As government has grown bigger in size, scope, and pretensions, it has become more attentive to small factions that do not claim to represent the will of the majority. The most that each faction claims is that a majority would favor what the faction favors if the majority were thinking clearly. Or that it knows better what is best for the majority. Or that it does not give a tinker’s damn what other factions think.
-George Will (The Conservative Sensibility)
C’est vrai! During the time I’ve been doing political blogging, there has been an explosion of all kinds of advocacy, political affiliation, PACs, Special Interest Groups and other kinds of groups all hollering at government in general or specific people (be they elected representatives, appointed or hired employees, or judges) for one reason or another.
On the Right, they tend to be fairly disconnected, mostly because of being of the “Individual-based” outlook, we all may start in some group but sooner or later, go off on their own to start yet another group because “I can do it better”. The Left seems to be a Gordian Knot / dark web of interweaving/interlocking groups all approaching a topic from a different facet BUT if you look at them as an upside-down bush, everything seems to lead back to a few well-monied groups that bifurcated itself to cover all the bases. The Right has such groups as well, but not as well funded or as numerous.
The above quote holds true – it’s almost as if all of these tiny factions, who have few members in the context of the entire body politic but make such a noise and with such persistence, they appear to have an outsized voice compared to the rest (Alinsky’s Rules #1 & #3). They also have done their homework and have figured out who to target and then leverage in order to first gain acceptance of their viewpoint and then to work actively for it.
Usually to the detriment of the rest of us. Think of it as Union forces applied in micro. And the vast majority of the time, the Constitution and its plain meanings is never considered.
And that last point is what is most oft violated. After all, the Left says that we are only “a Democracy” – and isn’t direct Democracy just a Mobocracy?
(H/T: Cafe Hayek)
