Ace of Spades HQ

« President Bush Gets Into Another Scuffle | Main | Sistani Opposes Delay in Iraq Elections »

November 27, 2004

Constitutions Don't Make Stable Democracies; Tradition Does

You can specify all the checks and balances you like, but utlimately it's only a respect for tradition -- and a regard for the judgment of history -- that preserves a democracy:

Ukraine's Parliament, meeting in special session, voted Saturday to declare last Sunday's presidential runoff invalid, but failed to set a date for a new election, as the country's opposition leader and diplomats in Europe have demanded.
Outside Parliament, tens of thousands of supporters of Viktor A. Yushchenko, the challenger, who has claimed the government stole his rightful victory, cheered and jeered as the debate inside unfolded, broadcast on large television screens set up on the streets.

As the Parliament voted on each of several resolutions, the crowd roared, chanting "Yushchenko is our president!" or "Kuchma out!"

...

The fight over the election - over the country's very future - is now moving on several fronts, each utterly unpredictable six days after the runoff. It has been only 13 years since Ukraine became independent in the breakup of the Soviet Union; its democratic traditions are still being formed, and its branches of power are youthful and largely untested.

On the streets of Kiev and other cities, antigovernment protests continued and appeared to grow.

On the legal front, the Supreme Court is to hear Mr. Yushchenko's complaints of electoral fraud on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Kerry campaign is quietly working to challenge the results of our presidential election, despite the absence of any credible evidence of fraud or erroneous counting.

This is a dangerous game.

If the Democrats want to clean up the election process, they're the only ones holding it up. They are the ones who scream at the idea of voter ID cards; they're the ones who insist that even asking a "voter" for a driver's ID or utility bill constitutes some sort of "chilling" effect on recently-minted citizens.

This is ludicrous. Those who go through our naturalization process are the most aware of their rights as Americans. They spend years studying civics as adults, and know American government better than natural-born citizens. After years of waiting, they are finally told in a big ceremony that they are now US citizens, full-fledged Americans, and of course they are entitled to vote.

Genuine US citizens know they can vote. And merely asking for an ID isn't going to send them running from the polls.

The current situation is intolerable. There is too much bad faith in politics, and neither party trusts the other.

But the Democrats are playing a double-game. On the one hand, they suspect electoral fraud whenever they lose. On the other hand, they rely on those extra several hundred thousand illegal votes they know they're going to receive every election -- and please, don't tell me this is about principle; you can tell who's benefiting from the illegal vote by who wants to crack down on it and who wants to perpetuate it -- and thus will not agree to anything resembling electoral reform.

We did not come by our democracy easily, and we could lose it in a few bad months. Bush won handily this time around; but what if he had not? What if he had only squeaked by in a few key states? Would we have rioting as they do in the Ukraine?

And, for that matter, what if Kerry had just barely won, in a few states known for having high numbers of illegal votes?

This system has to be cleaned up. Democrats have to stop weighing the political advantages that inure to them from illegal votes and instead consider the effect on our democracy if this madness continues. Partisanship breeds high passion, and high passions can only be cooled and kept peaceful if all parties have a reasonable degree of confidence that the results that come in on election day are valid and honest.

And Keith Olbermann should be ashamed of himself. Desperate for ratings and driven by liberal-left lunacy, he's trumpeting easily-debunked conspiracies about the "stolen" election of 2004. Does he actually want blood in the streets in 2008? Or even 2006?

Update: Power Line blog reports that the corruption of the ruling Yanukovych regime is obvious and noxious even to a bond-trader in New York.

That's the same guy. There's some suspicion that opposition leader Yuschenko has been poisoned, and looking at the before and after, I can't say it's a ridiculous idea.

posted by Ace at 12:59 PM

Comments

That's some freaky stuff. I saw it over on Drudge, and I simply Could. Not. Believe. those photos.

Whatever it is, it managed to turn Yushchenko from looking like a Ukrainian John Edwards into Anne Ramsey practically overnight. I hope there's a good ointment out there that can solve his problem.

If Yushchenko manages to eke this whole thing out, I doubt there'll be many people lining up to shake his hand.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on November 27, 2004 03:55 PM

I love that his opponents are claiming he just ate some bad sushi.

Posted by: Karol on November 27, 2004 04:19 PM

I've eaten bad sushi. Horrible, horrible things happened (picture a Water Willy, both ends of the spectrum).

But that face *never* happened. . . yeesh.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on November 27, 2004 04:45 PM

The Yushchenko photo was disturbing, but ACE's main point about American Democracy being threatened by spoilsport and corrupting tactics here is just as important.

The Democrats are growingly relying on illegal votes to carry the day - those votes are happening in Blue bastions - with no corresponding Republican voter fraud. And Democrat efforts to block voter ID, expand the vote to felons, illegal use of unions and black religious institutions is well-observed.

Worse is their spoilsport antics. Rants about stolen elections, "suppression" of certain Democrats who fear law enforcement officials for some reason, use of the Courts to block other liberal parties from participation in elections, and overall, attempting to deligitamate American Democracy as a terribly flawed, unfair institution - where Republicans win.

The Republicans? They still have their big problem of being whores to the wealthy. Their big money contributors are handsomely rewarded with taxpayer pork, patronage appointments....and tons of access. Whereas the Red State religious yokels who vote but don't send out those fat checks to the Republicans are lucky to get the time of day after the election is over.

Posted by: cedarford on November 27, 2004 06:02 PM

Ace,

Holy Cripes!

I have seen many strange things in my many years in medicine, which includes I might add, experience in toxicology. But I have never seen anything like the photos of Yuschenko.

Is he being poisoned? Could this be viral or immune related?

I gotta' think about this one.

BTW, excellent post on the election.

Posted by: MeTooThen on November 27, 2004 08:31 PM

"Constitutions Don't Make Stable Democracies; Tradition Does"

For anyone who appreciates Madison's achievement, that headline is just shocking. I was willing to believe I had misunderstood, but then there's this: "You can specify all the checks and balances you like, but utlimately [sic] it's only a respect for tradition -- and a regard for the judgment of history -- that preserves a democracy." Federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances are the orders that allowed a new constitution to become traditional in the first place. They're also the solid, sturdy orders that have allowed the regime to withstand the many who at various times have lacked respect for tradition and the "judgment" of "history" (whatever that may be).

I don't doubt that regimes need respect in order to continue. I also don't doubt that a regime can be subverted and finally toppled through the efforts of a determined fringe, no matter what institutional arrangements are employed. But mere respect for this or that won't save a regime. A regime needs knowledgeable defenders; those defenders, in order to become knowledgeable, need to learn how to analyze regimes. Among the things they need to understand, rather than merely wave off, are the institutional arrangements that have stood and become traditional precisely because of the knowledge and prudent activity of a regime's founders.

Posted by: Darwi Odrade on November 29, 2004 12:55 AM

From George Clooney to Joe Don Baker. That is some bad damn sushi.

Posted by: Jim Treacher on November 29, 2004 01:29 PM

Do you have *dates* for those two pics?

--sf

Posted by: sf on December 2, 2004 09:43 AM

We should be rioting in the streets like the people of Ukraine. Bush stole the first election and he rigged the second (using the voting computers of his friend). And now we are all going to sit back and watch another Vietnam unfold before our very eyes.

When your kids or people you know start getting killed in Iraq perhaps you will rethink you Bush vote. Life for oil is not a good program.

Posted by: on December 3, 2004 02:32 PM