Kate, is that you?
Posted on 05/21/2014 10:55:34 AM PDT by mojito
It’s now clear that the end of the Soviet Union heralded an era of democratic complacency. Without a rival system to test them, democratic governments have decayed across the globe....
[....]
The answer is to use Lee Kuan Yew means to achieve Jeffersonian ends — to become less democratic at the national level in order to become more democratic at the local level. At the national level, American politics has become neurotically democratic. Politicians are campaigning all the time and can scarcely think beyond the news cycle. Legislators are terrified of offending this or that industry lobby, activist group or donor faction. Unrepresentative groups have disproportionate power in primary elections.
The quickest way around all this is to use elite Simpson-Bowles-type commissions to push populist reforms.
The process of change would be unapologetically elitist. Gather small groups of the great and the good together to hammer out bipartisan reforms — on immigration, entitlement reform, a social mobility agenda, etc. — and then rally establishment opinion to browbeat the plans through. But the substance would be anything but elitist. Democracy’s great advantage over autocratic states is that information and change flow more freely from the bottom up. Those with local knowledge have more responsibility.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And then we all live happily ever after.
This may be the most repugnant thing I've read from Brooks - worse even than his 0bama "pant crease" mania from 2008 - and that's saying something.
What a pant load.
You mean that hasn't been going on since the Brains Trust in the 1930's and the Eisenhower nomination in 1952 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
Gosh, how could I have made that mistake? School me, Brooksie! <snort!>
But be careful, Brooksie .... browbeating the People could get you browbeaten right back. Remember Madame Guillotine?
Good one. Instantly stolen. </filch>
Kate, is that you?
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