On this National Day of Mourning dedicated to the memory of President Reagan, the Seattle Times chose to feature an op-ed by Walter Williams, professor emeritus of the Evans School of Public Policy at the University of Washington. The op-ed, titled "Reagan's destructive revolution", is a hilarious example of the mendacious and illogical partisan screaming that so often masquerades as legitimate university scholarship. The thesis of the column, as in Williams' book Reaganism and the Death of Representative Democracy is that
Reagan's unshakable conviction that the federal government was the nation's biggest domestic problem, and his efforts to constrain it, severely reduced that government's capacity to serve the American people and undermined representative democracy.This so-called killer of representative democracy, recall, was re-elected in one of the most decisively representative democratic victories in our history. What else does Williams present as evidence of the death of representative democracy?
To start with, there is iron political control from the top ensuring far greater White House domination over the federal agencies than at any time in the past.I don't get it. Would our government somehow be more representative and democratic if the unelected career bureaucrats in the federal agencies were not being managed by the elected leader of the Executive Branch? Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 11, 2004 04:19 PM
This Walter Williams is not to be confused with the Walter Williams who contributes regular columns to www.townhall.com and who is conservative/libertarian economist.
Alas, if only Reagan were as successful in undoing the Federal Gov't as this lesser Williams suggests. I'm glad for the gains, of course.
Posted by: Mike Kole on June 11, 2004 06:22 PMDing dong the witch is dead. Sing it high. Sing is low.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com on June 11, 2004 08:22 PM"Ding dong the witch is dead."
No, actually Hillary just fell asleep during the funeral. Understandable mistake.
Posted by: Matt J Kurlander on June 12, 2004 07:44 AMThe 'prefesser' and his astute student Jake. Congrats.
As I've said already on so many occassions, the PC is killing the democracy and this country's future, including the luminaries like this prefesser.
Posted by: marek on June 12, 2004 03:38 PMUh, Stefan, the fact that Reagan was reelected so decisively is probably why this guy assumes democracy is dead:)
Posted by: maor on June 13, 2004 05:41 AMIf a Dhimmicrat doesn't win, it just has to be facism! LOL
Posted by: Kevin P. on June 13, 2004 06:22 AMIt's so simple. Reagan wasn't representative of him or the people he talks to, and it goes without saying that everybody shares those same views and wishes things would always stay the same. Therefore Reagan's efforts to, you know, act like a real president, can only be a horrible blow to representative democracy. See?
Posted by: Bryan C on June 13, 2004 07:15 AMShark, your points about Williams are spot on. Like Molly Ivins, he is consistently wrong and amusingly so because he engages such stretches of logic or outright fantasy to maintain his illusions. Might be fun to start tracking Washington's silliest academics. I can see it as a regular feature. Makes me feel sorry for Dan Evans to constantly have his name associated with this moron. Warning: if the UW offers to name a public policy school after you, run for the hills.
Posted by: Curles on June 15, 2004 05:28 PM