by Charlie Huenemann
Bill: Can you believe these Republicans?! Just four years after swearing up and down that no nominee for the Supreme Court should ever be approved in an election year for the president, and promising on their mothers’ graves that they would never do such a thing, here they are doing exactly that!
Alice: Why are you surprised, Bill? They are doing exactly what they should be doing. And the Democrats are doing what they should be doing – grandstanding about principles, and declaring that they would never go back on their word, and decrying the demise of American politics, and so forth and so on. Everything is going as it should.
Bill: How can you say that? The Republicans – and, okay, I admit it, the Democrats too, to some extent – are being hypocritical, and just saying whatever they think they need to say to score their own political points.
Alice: Well, yes. Isn’t that their job?
Bill: No! Their job is to govern, and to engage in reasoned discourse about the public good, and vote according to their conscience. I know that sounds naive – but the fact that it sounds naive just shows how far we have drifted from the way things are supposed to be.
Alice: I think you deeply misunderstand the nature of truly liberal democracy. You seem to think that if people just reflect hard enough, and speak to one another in even-tempered tones, there will emerge some sort of consensus that, overall, over the long run, tends to track what is truly good for the public. Read more »