In The Jury Box: 2025

By David Eide

DIDDLING BEFORE THE STORM

Some general thoughts directed to no one in particular: How do people who hate the society, hate the people, hate the history, hate the means of production, hate the forms of organization expect to get anywhere?

I don"t want anything to do with "class warfare" or "race and gender" battles. These conflicts will never be resolved and so will undermine the strength of the democracy. And it's the same arguments, the same ideas, the same people often.

They do raise some good points. I want a full, free inclusive liberal democracy where all people feel that they can move from the place they find themselves in to a better one.

If there is no or little respect for your opponents in politics, then the thing starts to break down, it becomes an infection and toxic, nothing really changes and when that happens the culture itself has to be much more vital than the politics. That's the great saving grace in a liberal democracy.

Vitality away from the infection known as politics. That is the difference between a free society and a totalitarian one. And the politics are very toxic, the thinking classes are toxic and can't think themselves out of the box that the virus has forced them into.

Perhaps a new generation comes along and rolls it all over and something new appears on the other side. But the vitality has to keep going, the freedom has to keep manifesting and making.

So much easier for the "revolution" to give up the illusion and merge with the "reform" than the other way around. At least in a liberal democracy.

I think I tried to get to a non-alienated state. That to me was one of the goals of liberal democracy. A state where one was fully who one was going to be, one who had been tested by the modern world and had come out better than when he went in. Perhaps one falls way short but the attempt reveals many things.

Well, America is America what can I say? It's either a nightmare or a resource. It can trap you or liberate you with the right resources in hand. The more you try to control or think you have control the farther you are from actual power. It's a mind game.

Politics emerges from human beings no matter what system they exist in.

Liberal democracy seems to be the most dispersed power system that still stays coherent. That calls on deft identities among the citizens, a commitment to continue the experiment through Constitutional law and the experience of freedom, not-freedom, outside of freedom. So that, in the end, there is the reality of freedom that can't be abstracted away.

January 18, 2025

The impurity of politics always trumps the purity of intent.

I think the idea behind the Constitution was this: We want to establish a Republic. Done right, a Republic will deliver the best government, the most sound administration of law. In doing that it produces security, tranquility, and the ability of the democratic citizens to flourish, to pursue their happiness, to engage in a meaningful life, thus, supporting the nature of the system and wanting it to continue. The enemies to this scheme were, (a) corruption which is in the nature of human beings who want power or want to hold onto power, (b) mob rule which is often expressed in the democratic people, (c) foreign intrigue that manipulates policy against the well being of the people.

In the places where this is apparently the case the thing works. But in places where there is no tranquility or pursuit of happiness you find disruption in the form of protest, crime, drug use, criticism, adoption of anti-philosophies like cults or ideological foes of the liberal democracy. So the system has to respond, the system has to be aware and try to ameliorate the conditions that lead to the disruption. They have the right to organize and "petition the government for a redress of grievance" I think that was basically true in 1787 and its true today. There are some added qualities that have impact on the perception of the citizens, their sense of well-being, such as large scale capitalism, the full maturity of science and technology, instant communications to virtually everyone at all times, the consciousness of massive threats to humanity outside the boundaries of liberal democracy and/or the US. What is the relation from the one to the other? How does the person evolve from a member of the angry, alienated group to a free, liberal democratic citizen?

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The large scale at which people perceive often breaks down the careful boundaries necessary for a self as well as a liberal democracy. The inhuman perception of the world is more apt to produce a feeling of nihilism that can translate into panic on the one hand and fierce will to power on the other.

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The truth is I don't have a unified theory of politics. I can't say for certain why politics arises from, apparently, the first consciousness. I think Nietzsche is right that the "will to power" is the driving force in the universe. And that liberal democracy is the "best" system that can absorb that driving force and deliver a more stable and tranquil society. You can't ignore in the US, the facts of a large land mass, protected by oceans, benign borders, vast natural resources, a tradition of freedom among other things that contribute to the success of the liberal democracy. It does have to have some integrity, both the system and the citizens.

Know Thyself and then extend out in wider and wider circles. Don't try to grasp it all with one glance. Justice is necessary. Just because the system is operating and is not falling apart does not mean all is well. There are always problems so a portion of the people need to pursue the solution or study or fact finding to the problems. The free citizens are their best solution if they live out their freedom justly, honestly, with respect for others and loyalty to basic principles.

Economy matters. The morale of the people matters. The suffering of people matters.

Of course, there isn't simply a "government", there is a Congress made up of a House of Representatives and Senate, an Executive or President, a Supreme Court and many quasi-governmental agencies. One operative in one agency could tell a hundred stories about the system that never get told.

The only contribution I could make to this area is the thought experiment involving a "free liberal democratic citizen" and all the processes and coercians that try and reduce that citizen. So what is his or her "fullness?" That to me is the key question. And that is skirting the edge of a literary project. It's part of the literary project I do believe. There's no waste in studying the government or trying to fit its complexity inside the mind and imagination.

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It's very difficult to have an ideal of "self rule" when the self doesn't know what is going on and doesn't know the government or the ideas behind the government. What, exactly, is he and she going to "rule"? I think it's true that the citizen does have instinct about survival, his own and the societies survival.

The baby boom had a central flaw- it dismissed, it evaded the reality of politics and the necessity to develop leadership. This was a result of the disillusionment of Vietnam, Watergate, civil rights, historic abuses, corporate malfeasance etc. They more times escaped political reality than engaged it after Carter.

What is needed is for the younger generation to free itself of whatever hold that generation has and find its political core and enrich it with many items until political leaders emerge out of that core. The baby boomers did wonderful things but in that aspect fell way short. Unless you tell me that Biden and Trump are the peak of American political life.

I often return to the beauty I found in the world, the good I found, the richness I found. It is there.

January 14, 2025

I always ask questions of those who want my loyalty or some authority over me:

• Could a Constitution have been born through you?
• Would you have attempted to discover the length and breadth of the US?
• Would you have defended Little Round Top?
• Would you have done all you could to develop tolerance and stamp out the many instances of hatred that plagued the history of the US?
• Would you have refused the immoral order?

Among other questions that you address to people who want power or loyalty. Not that there is right or wrong answer but the answer itself would tell me what I wanted to know.

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The weakest minds are susceptible to the strongest theories. It's uncanny how that rolls out each generation.

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Media is not Society. It is more Culture. Society is my experience plus my knowledge in a self-conscious group. I just drove on a freeway with many others and their cars and trucks. I intermingled a bit with some in the pharmacy. I interacted with persons at the hotel. My society. This is dynamic, this is worth reflecting and meditating on. Culture is something that either has credibility or it doesn't. Media presents itself as the fount of culture and fights with itself to see who will dominate the cultural narrative for this bit of time. It changes several times in one lifetime.

I have never been in a period of time where all Media lacks the credibility it has now. It's not trustworthy and the words are hollow. Whether this represents a threat to democracy is another question. Perhaps it is a sign we are evolving into a new form of democracy, a new form of narrative that puts everything up in the air so to speak. It would explain the pervasive extremism "on all sides", as well as the need for a new consensus.

Some culture offers up good, intelligent, creative energy. Most culture fakes it. Most culture is created and produced, in this country, by people who are too young, too inexperienced, too lacking knowledge to be of use. The two pervasive expressions of energy are rebellion and sexuality. These are the components of the great modern rut.

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I generally agree with this statement: "America is arrogant and needs to learn from criticism and examples from other countries and cultures."

It's arrogance or more likely ignorance and isolation.

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In a democracy you want all to be represented, all who feel they have a stake in the future. But you'd think and hope that the democratic people would mature to the point where they don't vote and support those who "look like me." Doesn't that trivialize the very nature of a democracy?

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Media and academia will have to adjust because they lack total credibility at the moment. They are equal with government and corporation in the eyes of the despising people. They have lost their ability to "tell the truth" since they begin with a skewered point of view.

When politics gets toxic you simply let it go and let it fall into the exhausted heap it will disintegrate into.

New politicians and new ideas emerge out of the disintegration to those who are alert and aren't taken down into the fires so to say. Withdrawal, reinvestment, emergence. That sounds about right.

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Politics is short-term, a 2-4 year horizon that has both good and bad elements. There are investments such as infrastructure, that have long-term benefits that are hard to implement because no one wants to be responsible for the increase taxes. On the other hand, each policy that comes up in the short-term is given a great deal of due diligence, so that the people are fully educated about the policy. It becomes part of the political culture. It may not hold in one cycle but at a later cycle it may, the policy, be fully understood and accepted. The short-term insures that new blood, new ideas will cut through the political culture.

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The political culture would improve greatly if the people actually embraced the Constitution and understood how advantageous it is. For one thing it prevents politics from becoming absolute. The dominance of one political idea will invariably generate a counter political idea that, if credible, will challenge the dominance of the rival political idea. Politics changes quickly, it is transitory. It is not a steady state line that goes in one direction. The Constitution also has a Bill of Rights that tells power, in essence, to allow the people to develop as they will, as they can. The challenge to the Constitution is, ironically enough, in the financial system that has developed over the past few centuries. Money has become what determines the free people rather than the freedom itself. Only small numbers of people each generation can try to find new freedom. It can only occur when the determination of money, its hypnotism, is broken. While progressive politics can make some inroads to the money system, it can not and will never transform it into a socialist one. There isn't enough demand for it and would only occur with the overcoming of the Constitution, thus ending this phase of American political life.

If change, that trite but magical word, is radical and fast, the resistance then becomes radical and strong. You may have a prong or two into the future but that will all be pushed back by the resistance. Whereas if change is slight, resistance is slight. One slight change is added to another and another, not increasing the resistance until at point D you look back at point A and realize much has changed and the resistance is small because the advance and its resistance allowed people to assimilate the change.

January 9, 2025

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