Imagine if you agreed that your kids could have desert after dinner. Your children decide to make desert out of an eight ball of cocaine. So you “flip-flop” and veto the desert bill. That seems reasonable, right?
I’m tired of the phrase “flip-flopper,” used to describe politicians who have the audacity to change their minds. For much the same reason, I’m tired of hearing politicians congratulate themselves for their “consistency” (real or imaginary).
When Senator John Kerry ran for President of the United States, his opponents called him a flip-flopper for supporting certain bills before voting against them, and vice versa (of course, many of those critics changed their own minds just as often). However, most of those bills—like the desert menu mentioned above—changed at some point between Kerry’s initial support and vetoing.
We should all be flip-floppers. If you can go through life without changing your mind on an issue, you’re a stubborn-minded fool, willfully ignorant. Each new experience ought to change your worldviews. There’s nothing wrong with admitting you’re wrong and correcting your opinions. Most Americans lack such discipline.
Even if you “know it all” today, tomorrow will provide you with a different world, with new rules, especially if you work in politics.
However, there exists a difference between Kerry and current presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney. Many of Romney’s Republican competitors call Romney a flip-flopper, and while I clearly despise the phrase, Romney’s competitors make a fair point.
Romney changes his opinions to reflect whatever the polls tell him his current spectators want to hear. One could argue that such practices aren’t debauched. If we live in a democracy, shouldn’t the president bow to the will of the majority?
No. The trouble with politicians chasing poll numbers is that, by doing so, they set aside the democratic process. Our forefathers created democracy as a means to ensure that everyone, even the minority, had a voice. The utilitarian view of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” is not democracy. It’s Mob Rule.
People argue that mob rule and democracy are interchangeable. They are wrong. Democrats make this faulty comparison as often as Republicans do. For Libertarians, it proves a bodily function. If most people want to legalize <blank>, Libertarians say, then democracy demands that we do so, because it’s what most people want. Legalizing something because “most people want it legalized” isn’t grounds for doing so.
If four men gang rape a woman, then, in accordance with mob rule, it should be legal, because eighty percent of the people involved voted for it. I know this sounds incalculably crass, but I can’t think of a better metaphor. Democracy isn’t mob rule, because is creators designed democracy to prevent the majority from fucking the minority.
So why doesn’t it always work out that way? In small part, it’s because politicians worry about polls. This is why it took so long to grant women the right to vote. It’s why slavery took so long to abolish. It’s why Equal-Pay-for-Equal-Work hasn’t met success. It’s why illegal aliens are so easily mistreated. It’s how our state governments get away with requiring a drug test from welfare recipients (so much for “innocent until proven guilty”).
Politicians shouldn’t concern themselves only with what voters want to hear. Quite often, what people want to hear isn’t the right thing to say at all.
Newt Gingrich is an irredeemable racist, but he’s also unapologetic about it. Santorum is a Bible-thumping sexist and homophobe, but we know where he stands. Ron Paul is a lunatic, but a consistent lunatic. While I would prefer that these three candidates would open their minds and alter their points of view, voters at least comprehend these candidates’ intentions. That’s why Republican voters have the “Anyone but Mitt” mentality.
These are your options, Republicans. If you want a narrow-minded president who will never admit a mistake (and you Republicans so often do), you have three candidates from which to choose. Take your pick. If you want a president who will and say whatever the polls tell him to (unless and until he wins the election), you can go with Mitt.
I say this with no quantity of glee. I do not envy your positions, Republicans. It’s enough to make a person invest in antidepressants and antacids.
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