Harmony, Democracy, and the Bush Administration

A common complaint made about the Bush administration is that it often acts ways designed to exclude from the political process anyone who doesn't toe the line and agree with them. Democrats are kicked out of publicly funded speeches. Scientists are silenced. Now, even technical experts are experiencing the consequences.

Paul Woodruff argues in his book First Democracy that one of the most fundamental and important characteristics of any democratic system is that it encourages harmony out of the different beliefs and perspectives of the people:

What, then, is political harmony? How far can citizens disagree in a healthy state? In the second century of democracy, the Athenians learned that a harmonious group of citizens may disagree about almost anything. They may follow different teachings, pursue different goals, even worship different gods — so long as they agree on the rule of law. No one may be allowed to rise above the law. That is the most important rule.

After the rule of law, two more rules: First, citizens must agree to pull together — and not merely when they are under attack. A harmonious city works together on civic education and festivals, so that all of tis citizens are, Cleocritus said, "fellow dancers." Second, they must not create unnecessary discord by trying to force each other to sing the same note; they must accept a harmony of differences.

Without harmony there cannot be a demos — a people — who can hold the reins of power. Only factions. And rule by a faction is not a democracy. Harmony is as necessary in time of peace as it is in time of war, because without it democracy is impossible. [emphasis added]

With that in mind, consider the recent story about how the Bush administration has blackballed technical experts from a telecom standards meeting because they contributed money to John Kerry's presidential campaign:

The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot, say past participants. Only after the start of Bush's second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say.

The White House admits as much: "We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy. ... Says Nokia vice president Bill Plummer: "We do not view sending experts to international meetings on telecom issues to be a partisan matter. We would welcome clarification from the White House."

The companies affected include Qualcomm as well as others, not just Nokia. One blackballed expert donated a mere $250 to the Democratic Party. The topics covered at this meeting are simply technical standards and specifications — there's nothing specifically political where one can justifiably think that people who agree with the administration on political and policy matters would be preferable.

This is, I think, an excellent example of attempting to rule by faction and to dispense with the principle of harmony. An administration that is interested in harmony looks to find ways to integrate others into the political and administrative process; an administration that doesn't respect harmony and doesn’t care about it looks for ways to exclude others from every process possible — and such an administration therefore does not respect or care about democracy.

If people feel that they have to join the Republican Party, or at least shun the Democratic Party, in order to be represented in the government or have a role to play in administrative matters, then the principle of majority rule is being transformed into a tyranny of the majority. There can be no "government for the people" if the government is used by a single faction for the benefit of its supporters and to the exclusion of others.

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