September, 2019

The meaning of democracy has been a visible problem for decades. With the impeachment process, an outright conflict has developed over the issue.

The two sides are in dispute over what type of government the U.S. should have. You would think that the question was already determined based upon a constitution which served as the basis for law. But two forces are pulling in opposite directions over the impeachment issue.

The U.S. Constitution created a "government of laws," which required three branches of government with openness and accountability and checks and balances. But there is a force which wants to limit government to elections; and what is visible in the impeachment process is that electing a totalitarian dictator is the only real alternative to a government of laws.

Those who say Trump got elected and therefore represents the will of the people see no problem with a totalitarian dictatorship. Trump shows no respect for any element of government beyond his own whims. He defies Congress; he won't hire government employees for getting government tasks accomplished; he moves government offices out of Washington to make them nonfunctional; and he arbitrates and defies laws created by Congress based upon fake national security interests.

That standard is called democracy by Trump supporters. The nature of that perspective has been visible for a long time. A lot of persons want democracy to be limited to nothing but elections. When Reagan said, government is the problem, he didn't limit the claim to a particular type of government. When conservatives promoted small government, they didn't describe a floor for size; they stripped every law they could from government as so-called deregulation.

In other words, there is a large group of persons who do not want government to create laws. They basically want a totalitarian dictator to solve their problems. They don't assume that laws will solve their problems.

Relying upon subjective whim in place of laws is an anti-rationality purpose. Rationality is inseparable from the use of social structures including laws which define them to solve problems. To try to solve problems without laws and social structures is to depend upon the magic of incompetent fakes to solve problems. It never works, but dupes keep expecting it to.

Basically, liberalism is promoting the processes of constructivity, while conservatives impose values preventing constructivity from being produced. Liberals focus on processes, while conservatives focus on values. Processes are part of a social responsibility, while values are different for each person and not supposed to be imposed.