On madness & the delusion of democracy

I had thought the past 18 months of campaign rhetoric was as bad as it gets. But in watching the news channels last night, some 24 hours following Election 2004, I learned otherwise.

We have now entered a period -- days, weeks, months? -- of both media hand-wringing (“Were we biased? Were we fair? Why were our exit polls so, well, so goddamn wrong?”) and self-congratulation (“Democracy works! And look, we’ve managed to hold a national election with minimal fraud, vote-tampering, and lawsuits!”).

What remains conveniently unacknowledged, of course, is that despite higher-than-usual voter turnout this year, non-voters were, as they have always been, the vast majority. And as my friend Sam Konkin used to remind me, the prime reason the State grants democracy is to maintain the State -- and to maintain the State is to suppress liberty.