Monday, February 18, 2008
VOX POPULI
It is not all that difficult to be a moderate. However, it is tough being an activist moderate, such as the Militant Moderate claims to be. It is important to remember that there are moderates to the left, the right, and in the center.
Being an activist moderate requires that one rise in vocal opposition to extremes, especially if those extremists are in the ruling class or oligarchy.
While it is true that most extremists tend to represent a degree of threat, those in power are really dangerous. When those in power hold extreme positions on important issues, the welfare of the people hangs vulnerable.
Some have characterized the Militant Moderate as writing a partisan column. No doubt this is because he is so frequently critical of the president and the ruling party’s positions on issues, as well as their character -- as evidenced in their conduct of affairs of state.
Alas, the MM has also been critical of those who deviate to the left of the political continuum. But the socialists, radical labor unions, consumer activists, civil liberties union, green peace, P.E.T.A., atheists, Sierra club, and the gays are not in singular, ruling political power.
Those in power are the ones who run budget deficits while giving tax cuts to the privileged; take the country into war on false pretenses; engage in wholesale political corruption; corrupt the criminal prosecution system for political gain; violate habeas corpus rights and torture prisoners; engage in corporate welfare doles; illegally invade the privacy of citizens; try to wreck the SS system to benefit capital managers; export our jobs and our capital; decimate the middle class; keep wounded soldiers and veterans in squalor; help pharmaceutical companies rob the sick and elderly; and run up trade debts with communist China.
If somebody other than republicans were doing these things, the Militant Moderate would attack them.
Nevertheless, some thought has indeed been given to renaming this column. The title Vox Populi – the Voice of the People – has been considered. The Militant Moderate considers himself a populist in political philosophy.
There are a few etymological and historical problems with that title, however. The entire quotation in Latin is: vox populi, vox Dio. The translation of that is: “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
This quotation has a long history. It can be traced as far back as 798 when it was used in a letter from Alcuin, a cleric from York, later abbot and advisor to the emperor Charlemagne. He wrote to his king as follows:
“And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since their riotousness is always very close to madness.”
So, perhaps Vox Populi might well require some qualifying modifier.
It is clear that the elitist Roman view of “the people” as equated with “the rabble” may have continued to hold sway through the Middle Ages. The “rabble” term was still used in the 1780’s to describe the people who stormed the Bastille and deposed the corrupt monarchy of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in the French Revolution.
The French philosophers, such as Rousseau, provided the rationale for the democratic revolution against the “divine right of kings” and nobility to rule -- which today is analogous to the rights of the rich to govern. These philosophers influenced John Locke of England and Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and a father of our Constitution.
These great philosophers and founding thinkers legitimized democracy as a form of government. Democracies no longer hold to the elitist equation of the “rabble” with the “people.” Instead, “the people” are called “voters.”
“Vox populi” may be appropriate. But “Audax Modica” is still better.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Being an activist moderate requires that one rise in vocal opposition to extremes, especially if those extremists are in the ruling class or oligarchy.
While it is true that most extremists tend to represent a degree of threat, those in power are really dangerous. When those in power hold extreme positions on important issues, the welfare of the people hangs vulnerable.
Some have characterized the Militant Moderate as writing a partisan column. No doubt this is because he is so frequently critical of the president and the ruling party’s positions on issues, as well as their character -- as evidenced in their conduct of affairs of state.
Alas, the MM has also been critical of those who deviate to the left of the political continuum. But the socialists, radical labor unions, consumer activists, civil liberties union, green peace, P.E.T.A., atheists, Sierra club, and the gays are not in singular, ruling political power.
Those in power are the ones who run budget deficits while giving tax cuts to the privileged; take the country into war on false pretenses; engage in wholesale political corruption; corrupt the criminal prosecution system for political gain; violate habeas corpus rights and torture prisoners; engage in corporate welfare doles; illegally invade the privacy of citizens; try to wreck the SS system to benefit capital managers; export our jobs and our capital; decimate the middle class; keep wounded soldiers and veterans in squalor; help pharmaceutical companies rob the sick and elderly; and run up trade debts with communist China.
If somebody other than republicans were doing these things, the Militant Moderate would attack them.
Nevertheless, some thought has indeed been given to renaming this column. The title Vox Populi – the Voice of the People – has been considered. The Militant Moderate considers himself a populist in political philosophy.
There are a few etymological and historical problems with that title, however. The entire quotation in Latin is: vox populi, vox Dio. The translation of that is: “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
This quotation has a long history. It can be traced as far back as 798 when it was used in a letter from Alcuin, a cleric from York, later abbot and advisor to the emperor Charlemagne. He wrote to his king as follows:
“And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since their riotousness is always very close to madness.”
So, perhaps Vox Populi might well require some qualifying modifier.
It is clear that the elitist Roman view of “the people” as equated with “the rabble” may have continued to hold sway through the Middle Ages. The “rabble” term was still used in the 1780’s to describe the people who stormed the Bastille and deposed the corrupt monarchy of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in the French Revolution.
The French philosophers, such as Rousseau, provided the rationale for the democratic revolution against the “divine right of kings” and nobility to rule -- which today is analogous to the rights of the rich to govern. These philosophers influenced John Locke of England and Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and a father of our Constitution.
These great philosophers and founding thinkers legitimized democracy as a form of government. Democracies no longer hold to the elitist equation of the “rabble” with the “people.” Instead, “the people” are called “voters.”
“Vox populi” may be appropriate. But “Audax Modica” is still better.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
