January 2002
by Barry Stagg
Two months after September 11 and its murders , our people-yes, our people- are set to do battle with any and all who challenge the perimeters of our system of western democracy. These boundaries are political, geographical, philosophical and above all human - the boundaries around the flesh and bone of our people. The ancient and modern imperative of protecting ours from violence and invasion is now at the forefront, not to be denied by shallow etiquette demanding equal courtesy to our assassins.
This should be taken as our acceptance of our ordinary placement in the mosaic of human tribalism. We belong and we defend our own people and our own lands. These elemental principles are not some ancient weakness to which we have developed a newfangled post- modern immunity. The catharsis of the Manhattan massacre has thrust the fiction and contrivance of social engineering and its book of etiquette, political correctness, into the spotlight where it wiggles in the discomfort common to creatures of stealth. The venal pacifism of the politically correct has been shown for the profitable cowardice it has always been, in this age and many before it. In the face of a violent aggressor, the venal pacifist seeks an accommodation whereby supplying the aggressor in neutrality is exchanged for safe conduct. In plainer words: the sidelines are sought, reached and christened as hallowed ground by the profiteer.
Look at commercial correctness, the more generic cousin of political correctness. In our pursuit of the almighty secure supply of Arab oil, commercial correctness has induced a shameful willingness in the West to accommodate Arab anti-Semitism. Israel is deemed to not exist in the code of commercial politeness used when bartering Arab oil for American dollars. The same irritation at the ' Jewish' problem seems to inhabit a place very near the surface of ordinary trade as Westerners learn that making money in Arabia is much easier if a nod to that perennial Arab thorn is included in the process. Working as high paid hired help in the Arab oil dictatorships involves an absolute commitment to non-Jewishness by any and all Westerners.
The prime pragmatic idea of democracy comes to the forefront at these dangerous times. This is
it: Only in democracy can there be an effective tempering of the
tendency of dominant elites to financially and socially secure themselves at the
expense of the majority.
The domination of the social system by a governing elite is inevitable in any society. Clearly, in an
authoritarian country, the domination is integral to the dictatorship. In a Marxist or socialist
system, the ruling bureaucracy inevitably and invariably is, or develops into, a privileged group,
economically and socially secure and interestingly, by its dominance expresses the intellectual
fallacy of its ideology.
In our system, the ragged, pluralistic durability of civilian equality-one vote per individual- tempers but does not eliminate the reality of a ruling elite. However, it is only in our societies that the dominance of the governors can be countered by popular demand.
One crucial aspect of our democracies must be confronted in order to reduce governance to a minimum. That is the existence of the same social gravity or centrifugal force in democracy as exists in the dictatorships. That is the tendency to elite dominance noted previously. The crucial counterweight to this in democracy is that less governance is needed in the modern context of easy, universal and inexpensive communication and transportation. Control of our democracies requires many times less clerks and functionaries than it did before the ubiquity of computers, communication satellites, airlines, telephones, trucks, cars, televisions, radios, railcars, and the like: all the essentials of contemporary mass delivery of goods, services and government regulation.
The clearest example of this phenomena of fewer people in a large growing institution is any commercial bank. Tellers and accounting clerks are exponentially fewer than in 1970. Management is similarly consolidated, witness the reduction in qualification, status and authority of the average manager of a neighbourhood bank branch. Extrapolated to government, it is obvious that less people are needed to govern although the governors would have us believe more are needed. That tendency of the regulating elites to expand despite less actual need is the operation of that universal inclination of the ruling regulators to barricade and build on their privileges. Noting this tendency would be trite if it were not so often successfully disguised and hidden in our democracies, so much so that critics who advocate less of this gratuitous elitism are tagged as social radicals. The criticism, from diametrically opposite directions, of libertarian theorists Friedrich Hayek and Noam Chomsky for pointing out elitist empires are important cases in point.
The binding effect of modern democracy and the modern military comes in apportioning more public funds to military protection and societal security. This must be done in the context of reducing the civilian bureaucracy and overall domestic burden of governing. Using government for social protection means a military presence throughout the country by which security is maintained and worthwhile effort is obtained from citizens resources- taxes-in the result. Organizing our Canadian militia regiments along the lines of the American National Guard will provide security at vulnerable points such as airports, seaports and at the borders both on land, at sea and in the air. Naval, army and air force militia regiments all through our country will give both excellent security but also provide publicly responsible paid work for the militia soldiers, seamen and airmen (gender inclusiveness assumed).
Ask Canadians if they would feel more comfortable and secure knowing that airport security in all its varieties was in the hands of local Canadian regiments instead of the present alarming hodgepodge of responsibility .We must cast a cold, unforgiving eye on terrorists who dare attack us.