Political incivility eats away at social fabric
By George F. Will
In this season of vast public carelessness, political Toms and Daisys - like the careless Buchanans in "The Great Gatsby" - are trashing civic life, making messes and moving on.
And there are no large ideas commensurate with, and capable of at least explaining, the institutional damage being done.
In Texas last week, Democratic legislators left the state for a second time in 11 weeks. They fled, to New Mexico, to prevent a legislative quorum.
Republican legislators want to draw new legislative district lines for the second time since the 2000 census, a mischievous idea already acted on by Colorado Republicans.
This aggression shreds a settled practice that limits to once after each census the bruising effort of seeking political clout through redistricting.
Defenders of the Republicans say they are breaking no law - that the once-a-decade practice is only a custom. But many of the practices that reduce the friction of life are "only" customs.
And when the cake of custom crumbles, it is replaced either by yet more laws codifying behavior that should be regulated by good manners or by a permanent increase in society's level of ongoing aggression.
Texas Republicans sought the help of the federal Department of Homeland Security in finding the Demo-cratic emigres in Oklahoma.
New Mexico State Police guarded their hotel because the Democrats said they thought "bounty hunters" might try to drag them back to Texas.
Two weeks ago, some congressional Republicans called the police - who called the sergeant at arms - to expel Democratic members of the Ways and Means Committee from a House library, where they went to protest the Republicans' demand for action on a 90-page bill the Democrats had not had a chance to read.
Illinois' Supreme Court recently ordered the state to give all judges, including Supreme Court justices, a raise. Budget difficulties caused the governor to veto a cost-of-living increase for judges.
The Supreme Court said this violates the Constitution's requirement that judges' salaries shall "not be diminished." There was no suit filed or hearing held. Just a judicial fiat.
But is it seemly to argue it during painful budget cuts needed to close a $5 billion deficit? Last Thursday, considerations of taste, or perhaps just prudence, caused the court to retreat, vacating its order and allowing a trial court to decide the question.
Political incivility feeds on itself. The attempt to recall California
Gov. Gray Davis will encourage the idea that elections settle nothing - campaigning is permanent and
ubiquitous.
Life has been called a series of habits disturbed by a few thoughts. Civil society is kept civil by certain habits of restraint. Inflammatory political ideas can overturn habits, sometimes for the better, usually not.
But no discernible ideas, at least none that are more than appetites tarted up as ideas, account for the vandalism by political overreachers of both parties.
Each vandal seems to think that his or her passions are their own excuse for existing. As Santayana said, such thinking is the defining trait of barbarians.
* George F. Will is a columnist for The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071; www.washingtonpost.com. |
