“The masses are a feckless lot — nowhere will you find more ignorance or irresponsibility or violence. It would be an intolerable thing to escape the murderous caprice of a king, only to be caught by the equally wanton brutality of the rabble. A king does at least act consciously and deliberately; but the mob does not. Indeed, how should it, when it has never been taught what is right and proper and has no knowledge of its own about such things? The masses handle affairs without thought; all they can do is to rush blindly into politics like a river in flood. As for the people then, let them govern Persia’s enemies, but let us ourselves choose a certain number of the best men in the country, and give them political power. We personally shall be among them, and it is only natural to suppose that the best men will produce the best policy.”

Herodotus is the historian who wrote these words about 2,500 years ago. The passage was part of a conversation held by six men after they had eliminated the Magi pretender to the Persian throne, and they were arguing over the best form of government.

I might swear Bush and his cronies had read this passage and decided to govern according to its precepts if I didn’t understand them to be so intellectually lazy.

Here’s how they’ve operated thus far: Liberal — an ill-defined word applying to all who are not them and somehow implanted and inflamed in the hearts of certain middle Americans and overweight businessmen. The word is always holstered and ready for firing, and thus far has proved itself a fail-safe weapon to be used indiscriminately, but always effectively. One good “Liberal” and the debate has ended prior to its initiation.

National security: Not so much words, but a concept, and that concept allows the Bushmasters to do whatever they want, and those who might question that particular whatever are simply unpatriotic. National security has allowed Bush and company to actually invade and occupy another country with almost no debate and absolutely no evidence of the need for doing so.

It has stifled the opposition for the better part of five years, and kept in check any dissent within the Republican Party. It has allowed for the seizure and holding of American citizens without charge and in violation of their right of habeas corpus. It has allowed the President to blow his nose and wave his private parts at the representatives of the people, while their calls are intercepted without warrant or oversight. It has allowed for the most profligate and wasteful deficit spending in the history of this country.

Religion: Nothing inflames the passions like faith, and the president has hired the worst religious arsonists since Cardinal de Torquemada. While the Republican Congress has failed to raise the minimum wage since it came into being, it has frequently screamed for amendments to the Constitution to protect the sanctity of marriage.

Unfortunately marriages and families don’t fail because gay people want to get married. They fail quite often because of the constant stress of two people having to work extended hours to make a living. They fail more often among the less educated.

Their success or failure has nothing to do with religious beliefs and everything to do with economic stability. You want stable marriages, assure yourself of an economically stable and educated middle class. You want political power, stir up the religious by painting phantom threats.

Disdain for the truth: When John McCain sought the Republican nomination for president, a Bush-supporting columnist actually called him a coward for being held in the Hanoi Hilton.

Now I’m no great admirer of the political McCain, but I was temporarily inspired to travel to Virginia in search of the writer so I could hang him up by his arms tied behind his back until his shoulders separated. This was only one of the treats the NVA had for Lt. Commander McCain in North Vietnam.

While Bush neither wrote, nor openly supported this column, it was symbolic of the type of treatment any Bush opposition might receive.

The “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” were more of the same with their sniveling lies and pathetic innuendo, while President Draft Dodger was allowed the high road.

Bush’s “Axis of Evil” was the prelude to his low point, the invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein had had “weapons of mass destruction” for 20 years in the form of poison gas, but suddenly with Bush these weapons represented a “grave and growing threat” to this nation. Bush never told us how an artillery shell without a gun tube, or a 250-kilogram bomb without a plane were a threat to our survival.

In the meantime, all intelligence to the contrary was ignored because the Wolfowitzes and the Cheneys and the Feiths and the Pearls had decided we needed to deal with Iraq. Not one of those “architects” had ever been in the military. Meanwhile the general who told us we needed 400,000 troops to do the job in Iraq was fired and insulted.

Perhaps Herodotus’ Megabyzes was correct. Perhaps the masses are feckless, rushing blindly into politics; easily led; easily aroused; violent; stupid. I don’t believe this to be true.

We live in a snapshot of time, have made some mistakes, and will have to do some correcting. But the soundness of our system lies in our open examination of those mistakes, an ability to acknowledge them, and force changes in our politicians through the ballot box. We often do so only when confronted with the reality of the situation, as opposed to vacuous political rhetoric.

The beauty of democracy is its call to accounting. That accounting is long overdue and will not be obviated by surprise visits to Iraq and further hollow speeches.

Timothy J. Parker
Peachtree City, Ga.