The Perils of Democracy

05/23/2005

The Perils of Democracy
Paul Munnis

Setting aside semantics for a moment, it is clear that Governor Tim Pawlenty will go for a tax increase in the form of higher fees for cigarettes. That part of the negotiation is done and the DFL then made a counter offer to Pawlenty’s offer to conditionally accept it.

Thus negotiations are really in progress.

The Governor must figure the Parties are pretty close because he is calling a Special Session post-haste and he wouldn’t be doing that if a cooling off period was needed. I believe he thinks this can be wrapped up by Memorial Day weekend.

This has been a tough session, legislators are tired, the road is not easy, neither Party will get everything that they hoped for, but the outcome will leave Minnesota moving ahead once again and that is what we seek.

We said before that a close balance of power at the seat of power makes for Democracy. A lob-sided distribution of power makes for greed, and gridlock. The events in St. Paul are proving the former and the events in the Senate in Washington are proving the later.

The situation in Washington is very dicey. If the Senate filibuster rule is set aside then there will be no checks and balances any longer. The GOP will own the White House, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, plus there will no longer be minority rights. Where I come from that is called a Dictatorship. The new Patriots II Act will then assure police powers. Social Security will be destroyed, and there will be no curbs on War and military conduct of POW torture and abuse.

Once the GOP has total control of government, they can for example declare that because of the Iraq War and the War on Terrorism we must suspend the 2006 and maybe the 2008 elections. Far fetched? Crazy talk? Unbelievable idea? Yes, all of that is true, but also it’s possible in a dictatorship.

The old saying is that power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts. The truth of that is obvious upon taking a simple look at the GOP with its no bid contract to Halliburton and at the current ethical problems of Tom DeLay and the demands of the GOP Senate leader to end the filibuster.

This leaves Democrats of two minds: if the filibuster issue is lost and we Democrats are forced to drag out and slow the legislative session then little will get done and that is good from a Democrats perspective because the kinds of things that the neo-cons want to do will be largely stymied from Senate ratification. Yet no Democrat wants to see our nation go down the drain and morph over to becoming a total dictatorship. Thus the ambivalence of Democrats is understandable. The fate of the nation is now in the hands of the moderate members of the Senate who are on the GOP side of the aisle.

The next 72 hours will tell the story and the result. After that the national reaction will set in.