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Seeking 'Sober Middle Class' Guidance
The following guest entry was written by James DeLong, a senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation.
Perhaps I grow more idealistic as I age, but my dominant impression of this election is the irresponsibility of both parties, which offer no serious policies or ideas of any sort. I hypothesize that this unpleasant state of affairs arises from the intersection of campaign finance "reform" with technology.
Reform forces candidates to collect small amounts of money or time from a large base, which is best motivated by slander, simplification, and direct economic payments in the form of pork or benefits. It also removes the party structure as a quality control over candidates. The growth of blogs and email and the multiplication of media channels, each forced to fill time and space with empty words, creates immense competing echo chambers.
So, repeal McCain-Feingold, and let the sober middle class reassert itself. What we are seeing is raw, unmediated democracy, and it isn't pretty. It is becoming ochlocracy.
Posted by Andrew on November 7, 2006 03:23 PM | Permalink
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