Imagine that the United States is a ship owned by the voters, that the President of the United States is the ship's pilot, that the presidential candidates are the sailors who in theory answer to the shipowner (the voters) and that the art of being President of the United States is akin to seamanship. The voters have the power to determine who will run the ship of state, but have a limited knowledge of seamanship. The sailors never really learned seamanship either, but they employ artful advisors to convince the owner that they are expert in piloting, beg for campaign funds to pay for the advisors and other expenses of their campaigns, and will do just about anything to convince the owner to turn the rudder over to them (that is, elect one of them President over the others). The charms used by the sailors include phony campaign promises (generated by the advisors who are skilled in advising their own sailor on convincing the owner that the sailor is the best at seamanship, but who are unskilled at educating the sailor on the art of seamanship). No sailor thinks it is possible to learn both how to convince the owner to appoint him or her pilot and to learn the true piloting art. So each sailor seeks out those artful at artifice but with no piloting knowledge. Anyone who devotes his or her life to acquiring knowledge about the true piloting art is considered useless by the sailors (and also by the owner).
Does this sound like a plausible description of the current campaign? Well, it was a description developed about 2,000 years ago in Plato's Republic 488a-489a, in which passage Socrates makes the same analogy in the context of who would be the finest ruler of a Greek city-state.
So, returning to 2008, given that Barack the O, Hill, Rudy G, Mitt Baby et al take us for the foolish shipowner and will devote the next several months to everything but a discussion of the art of ruling and who would be finest at that art, what should we the poor shipowner (the voters) do? Is it possible that we DESERVE being treated this way? Oh, yes, we're all too busy with our own lives to take the time to think through and study what the art of leading a large indirect democracy is all about. So why should the sailors treat us other than as clueless? Perhaps we the voters could view ourselves as detectives searching for all the clues as to who would be the best pilot, not simply couch potato consumers ingesting the pablum fed to us by the sailors. Any suggestions on how to bring the investigative art to the process of finding the best pilot for our ship of state?
I realize that devotees of Plato and Socrates may argue that the true ruler, the philosopher, would never run for political office. Perhaps that is the case; we nonetheless have the obligation to find the best of the lot. Let the investigation begin!
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Yes, what we need is Publius to be in office, but alas, he is unavailable for the near future, not yet having met the 35 years age qualification for the office.
When I qualify candidates, I use the definition provided by John Adams, as it encoded in Article XVIII of the Deeclaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution:
A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the constitution, and a constant adherence to those of piety, justice, moderation, temperance, industry, and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of liberty, and to maintain a free government.
The people ought, consequently, to have a particular attention to all those principles, in the choice of their officers and representatives: and they have a right to require of their lawgivers and magistrates, an exact and constant observance of them, in the formation and execution of the laws necessary for the good administration of the commonwealth.
As a traditional conservative and a faithful son of the Church, I tend to lean towards Ron Paul. As solid alternatives, I favor the more principled, and definitely right-of-center, candidates such as Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and Sam Brownback.
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