TABLE OF CONTENTS.

1 -- Introduction:-	2 -- The Vote:-	3 -- Party System:-
4 -- Interest Groups:-	5 -- Politicians:-	6 -- Quotes:-

1 -- Introduction:-

There can be nothing more important, when handing over government power to them, than to have a system which will turn up honest and able persons. Democracy, or that which we claim is such, whatever claims might be made in support of it, is, as will be shortly illustrated, not a system which turns up honest and able persons. Democracy is the rule by or the dominion of the people over the people. As a practical matter the masses cannot be called together to set and enforce the rules. Direct democracy, while tried in certain small republics of antiquity, is not what any modern democratic state has in place (Switzerland, I think, is the country which comes the closest to the ideal); the people like shareholders in a company elect officers to do the job of governing. This is known as representative democracy; and it is the art of politics that advances persons into these representative positions.1

In a democracy there exists a political market; politicians chase votes and electors chase government largesse. It is a myth that politicians promote the general interest; they are primarily interested in gaining and holding political office; it is power they seek. It is the political market that drives politically interested people to create and accommodate a coalition of special interests rather than the general interest. A quote from Walter Lippmann will illustrate the point:

"In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents. They are deprived of their independence. Democratic politicians rarely feel they can afford the luxury of telling the whole truth to the people. And since not telling it, though prudent, is uncomfortable, they find it easier if they themselves do not have to hear too often too much of the sour truth. The men under them who report and collect the news come to realize in their turn that it is safer to be wrong before it has become fashionable to be right.
With exceptions so rare that they are regarded as miracles and freaks of nature, successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular - not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.
This devitalization of the governing power is the malady of democratic states. As the malady grows the executives become highly susceptible to the encroachment and usurpation by elected assemblies; they are pressed and harassed by the higgling of parties, by the agents of organized interests, and by the spokesmen of sectarians and ideologues. The malady can be fatal. It can be deadly to the very survival of the state as a free society if, when the great and hard issues of war and peace, of security and solvency, of revolution and order are up for decision, the executive and judicial departments, with their civil servants and technicians, have lost their power to decide."2

2 -- The Vote:-

The great challenge is to keep people out of government who have no business, being in it. Democracy, for all its vaunted virtues, has been a dismal failure in getting proper people, I mean those with an understanding of the science and art of it, at the head of government. One of the principal difficulties of democracy is that it offers up no mechanism by which the brightest and the best become our leaders.3 (How to achieve this goal, in keeping with our notions of democracy, is a subject which I hardly have room to treat at this place. Though for starters, I'll say this much: doctors, lawyers and other professionals spend years before they become licensed to deal with the problems of a particular individual. Any fool with a glib tongue and the right connections might end up with the government levers in his hands and thereby effect the welfare of hundreds of thousands of people. A person should not be allowed to stand for political offices [which offices for this purpose should be graded in some fashion] unless and until they are tested in such things, as for example, elementary principles of political philosophy and constitutional law.) As it is, our leaders in our western democracies, if not the brightest and the best, are, at least, or so it is thought, the choice of the people.4 Assuming for the moment that they are freely chosen by the people (a very doubtful proposition), the reality is, that the successful politician who climbs to the pinnacles of power5 does so not because of any refined understanding of the role of government; but, rather, for his ability to attract those in charge of the election apparatus; and, of course, through the devious means which are thought to be necessary, so as to be presented as an attractive "choice" to a majority of the voters.6

There have only ever been but a few countries, in all of history, in all of the world, where arrangements were or are made for those who go to make up the country, its population, to vote for those who are to represent them in the government of their country. Even England, that great bastion of democracy, as the 19th turned into the 20th century, allowed but a part of the population to vote (women and non-property owners, for example, had no vote).7 These days, at least in the "western democracies," we all have the vote. One is precluded from arguing that this is not a good idea. Certainly Bentham in his work, published in 1789, didn't think to question the proposition that only certain people should have the vote.

"Men who would not be thought fit to be electors, are those who cannot be presumed to possess political integrity, and a sufficient degree of knowledge. Now we cannot presume upon the political integrity of those whom want exposes to the temptation of selling themselves; nor of those who have no fixed abode; nor of those who have been found guilty in the courts of justice of certain offences forbidden by the law. We cannot presume a sufficient degree of knowledge in women, whom their domestic condition withdraws from the conduct of public affairs; in children and adults beneath a certain age; in those who are deprived by their poverty of the first elements of education, &c. &c.."8

We may well question the ability of the typical voter11, if they do it at all, to cast a vote on one side of a studied issue; however, it is not just the voter that is typically ignorant, unfortunately, all too often, so is the politician who stands for election.12 Quite a number of us well appreciate this, and, at each election, there is, indeed, a concerted effort to turn out one set of politicians who have abundantly illustrated their ineptitude; only to be fixed, post election, with another set which soon demonstrate they are no better than the last set. (Great expense, I might add, is incurred, as each new set goes about undoing the work of the previous set, the term I have come to use is "democratic fibrillation.") What is necessary is for us to come to grips with the great mythology of our age. Professor Leoni explains:

"No solemn titles, no pompous ceremonies, no enthusiasm on the part of applauding masses can conceal the crude fact that both the legislators and the directors of a centralized economy are only particular individuals like you and me, ignorant of 99 percent of what is going on around them as far as the real transactions, agreements, attitudes, feelings, and convictions of people are concerned. ... The mythology of our age is not religious, but political, and its chief myths seem to be 'representation' of the people, on the one hand, and the charismatic pretension of political leaders to be in possession of the truth and to act accordingly ..."13

It is in the nature of government to have a few tell the rest what it is that should be done, or, to put it on a proper footing, what is not to be done. By the normal democratic process, where there is disagreement (just about every time) then a vote is called and those who win by a simple majority15 overrule the rest. It is a myth that every citizen has an equal weight with every other. Assuming all citizens have a vote (children, for example, do not); and only half of them bother to vote; and the election is won by 51% -- then, those who parade around after the election declaring themselves the winners, may, indeed, have the real support of but only 25% of the electorate (assuming that this 25% knew what it was they were voting for in the first place); though, they claim the power to bind 100% of the citizens over to their ideas (legislation).

Professor Leoni, in his brilliant work, Freedom and the Law illustrates the tyranny of majority rule:

"... when we consider the analogy at closer quarters, we realize that in assuming that 51 voters out of 100 are "politically" equal to 100 voters, and that the remaining 49 (contrary) voters are "politically" equal to zero (which is exactly what happens when a group decision is made according to majority rule) we give much more 'weight' to each voter ranking on the side of the winning 51 than to each voter ranking on the side of the losing 49."16

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3 -- The Party System:-

Edmund Burke:

"Men thinking freely will, in particular instances, think differently. But still, as the greater Part of the measures which arise in the course of public business are related to, or dependent on, some great leading general principles in Government, a man must be peculiarly unfortunate in the choice of his political company if he does not agree with them at least nine times in ten. If he does not concur in these general principles upon which the party is founded, and which necessarily draw on a concurrence in their application, he ought from the beginning to have chosen some other, more conformable to his opinions. ... How men can proceed without any connection at all is to me utterly incomprehensible."17

"The outstanding fact in political history under the first two Georges is the obeyance of the Tory party as an effective force in Parliament. The two-party system did not die but it slept. There were always avowed Tories in Parliament, but they were not numerous enough either to take over the government when a change was needed, or to act alone as an Opposition. They usually worked with the section of the Whigs who happened to be opposed in the Whig Government of the day. Since there was no rival party which the Whig aristocracy as a whole had cause to fear, it grew negligent of public opinion, and relied more and more on perfecting the corrupt machinery of elections, instead of appealing on points of principle to the electorate. Where there are no effective Tories there can be no proper Whigs. As the struggle for power ceased to be political it became personal, a scuffle of the rival 'great houses' for the power to distribute the good things of Church and State."19

"While the principles of a single party united the Cabinet as a homogeneous body, capable of common action, the divergent principles of two parties divided Parliament into supporters of government and adherents of opposition. Thereby was secured steady support and steady criticism of the executive power, instead of irresponsible action prompted by the selfish impulses of individual members, or the mob psychology of undisciplined assemblies."20

A distinction is to be made between a "faction" and a "political party." Let me turn to Henry Brougham and then Walter Bagehot, first Brougham:

"... a dupery of sixty or seventy people who don't reflect, for the benefit of two or three sly characters who go about earwigging the powerful ones for their own purposes."24

"The feeling of a constituency is elicited, stimulated, sometimes even manufactured by the local political agent. Such an opinion could not be moderate; could not be subject to effectual discussion; could not be in close contact with pressing facts; could not be framed under a chastening sense of near responsibility; could not be formed as those form their opinions who have to act upon them. Constituency government is the precise opposite of parliamentary government. It is the government of immoderate persons far from the moderate scene of action, instead of the government of moderate persons close to the scene of action; it is the judgement of persons judging in the last resort and without a penalty, in lieu of persons judging in fear of a dissolution, and ever conscious that they are subject to an appeal."25

"All religions [movements] whatever, the professors of which aspire to rule mankind, have the same problem to grapple with. Each has an ideal of human nature to which its professors wish mankind in general to conform, or which they wish them, at all events, to admit to be entitled to reverence, whether they conform to it or not. Each of these religions finds a number of earnest and disinterested supporters, who are so much struck with its moral beauty and its inherent essential attractions that they become converts to it ... The loving, trusting, believing spirit wants neither reward nor punishment. He falls in love with his creed as a man might fall in love with a woman, without hope, but beyond the possibility of recovery. Persons like these are the core and heart of every great religion.
They form, however, a very small minority of the human race. The great mass of men is not capable of this kind of disinterested passion for anything whatever. On the other hand, they are open to offers. They can be threatened or bribed into more or less nominal adherence to almost any creed which does not demand too much of them."26

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4 -- Interest Groups:-

While people in a democracy may well categorize themselves as being politically free, they inevitably suffer socially from that subtle and searching oppression which the dominant opinion of a free community may exercise over the members who compose it. Increasingly, however, the oppression is not so subtle. We are all exposed to the dupery of the cunning of people, as the British law reformer and judge, Henry Brougham expressed it, "who don't reflect," "who go about earewigging the powerful ones for their own purposes." The harm of elitist minorities whose goal it is to coerce the dispersed majorities for preferment was recognized earlier on by James Madison when he and others were framing up the constitution of that then fledgling country, the United States:

"By a faction, understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. ... A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment of different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. ... To secure the public good, and private rights, against the danger of faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed."27

Democracy, the theme of it can never wear trite, is called a democracy because it looks to the interest, not of the few, but of the many. It is the sacred duty of an elected assembly, owed to the whole of the population; not to give in to any one of its parts for the sole benefit of that part; and this is to be, no matter how meritorious the cause of that part, as for example, the "rights" of women, or "rights" of aboriginals. There is, unfortunately, however, an inherent tendency of myopic politicians to yield to the organized at the expense of the unorganized. Any decision of any assembly must be in favour of its constituency, viz., the people who brought it into being by the electorial process. A government that is confused about its mandate in this regard falls under the sway of special interest groups.

When politicians fail, usually through sheer ignorance, of seeing to their most important duty, as outlined in the previous paragraph, it becomes the duty of the citizenry to put up a howl. Do we howl when politicians shirk their solemn democratic role, hardly, indeed, great numbers of us are enlisted, by an exaggerated insistence upon the claims of sentiment, in the cause of some particular interest group, notwithstanding, that to sign on to this or that cause is to the very great disadvantage of themselves. Consumers versus producers -- and this is a classic statement in political "science" -- never seem to recognize their collective interests, or, at least, are seemingly unable to put up a common front against that which is plainly going to work against their larger interests. I quote the eminent economist, Arthur Seldon:

"The task is not easy because we all see our producer interest more vividly than our consumer interest. The rewards we can reap by prevailing on government to yield to our request or importunities or demands for 'help' are larger than the immediate losses we suffer as consumers. When farmers, coalminers, teachers, nurses, railwaymen, university professors, polytechnic teachers or government officials ask for and obtain larger subsidies, higher pay, shorter hours, longer holidays or better conditions than they are worth because it is politically expedient to keep them quiet, they gain as producers but lose as consumers in higher taxes or higher prices. But their gain is immediate, apparent and sizeable; their loss is distant, obscure and minuscule.
The results are damaging to democracy. Since the cost of pressurizing government yields a much larger return in producer gains than it imposes in consumer losses, we tend to organize as producers rather than as consumers. But in the end we all lose far more as consumers than we gain as producers: old industries, firms and occupations are kept alive, government is aggrandized, taxes are inflated, the articulate are incited to organize, the citizen is impelled to take to the streets to gain a hearing, parliament is bypassed."29

5 -- Politicians:-

Have you heard that politicians always take the required long-term view; that they always sacrifice their short-term political prospects; that they are always faithful to their promises of serving the public interest; that they put themselves last after all others; that they dissolve their empires, and withdraw to their homes and innocent pursuits when they can see that they are doing harm -- if so, you have heard a gigantic fairy tale.

The image of the politician, very much earned through the years, I am afraid, is that of a sinister person, a shrewd schemer, a crafty plotter, an intriguer. A politician, as a general proposition, is a person who is keenly interested in politics; one who engages in party politics, or in political strife; and, above all, one who lives by politics as a trade. What he should be -- and such persons have popped up in history, especially in the early years of the United States and throughout the 19th century in England -- is an individual versed in the theory or science of government and the art of governing, who is skilled in politics and is practically engaged in conducting the business of the state; he is, or ought to be, above all things, a statesman who knows very well that what he does will have a great effect on the welfare of the people of his country. What we are fixed with in these years are not statesmen, but rather politicians as first described, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.

Not that these politicians are unimpressive people: most of them, especially those that get themselves elected time and time again, are quite impressive.30 Usually, they impress people by their oratorical ability. However, one should not believe that there is a correlation between the degree of one's ability to speak in public; and, say, to think, or to deal with matters in an honest manner. Indeed, in regards to plain honesty, there is an indirect correlation: it's the slick talkers we need to watch out for. Effrontery and falsehood is all too often enough to defeat the side that is in the right. A clear and unprejudiced point of view founded on fact, sad to say, as is commonly observed, gives way to the crafty or fraudulent devices of the orator. The politician is not normally out to get at the truth of the matter, but, rather, to get an advantage, if not for himself directly, then for the party. His object is to raise passion to such a level that it swamps reason; and then, at the moment the crowd reaches it highest point get them committed to a course of action.

"The orator may wish to gain a special vote, to secure suffrages or to evoke from his hearers repeated confirmations of the policy he defends, and so to produce a modification of public opinion; but in any case his efforts are meant to rouse actual political action on the part of other people. His intention is to make others subserve his own ends, to strengthen his own scanty forces by means of the power that others possess, and this, whatever the character of his efforts, be they selfish or unselfish, be they directed to securing, the advantage of an individual, of a party, or of the state. A political speech is distinguished from a pamphlet, from expert advice, from a memorial or a dissertation, by the special fact that it seeks to bring about a comparatively rapid result, and to prevent a close and detailed examination of the subject under discussion. Vigorous, attractive, and even sweeping language, followed by a decision as rapid as possible before the flame of enthusiasm dies away, such is the course of events invariably most desirable to the great orator ... A crowd of people is in most cases disinclined, and little competent to undertake, an accurate examination of the questions at issue, and the more incompetent it is the greater will be the influence exerted upon it but clever oratory. Where the influence of oratory is supreme we have to suppose a general decay of intellectual force ..."31

"They do not, it is true, allow of preparation at the moment, but they have the preparation of the preceding night, and of the night before that, and of nights, weeks, months and years of the same endless drudgery and routine, in going over the same subjects, argued (with some paltry difference) on the same grounds. Practice makes perfect. He who has got a speech by heart on any particular occasion, cannot be much gravelled for lack of matter on any similar occasion in future. Not only are the topics the same; the very same phrases -- whole batches of them, -- are served up as the Order of the Day; the same parliamentary bead-roll of grave impertinence is twanged off, in full cadence by the Honourable Member or his Learned and Honourable Friend; and the well-known, voluminous, calculable periods roll over the drowsy ears of the auditors, almost before they are delivered from the vapid tongue that utters them! It may appear, at first sight, that here are a number of persons got together, picked out from the whole nation, who can speak at all times upon all subjects in the most exemplary manner; but the fact is, they only repeat the same things over and over on the same subjects, -- and they obtain credit for general capacity and ready wit, like Chaucer's Monk, who, by having three words of Latin always in his mouth, passed for a great scholar."32

"... what is needed most is the adoption of a critical attitude, and the realization that not only trial but also error is necessary. And he must learn not only to expect mistakes, but consciously to search for them. We all have an unscientific weakness for being always in the right, and this weakness seems to be particularly common among professional and amateur politicians. But the only way to apply something like scientific method in politics is to proceed on the assumption that there can be no political move which has no drawbacks, no undesirable consequences. To look out for these mistakes, to find them, to bring them into the open, to analyse them, and to learn from them, this is what a scientific politician as well as a political scientist must do. Scientific method in politics means that the great art of convincing ourselves that we have not made any mistakes, of ignoring them, of hiding them, and of blaming others for them, is replaced by the greater art of accepting the responsibility for them, of trying to learn from them, and of applying this knowledge so that we may avoid them in the future."33

The process to which I have just referred is essentially one of learning and growing, of submitting our expectations to the test of experience, the control and correction of speculations. This is a process which is to be employed in evaluating what is the next best step for any one of us to take as we proceed to deal with the endeavours of life: it is, since the welfare of a multitude of lives are at stake, particularly important for politicians who govern our country to employ such a process. But they seem not to know of it; their education, it certainly would appear, is sadly lacking. The typical politician appeals to the passions and prejudices of the crowd in order to simply obtain power. Whether it is by the methods of their pursuit or because they are so from the beginning (which drives them to be politicians in the first place) politicians have an overweening opinion of themselves, an overestimation of their own qualities, and a personal vanity or pride that seems to go along with most who posses magisterial power.35 A sobering thought for them would be -- politicians are not a race apart; they arise from the population; they are like the rest of us. Though there be exceptions, especially, as history will show, at times of national emergency, politicians are not better than the average sort of person: they are as a class not more able, not more kinder, not more moral, not less corruptible. A politician in power need only the normal set of virtues and to understand that for success in this life (this applies to all of us in any pursuit), we all need to rely on the goodwill of men and goodwill, will be forthcoming to those who conduct themselves in keeping with the common principles of morality, that, in all of our dealings with others, to apply standards of right conduct and to avoid any form of wrong-doing or vice.

The first object and principle of action for every one of us is to do what is right; this is particularly so for politicians. And I have no doubt that politicians aim to do what is right, but more often than not they proceed to do what others think is right. The typical politician is forever "anxious to do all the good he can without hurting himself or his fair fame. His conscience and character compound matters very amicably. He rather patronises honesty than is a martyr to it. ... [He] has the pride of being familiar with the great, the vanity of being popular, the conceit of an approving conscience." Hazlitt continues to state that such a politician (in this case he was describing Lord Wilberforce) is not necessarily a hypocrite, as a hypocrite "is one who is the very reverse of, or who despises the character he pretends to be."36

"He took it in a very cool and leisurely manner, watched his competitors with a wary, sarcastic eye, picked up the mistakes or absurdities that fell from them, and retorted them on their heads: told a story to the mob; and smiled and took snuff with a gentlemanly and becoming air, as if he was already seated in the House."37

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Adams:-
§ "Practical politics consists in ignoring facts." (The Education of Henry Adams, ch. 22.)

Bacon:-
§ "It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty."
§ "Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise." ("Of Cunning.")

Balfour:-
§ "An administration where policy unduly strains the loyalty of any large section of its supporters is obviously making things easy for its opponents." (In the introduction to Bagehot's The English Constitution.)
§ "[Politics is] a game played between opponents who call themselves by different names but, so far as the average elector can see, do very much the same kind of thing in very much the same kind of way whenever they have the chance." (Ibid.)
§ "Fêted and praised as they may be, the politician's lot is not one to be envied: subject to a perpetual stream of unfriendly questions to which they must make public reply; and they may at any moment be dismissed from power by a hostile vote." (Ibid.)

Beerbohm:-
§ "It is quite true that I don't believe at all firmly in ... the wisdom of the people. I would not stake sixpence on the peoples capacity for governing itself, and not a penny on its capacity for governing me." (Max Beerbohm, "Around Theatres" as quoted by Cecil.)

Brandeis:-
§ "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." (Olmstead v. United States.)

Burke:-
§ "It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare."
§ "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion." ("Speech to the Electors of Bristol.")
§ "Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, can never willingly abandon it."

Carlyle:-
§ "Politicians rather think they have their hand on 'the rudder of Government,' but which [is] ... rather the spigot of Taxation ..." ("On History.")

Cicero:-
§ "It is necessary for a Senator to be thoroughly acquainted with the Constitution; and this is a knowledge of the most extensive nature; a matter of science, of diligence, of reflection, without which no Senator can possibly be fit for his office."

Confucius:-
§ "The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it." (Analects, Bk. 8:9.)

Dubin:-
§ "One is hesitant to enter into a debate. We can't open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists." (Justice Charles L. Dubin, Chief Justice of Ontario as quoted in The Law Society Gazette, vol. 28, p. 201.)
§ "Their [the spokespersons for interest groups] purpose often is to inflame -- not to inform; to provoke -- not to educate; to hector -- not to reason, and frequently they impute dishonourable motives to those with whom they disagree." (Ibid.)

Gay:-
§ "... oft the cheated crowd adore
The thriving knaves that keep them poor." -- Fables.

Hazlitt:-
§ "The temperament of our politician's mind is poetical, not philosophical. He is more the creature of impulse, than he is of reflection. He invents the unreal; he embellishes the false with the glosses of fancy, but pays little attention to 'the words of truth and soberness.' His impressions are accidental, immediate, personal, instead of being permanent and universal." (The Spirit of the Age, 1825, "Mr. Southey.")
§ "The way to move great masses of men is to show that you yourself are moved. ... in appealing to the public [one must show] a sympathy with the general and predominant feelings of mankind. ... They are impressed with gratitude for a luminous exposition of their claims or for zeal in their cause; and the lightning of generous indignation at bad men and bad measures is followed by thunders of applause." (Ibid.), "Mr. Horne Tooke.")

Holmes:-
§ "If you prefer the long jolting of public opinion to the gentle touch of friendship, try it like a man. Only remember this, - that, if a bushel of potatoes is shaken in a market-cart without springs to it, the small potatoes always get to the bottom."

Kingsley:-
§ "[Politicians] ... Solicit votes ... on the ground of your having neither policy nor principles, nor even opinions, upon any matter in heaven or earth?" (Charles Kingsley (1819-75) from his essay, "My Winter Garden")

Lowell:-
§ "The right of suffrage is not valued when indiscriminately bestowed." (1887)

Macaulay:-
§ "... no sophism is too gross to delude minds distempered by party spirit." (History of England, v.1, 568.)

Machiavelli:-
§ "You do not know the unfathomable cowardice of humanity ... servile in the face of force, pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders, indulgent before crimes ... and patient to the point of martyrdom before all the violence of bold despotism."

Mencken:-
§ "Politicians, reformers and professionals are all alike, in search of a jobs; they are out to bilk the taxpayers."

Pope:-
§ Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose.
No less alike the politic and wise;
All sly, slow things, with circumspective eyes:
Men in their loose, unguarded hours they take;
Not that themselves are wise, but others weak.
But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat;
'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great:
Who wickedly wise, or madly brave,
Is but more the fool, the more a knave.
"Essay on Man" (1734).

Savile:-
§ "The lower Sort of Men must be indulged the Consolation of finding fault with those above them; without that, they would be so melancholy, that it would be dangerous, considering their numbers." (Geo. Savile, Lord Halifax).

South:-
§ "A plausible, insignificant word, in the mouth of an expert demagogue, is a dangerous and a dreadful weapon." (Robert South, 1634-1716, a stout Royalist.)

Steele:-
§ "If the Commission of the Peace finds out the true Gentleman, he faithfully discharged it. I say finds him out; for a public office is a Guest, which receives the best usage from them who never invited it."

Stephen:-
§ "We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads, but the principle is exactly the same. It is not the wisest side which wins, but the one which for the time being shows its superior strength (of which no doubt wisdom is one element) by enlisting the largest amount of active sympathy in its support. The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority." (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.)

Tennyson:-
§ "Raving politics, never at rest."

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NOTES:

¹ The topics of democracy and government are subjects, I take up elsewhere.

² The Public Philosophy (Boston: Little, Brown; 1955), p. 26-7. Lippmann, in a footnote to this passage, quoted James Trunslow Adams, as follows: "As we look over the list of the early leaders of the republic, Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, and others, we discern that they were all men who insisted upon being themselves and who refused to truckle to the people. With each succeeding generation, the growing demand of the people that its elective officials shall not lead but merely register the popular will has steadily undermined the independence of those who derive their power from popular election. The persistent refusal of the Adamses to sacrifice the integrity of their own intellectual and moral standards and values for the sake of winning public office or popular favour is another of the measuring rods by which we may measure the divergence of American life from its starting point."

³ A leader is one who is possessed of the supreme gift of gathering up and expressing the ideas which thousands of others feel but cannot express. There is no message so effective as to tell people what they know already, to hold a mirror to their face and a sound board to their voice.

⁴ The greatest compensation to one who has achieved an elected office is the value to him as the incumbent to be able to use his office so to get himself elected once again. A strong "elected" leader will ride herd over his staff; it is through staff that he exercises power and often, at least he believes, that is through staff he can maintain power straight on through to the next election. Any vast and highly organized social institution, - whether it is an army, or a union, or a large commercial company, or a government - becomes taken over by the "wire-pullers" the "bosses" and the "permanent officials."

⁵ The leaders are not the choice of the people as much as they are the choice of the political wirepullers. In the United States (forgetting for the moment how they got on the ballet), the leadership candidates are at least on the ballet. Not so in Canada, the Canadian people have no direct say as to who the leader is to be, and, seem to give the matter not an once of concern.

⁶ "To procure unanimity, to get men to act in corps, we must appeal for the most part to gross and obvious motives, to authority and passion, to their vices, not their virtues: we must discard plain truth and abstract justice as doubtful and efficient pleas, retaining only the names and the pretext as a convenient salvo for hypocrisy." (William Hazlitt, as found in his Preface to Political Essays.) "[Politicians] hold their offices for a short time, and to do this they must maneuver and manipulate combinations ... stuff of daily life in a democracy ... in the daily routine of democratic politics, elected executives can never for long take their eyes from the mirror of the constituencies. They must not look too much out of the window at the realities beyond." (Lippmann, The Public Philosophy, op. cit., p. 49.)

⁷ "Out of a population of 8,000,000 of English people [circa 1760], only 160,000 were electors at all." (See Green, vol. X, p. 21.)

⁸ The Theory of Legislation.

⁹ "The competitive odds are heavily against the candidate who, like Burke with the electors of Bristol, promises to be true to his own best reason and judgment. The odds are all in favor of the candidate who offers himself as the agent, the delegate, the spokesman, the errand boy, of blocs of voters." (Lippmann, The Public Philosophy, op. cit., p. 48.)

¹⁰ "Demetrius," 1798.

¹¹ Assuming that the typical voter has the intellect and can take the time away from making a living so to study any particular issue and come to a stand on it, the exercise is a crapshoot, anyway, at least that is what Thoreau thought: "All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." (Civil Disobedience.)

¹² For example, is it to be supposed that the average voter understands the fundamental principles of economics? That he does not is excusable. Is it to be supposed that the average politician understands the fundamental principles of economics? That he does not is inexcusable. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen: "... there are and always will be in the world an enormous mass of bad or indifferent people -- people who deliberately do all sorts of things which they ought not to do, and leave undone all sorts of things which they ought to do. Estimate the proportion of men and women who are selfish, frivolous, idle, absolutely commonplace and wrapped up in the smallest of petty routines, and consider how far the freest of free discussion is likely to improve them. The only way by which it is practically possible to act upon them at all is by compulsion or restraint." (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 72.

¹³ Freedom and the Law (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 3rd Ed., 1991), p. 23.

¹⁴ Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law, op. cit. at p. 146.

¹⁵ In corporate law there is the notion of a "special resolution" where important decisions can only be taken where 75% vote in its favour.

¹⁶ P. 237.

¹⁷ "Thoughts on Present Discontents."

¹⁸ "The temper of George the First was that of a gentleman usher; and his one care was to get money for his favorites and himself. The temper of George the Second was that of a drill-sergeant, who believed himself master of his realm." (Green, vol. IX, p. 157.) As parliament by this age was all powerful, it could nonetheless be bought by "places, pensions, and other bribes" -- sound familiar?

¹⁹ England Under Queen Anne (London: Longmans, Green; 1948), vol. 3, pp. 316-7.

²⁰ An Autobiography & Other Essays (London: Longmans, Green; July, 1949), at p. 188.

²¹ In Canada as between the liberal party and the conservative party, as is the case in the United States between the democrats and the republicans, as both push to the centre so to get into office, there is as about as much difference as between tweedledee and tweedledum.

²² Balfour's introduction to Bagehot's The English Constitution (Oxford University Press, 1928).

²³ Ibid..

²⁴ Paul Johnson attributes this quote to Brougham in The Birth of the Modern (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 413.

²⁵ The English Constitution, op. cit., p. 129.

²⁶ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873), op. cit., at p. 133.

²⁷ The Federalist Papers, 1787, no. 10.

²⁸ Biographical Studies (London: Longmans, Green; 1889) p. 316.

²⁹ Capitalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) pp. 120-1.

³⁰ "... much argument is not required to guide the public, still less a formal exposition of that argument. What is mostly needed is the manly utterance of clear conclusions; if a statesman gives these in a felicitous way (and if with a few light and humorous illustrations, so much the better), he has done his part." (Bagehot, The English Constitution, op. cit., p. 270-1.

³¹ Von Ruville's biography on Pitt (London: Heinemann, 1907) vol. 1, pp. 85-6.

³² "On the Difference Between Writing and Speaking."

³³ The Poverty of Historicism (Routledge, 1969).

³⁴ Op. cit., p. 89.

³⁵ "Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain ...:
By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complies,
The sot assumes the rule of wit,
And cowards make the brave submit."
-- Hudibras, Butler, 1680.

³⁶ The Spirit of the Age, "Mr. Wilberforce."

³⁷ Ibid., "Mr. Horne Tooke."