Playing for the Ponies
There were two things I was going to write about earlier, if I could
think of more to say about them. In the end I couldn't, but I want to
throw them out anyway. Two weeks ago at some point toward the end of
the week I was watching some news show and there was a woman on - of a
conservative persuasion registering her disapproval of the Senate
compromise on judicial nominations. Mind now this is a compromise that
is about to put Judge Janice Rogers Brown on the federal bench. They
really don't come much more conservative. The left does not appear to
be dancing jigs over this, Liberals Rethinking Senate Filibuster Deal.
This woman was having none of it, her people can't compromise and won't
allow republican legislators to compromise, because they don't have the
right. These issues are Gods issues. Certain people need to be placed
on the bench and start making certain decisions certain ways. End of
discussion. This is brilliant in a low and not particularly
illuminating sort of way. When finding yourself in discussion with
others, declare your ideas sanctioned by God and your opinions,
prejudices and position confirmed by heaven straight out of the
barrel. Affirm that all adjustment will be done by others. I saw
a new book come through cataloging the other day that made me think
about this again, John Rawls' other book: Political Liberalism
(Columbia Classics in Philosophy Series) (from publisher supplied
information on this b+n page)
...Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible
and irreconcilable doctrines - religious, philosophical, and moral -
coexist within the framework of democratic institutions...Rawls
therefore asks, how can a stable and just society of free and equal
citizens live in concord when deeply divided by these reasonable, but
incompatible, doctrines? His answer is based on a redefinition of a
"well-ordered society." It is no longer a society united in its basic
moral beliefs but in its political conception of justice...
What Rawls is saying is that a modern democracy - non
homogenous, pluralistic will not be able to find its ruling consensus
simply within the culture, to fall back on it, but must explicitly
synthesis it. This accepted notion of fairness, theory of justice, will
be a political creation. Its unity and progress as a civilized culture,
will be a test of its political sophistication and acumen.
The other thing occurred the next day. I was watching the
Preakness, half watching it and trying to read something. One of
the
announcers - I never looked up to see who she was - kept returning to
her main theme, which was that unless Maryland voters "put
politics aside" and allow the gaming industry to bring slot machines in
all this beautiful horsing around will fall away and the second leg of
the triple crown will pull up stakes and move to Pennsylvania. Of
course the gaming industry don't want to bring slots just into the
racetracks, they want to bring them in all over the state. And not
really all over either, they will end up in particular neighborhoods,
along with related and allied gaming industry product. They will be in
mine, but I do not believe they will be in hers.
11:47:07 PM  ;;
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