Grover, Calvin And Us

As usual, people are saying we must end 'politics as usual.' And as usual, few wonder why such politics are usual.

By George F. Will | NEWSWEEK
Published Dec 6, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Dec 15, 2008

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  • Posted By: bitterblogger @ 12/09/2008 3:33:01 PM

    Who are you kidding, George? Since when has compassionate conservatism been anything more than a slogan?! I can't name one program under a Republican administration. Come to think of it, I should be careful what I wish for--now that I remember the administration's Katrina response.

    • Posted By: drunkenfilosofer @ 01/25/2009 6:19:05 PM

      How exactly one is supposed to prevent a government from responding to people's needs for certain services, and how, in a capitalist economy, can a government that is responding to the needs of people avoid having to deal with private interests that provide and manage the resources that help supply and fulfill those needs? I know what the response will be --- that people should use the private companies' services directly by paying for them but that's just ridiculous. (More on <a href="http://clicheniche.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=103&message=6">my blog post</a> at http://clicheniche.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=103&message=6).

  • Posted By: firlas @ 12/10/2008 2:56:02 AM

    George ought to read Jefferson's letter to Madison dated September 6, 1789.

  • Posted By: trogers @ 12/08/2008 8:46:09 PM

    The only way to end the usual politics is to get Congress out of the budget and spending process. Any system that allows 550 people to get as much as they can for themselves and their constituents while trying to keep the welfare of the nation in mind is not only absurd but dommed to failure. Let the OMB or the Fed create and manage the budget and all Federal spending.There is no way they would do worse than the corrupt and greedy politicians in Congress. The President would be able to adjust line items without adding or subtracting from the overall budget. The Congress could submit suggestions and ideas but would have no control over how the money was spent.

  • Posted By: David E. Brown @ 12/08/2008 11:56:08 AM

    Mr. Will:

    When minority rule becomes minority tyranny there is pressure on the previously acquiescent majority to rebel. When our democracy is doing well, the deliberative body (the Congress) responds to their sense of the will of their respective constituencies filtered through their individual values (for which they are elected), and generate an expression of that process that we call legislation. The executive branch implements that expression, employing whatever flexibility is inherent in the mandate congress has handed them through the legislative process. Then the courts ensure both that minority rights are protected, and that the minority, whether individual or group of individuals, do not artificially violate the will of the majority through excessive acquisition of power, or use of subterfuge.

    While they are subject to significant periodic distortions, these processes tend to be self-correcting over the expanse of time, much as the founders intended. I call that more than pretty good.

  • Posted By: privileged @ 12/07/2008 3:07:40 PM


    I don't see any support in Will's piece for his statement, "The more government does, the more people will be eager for it to do things for them." Is that why Americans twice elected Ronald Reagan? Was there not a backlash in the 1980s against govenrment doing too much?

    And now, isn't there a backlash against government having done too little? I marvel at the detachment with which Wills treats his subject, as if there was not real and terrible suffering that was being addressed by Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt, as if this these are all matters of mere intellectual debate.

    • Posted By: ok4u @ 12/08/2008 9:47:15 AM

      The addressing of the suffering by FDR prolonged the Depression, which only ended because of the entrance of the US into WW2, and the buildup of the war economy.

  • Posted By: Flybynite @ 12/08/2008 8:06:48 AM

    How out of touch can you get, Mr Will? Oppressed corporate lobbies forced to defend themselves against a grasping public, is that your analysis? What world do you live in, I wonder. The gap between rich and poor has widened dramatically in this country thanks precisely to the small-government, slash-every-regulation-in-sight philosophy you and the GOP have been propounding for the last three decades. It's truly curious that wealth redistribution is never a problem for you people when the flow of money is from the have-nots to the haves.

  • Posted By: Flybynite @ 12/08/2008 8:04:49 AM

    How out of touch can you get, Mr Will? Oppressed corporate lobbies forced to defend themselves against a grasping public, is that your analysis of the problem? What world do you live in, I wonder. The gap between rich and poor has widened dramatically in this country thanks precisely to the small-government, slash-every-regulation-in-sight philosophy you and the GOP have been propounding for the last three decades. It's truly curious that wealth redistribution is never a problem for you people when the flow of money is from the have-nots to the haves.every-regulation in

  • Posted By: stopthepresses2 @ 12/08/2008 12:55:22 AM

    Sarah Palin, new interview, new attack and you???ll never guess who interviewed her. Read more, http://stopthepresses2.blogspot.com

  • Posted By: Ron Paul For Pope @ 12/07/2008 8:30:42 PM

    A constitutional democracy would be something like being a Christian Scientist in an unclean world. You don't pop pills as soon as you feel queasy. You'd tough it out. On the one hand, you'd develop an admirable spiritual and mental toughness that inured you against decadence. On the other hand, you might forego some useful medicine, and you might not make it.

  • Posted By: C. MacLean @ 12/07/2008 10:32:36 AM

    "Given a sufficiently elastic notion of what constitutes hurting, compassionate conservatism can be an activism indistinguishable from liberalism."

    Uh, yeah. They are pretty much indistinguishable. And that isn't a bad thing.

    Mr. Will makes a case for the original intent of the Founding Fathers as being one of limited government. Rather than argue whether this was or was not their plan, we should be asking a different question - what if that was their intent, and they were wrong? What if the role of government is to balance the haves and the have nots, so the interests of one do not override the interests of the other?

    A tall order, no doubt, but "limited government" as practiced translates into power grabbed and hoarded by the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the common citizen.

    If you must quote Ohio State grads, Mr. Will, try this one by James Thurber: "Government of the chickens, by the chickens, and for the foxes cannot long endure."

    • Posted By: privileged @ 12/07/2008 3:41:06 PM

      With all due respect to Grover Cleveland and George Will, our Founding Fathers lived at a time when government was not dominated by corporate interests. I think both Presidents Roosevelt (T.R. and FDR) and President Eisenhower would have agreed with Thurber. Implicity, since he writes favorably only of defensive corporate lobbying, perhaps even Wills himself is against government favoring corporate interests over the general welfare? I wish he had addressed this conflict more directly.

  • Posted By: teamman @ 12/07/2008 3:36:02 PM

    As usual, George continues to apologize for the "free enterprise democracy" of which he is and adherent. The problem lies in the plutocracy that evolves when free enterprise is expected to be the anchor of a representative democracy. In many ways, truly "free enterprise" habitually concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, who either don't earn it, or job the system to get it. Will would have you believe that most middle Americans have their hand out, eager to take government subsidies. In fact, that is not true, the subsidy seekers are the very captains of industry he so adores. Most ordinary Americans do not seek government aid, but want a system that is fairer than the current one.

  • Posted By: quack @ 12/07/2008 2:12:41 PM

    "Compassionate conservatism," as promised by George W. Bush who merely talked the talk and subsequently walked the opposite path, remains an oxymoron of leadership uttered by a moron among leaders.

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