Wanted: Rational Opposition

The heckling of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday as he delivered a commencement address at Santa Monica College has provided the latest example of the jeopardy that the American two-party system faces. Not that there is any real danger of one party folding up and going out of business anytime soon, mind you. But what does appear to be happening could conceivably be just as dramatic in its potential impact on American governance.

While still in grad school, I recall a classroom discussion once on the subject of groupthink – the phenomenon in which only one possible course of action is seriously considered because there is no one involved in the decision making process who will advocate for any other, or at least play “devil’s advocate” and ask difficult questions about potential flaws in the accepted plan – and how this phenomenon can have dire consequences, as many believe was demonstrated in the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco.

The point being made in the discussion was that it is a dangerous thing for decision makers to be totally surrounded only by people with the exact same point of view. Flawed humans – in other words, all humans – are benefited when there is someone involved in policy making who is not sold on the same approach to a problem as everyone else. The give and take of discussing alternative approaches can often identify problems in either approach. And, certainly, those interested in uncovering facts, truth, and the best possible course of action have nothing to fear from such “reasoning together.”

But here’s the catch: Those who oppose the accepted position must offer a rational alternative, and do so in a rational way. In early 1961, the CIA advocated for President Kennedy to launch the disastrous invasion in Cuba, with few to no alternative ideas advocated by anyone who might have questioned such a course of action. But how much different would the decision have been had the only person advocating an alternative been doing so by trying to shout down his opponents while suggesting a nuclear strike against Moscow? There would have been just as much consideration of this alternative as there would be for no alternative.

So, how does this relate to the heckling of Governor Schwarzenegger? In that it is only the latest – and, I am confident, not the last – example of the extreme left’s eschewing of rational debate in favor of irrational displays of rage. Consider some other such incidents:

- As Pentagon Advisor Richard Perle engaged in a formal debate with Democrat National Committee Chairman Howard Dean in February, an audience member threw a shoe at him as he spoke.

- Also in February, a Sacramento couple hanged a U.S. Soldier in effigy while displaying an Iraqi flag in their window.

- In March, a man with an anti-Bush/War sign in his car attempted to run a woman with a Bush/Cheney sticker off the road in Tampa.

- There has been a recent spate of incidents in which pies or salad dressing were thrown at conservative writers Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, William Kristol, and David Horowitz at different places and times as they attempted to speak.

But the actions of certain “mavericks” in our society wouldn’t necessarily reflect upon actual leaders of the opposition party in government, would it? Not necessarily. So consider also the following:

- On Election Day, 2004, five Democrat operatives, including the son of Representative Gwen Moore slashed the tires of several vans in Wisconsin that were to be used by the Republican party to take people to the polls.

- On Inauguration Day, a staffer for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid had to be escorted away from the festivities after he and others disrupted the event for many in the crowd.

- DNC Chairman Howard Dean declared in January that he hates “Republicans and all that they stand for.”

- In May, Senator Reid himself referred to the President of the United States as a “loser,” and showed no remorse over his choice of words when asked about it later.

- Earlier this month, Senator John Kerry announced his intention to look into impeaching the President based on a memo – that has floated around far left websites for months – that most rational observers agree says very little of what Mr. Kerry and others wish it would say.

What one sees in all of these incidents, many of which feature high-ranking Democrat officials within the government, is an abandonment of rationality and decorum in a desperate attempt to stop any and all policy activity on the part of the President and party that the American people have put into power. There is little to no attempt for the minority party and its supporters to “reason together” with the majority party. All rational tactics have been abandoned in favor of ones that call for the casting of aspersions while trying to silence any response.

And where Governor Schwarzenegger is concerned, it is ironic for the leftists to try to silence him in this way, as his relatively liberal positions on many issues make him someone who might actually be willing to lend a sympathetic ear to much of what they have to say. But the problem is that he is a Republican, and, in the view of the new Democrat party, must be silenced for that reason alone. This does not give the appearance of a party that has nothing to fear from reasoned and rational debate.

The problem is that reasoned and rational debate is good for our society and government. We need those rational voices of opposition to force us to consider reasonable alternatives and consequences that we might not come up with ourselves.

And that is not what we are getting right now. As long as one party allows itself to be manipulated by the irrational extremists within its ranks, who accuse the President and his colleagues of virtually everything short of causing male-pattern baldness, we are deprived of one of the principal benefits of the two-party system. We need to hear the opposing voices of rational Democrats. If they are still out there, here’s hoping they make a resurgence soon.