[34] News from Absurdistan - The Rule of the People

Democracy, as we know it, caters to our primitive longing for a leader. Democracy supplies the legitimation that is needed before the age-old instincts can be let off the leash.

The larger the entity under the sway of democracy, the less meaningful whatever good democratic procedures may be capable of, and the greater the power of the "elected" - that is why the EU and the imminent North American Union are so popular with politicians.

But how about those supposed to be in the driver's seat? The legitimators, the electorate, the people, whose will is deified by democratism - well, they get their part of the deal. They get dad and mom, when they should no longer be in need of them.

"Wir wollen unseren alten Kaiser wieder haben", a famous slogan with reactionaries in bygone (?) Germany: "Bring back the old Emperor, for god's sake".

Germans studiously avoid the term "Führer" ("leader") but love to paraphrase its meaning or use a foreign word for it to express their attitude.

Dynasties are popular in other parts of the world, too, as Wendy McElroy reminds us:

A disturbing thought. George Herbert Walker Bush was President from 1989-1993, William Jefferson Clinton from 1993-2001. George Walker Bush will have been President from 2001-2009. If Hillary Clinton wins in 2008 and even if she serves only one term, then two families will have occupied the White House for almost 25 years -- more than one generation. The definition of oligarchy is "a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society." How much more elite can America become than to have two families out of a population of 300,000,000 people hold ultimate power for a quarter of a century?