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Can voters really prevail?
Mark Hare expresses his faith that universal suffrage would “fix” the American system of government (guest commentary, September 26). He cites Alexis de Tocqueville who, in 1835, wrote, “When a people begins to touch the electoral qualification, one can foresee that it will sooner or later make it disappear completely.”
I wish I could share Mr. Hare’s optimism.
Professor Harvey C. Mansfield, one of the translators of de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” writes: “For [Tocqueville], the danger is not so much factious interest or passion as the degradation of souls in democracy…”
In Part IV, Chapter 5, of “Democracy in America,” “What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear,” de Tocqueville concludes:
“Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.”
FRANK HOWARD, ROCHESTER
This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2012.
Can someone from this paper do a piece on “Bainport” (Freeport, Ill) where a company, owned by Bain Capital is moving its entire operation to China, putting 170 Americans out of work? The layoff, in this non-union shop, are scheduled to take place the day before the November election. Clearly Mitt Romney doesn’t think he needs those 170 votes, but he does need the Midwest. If this “news” gets out, how does Romney speak with any credibility about creating jobs in America?