I’m not a fan of democracy as a form of government. I think the Founders had it about right. For a country like ours, a republic is the way to go. State legislatures pick their senators, the people pick their congressmen and the Electoral College picks the president. The people should be consulted, but mob rule is no way to run a country or even a state. Society needs leadership and it needs executive action.
That does not mean there’s no room for democracy. In small groups, democracy is a great way to adjudicate the issued effecting everyone. Small towns or even cities can work just fine with a health dose of democracy. As long as you accept there will be a dumb fraction that insists on getting a ballot, you can make it work. You just have to set the rules so the dumb do not derail the project. A good example of that is the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Yesterday, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and Frank Thomas were elected to the Hall after missing a few times. All three are good candidates as they were elite players of their generation. As is always the case with elections, there is a parade of whiners who think the system must be defective simply because they did not like the result. These people tend to make silly arguments though. Jeff Passan is a good example:
Because, hell yes, it’s shameful that writers who demand openness from those they write about can hide behind some self-administered cloak of anonymity and cast votes with no merit. And you’re damn right that if 50 percent of the 10-man ballots were stuffed and voters copped to wanting to vote for Biggio except he was No. 11, the process deserves – demands – to undergo a thorough vetting and reconsideration. There are problems in the voting, no question, and in his explanation at Deadspin, Le Batard did a poignant job at pointing them out and forcing the BBWAA to ask itself how to remedy them.
Obviously, he struggles with the difference between the role of a reporter as a reporter and his role as a voter. Only a simpleton would demand these people post their ballot for president, but, sports writers are kind of dumb. The best example of this is Dan LeBatard, the ESPN personality who sold his ballot to a scandal site. The guy can be entertaining on TV, but he is otherwise a dullard. It takes a special skill to be funny and clever on TV, but it is not the same as general intelligence. Dumb people make the best clowns.
What has these people worked up is the absence of the cheaters. The voters can’t bring themselves to vote for the guys everyone knows cheated to make a name for themselves in baseball. The voting suggests guys like Bonds, Clemens and others will never get in through the ballot. Instead, they will have to appeal to the veterans committee in a decade or so in order to get into the Hall. The veterans are notorious for being protective of the Hall, but they have rectified past mistakes so it is a nice check on the whims of the voters.
What we are seeing with the Hall and the steroid users is democracy at its best. It is messy and seemingly incoherent, but the result is very wise. The players who deserve to be in, despite their transgressions, will get in eventually, but they will be made to wait as a form of punishment. Once no one cares enough to keep up the punishment, they will be voted into the HoF. It’s not perfect, but this is pretty close to the ideal of democracy, but it can only work at the small scale and when the stakes are very low.
