
politics is no different, in principle, than the
determination by Mubarak's party to maintain its
decades-long monopoly control in Egypt. That's why
Obama and Clinton and many Republicans are so
unsympathetic to quick elections in Egypt. Statists
know that such democratic "chaos" could easily upend
monopoly control over the political system. Several years ago, there was a quick election for
governor in California. Due to some quirk in the
election law, anyone could run for governor in the
election without having to comply with the standard
burdensome ballot-access restrictions. My recollection
is that there were about 50 candidates for governor.
It was an exciting, free-wheeling election in which
people got to consider a wide range of candidates and
positions and then make their choice. Some would undoubtedly argue that the voters were
too dumb to be able to consider so many candidates, as
evidenced by their election of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Others would say: So what, democracy entails the right
of people to elect whomever they want to public
office. Still others would say: Everyone should have
the right to run for office, and it was a good thing
that California voters had so many choices. But that was an exception. Take my word for it:
Thanks to ballot-access barriers established by the
monopoly party here in Virginia, voters will never get
to choose between 50 candidates for governor,
including any poor, inner-city African-American from
Richmond or Norfolk. The powers-that-be have ensured
that their monopoly hold on power will never be
threatened by democratic "chaos." And they get away
with it by intimating that voters are just too dumb
for democracy anyway, just like the people of Egypt.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation. Comments 💬 التعليقات |