Question Time

Tony Blair announced today that he will resign within a year from leadership of Britain's Labour Party. This isn't such a shock, considering the recent mass exodus of cabinet members, lack of internal party support, and negative public opinion. What is interesting is the "why," and how it relates to US politics and the rule of law.

Blair has been either unwilling or unable to distance himself from his alliance with the Bush administration, and his base is unwilling to grant him flexibility on the issue. He threw in his lot with the US, and its policy, and now must see it through. Unfortunately, his inability to convince the population that this was the right decision now makes him more vulnerable to internal issues in Britain. In the UK, now, it seems as though GWOT tinges all policy decisions, from trade agreements and border controls to freedom of expression. Sound familiar?

Here, we see Republican candidates for the midterm elections hurrying to clarify their stance on the GWOT/Iraq, assuring voters that they are not puppets of the executive. That's telling, but it misses the point. Where you stand on the war in Iraq will not, ultimately, make a difference for the American body politic (in a long view, not in a "will I get elected in 2 months?" view), but it will, and does, influence how we define the role of government vis a vis the population.

This administration has defined its role in a paternalistic, authoritarian way. They "know best," and must keep information hidden because disclosure leaves us vulnerable to the "enemy."

We finally have the chance to ask a very important question, one that Britain has been asking Blair for some time now: What is the role of government? Plato asked it, Hobbes asked it, Kennedy asked it. No one has ever come up with a concrete answer for the simple reason that there isn't one answer.

There is, however, a framework of rules in which our government has sworn to operate - the Constitution. If they start to work outside the rules, it's our job to stop them, or if we as a people think the administration is right, work within the rules to change the rules. The Constitution doesn't give us guidelines, it gives us a society, and without it we lose our identity.

What we have begun to see in the US and the UK is an understanding that we are beginning to lose our sense of who we are, and that we're not willing to let ourselves go without a fight.

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I hate to cite the Cato Institute, because it's just too easy, but they've recently published an interesting paper on "doublespeak" - applied Orwellianisms, perhaps. Take a look: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6654 The paper illustrates several examples of how language is used to convey meaning, and how twisting language for political ends damages the relationship between government and populace. Interesting.