Election Day At The Bar With The New York Times By C.J. Maloney
(2010-12-26 at 07:54:58 )

Election Day At The Bar With The New York Times By C.J. Maloney

The political process-a mere battle of rival rogues. But the mob remains
quite free to decide between them. - H.L. Mencken Notes On Democracy

I spent this just passed, most Historic of Elections as any right-minded
citizen stranded in a democracy should - at my favorite dive bar, as
apolitical a place you can hope for to take refuge from Americas favorite
pagan ritual. While it is a toss up whether or not my bar has been
upgraded, maintained, or cleaned since her doors first opened, at no time
have I ever seen the television move off a sports channel nor heard any
patron discuss anything other than their teams chance at a championship.

I did not want to be bothered by chirpy voiced get-out-the-vote phone
calls or handed two-sided pamphlets telling me either how my incumbent
has been spending my paycheck or how his opponent plans to spend it. All
I wanted was to read my New York Times, drink in peace, and be let alone
by the tumult of American democracy.

I love the New York Times, Pravda of the Hudson, even though she is
getting a bit long in the tooth and is often a bit demented. I grabbed a
beer, sat in my usual booth, and began f lipping quickly past all the
breathless election coverage, those required hymns to History In The
Making when it caught my eye; a reminder that Democracy is not just our
main export item but also our national obsession.

After Delays, Citizens Vote For A President In Ivory Coast grabbed my
attention and would not let me pass because, lo and behold, we were
sharing the same election week as Ivory Coast! Seems they had lost their
right to vote and now they had it back, and the triumph did not even
require an invading American army. I had to read it, so despite my best
efforts democracy walked into the bar with me.

First off it is necessary to let everyone know - as despite a global
empire the world is a blank canvas to most Americans - that Ivory Coast
is a small, impoverished West African nation of 21 million people, often
wracked by internal fighting. Yet, while they know nothing of the rule of
law they are certainly up on how an election works as they divide
effortlessly, as Americans do, into factions. In Ivory Coast, as in any
democratic nation, factions spout like mushrooms on manure.

Also like Americans, Ivorians harbor a particular hatred and fear of
immigrants, and those poor souls who f locked to Ivory Coast during its
boom years and remain behind, stranded and numerous enough to be one-
quarter of the population, are frequent targets for politically
engineered pogroms. Any barbaric people need a dog to kick, and it is the
immigrants who are the chosen sacrif icial victims at the altar of Ivorian
democracy, used by demagogue politicians as blood payment to the voting
mob to aid their climb to the top of the countrys political dung heap.

One of the worst of that lot is the current president (and incumbent), an
out and out thug named Laurent Gbagbo. "A leftist university professor
turned populist strongman" (insert Obama joke here) he is backed by a man
named Charles Ble Goude, who spends his time organizing pro-government
riots and attacks on immigrants and rival factions using the vicious
street militias under his control. According to the Times such riots and
attacks are used to swing elections in favor of those who execute them
and they have "given Mr. Gbagbo a popular boost."

The violence is not confined just to non-Ivorians but doled out liberally
amongst the natives as well. Just the act of running for office can put a
target on your (and your supporters) head and both of Mr. Gbagbos
opponents, themselves long time grandees in Ivorian politics, are to be
(according to Mr. Gbagbos campaign) "ground into powder, like corn."

In Ivory Coast this is no idle threat and, as if to press the point, at a
recent pro-Gbagbo campaign rally (held to pounding drums, with sing
alongs and freely flowing liquor) Mr. Ble Goude worked up the voters when
he entered "holding aloft an ear of corn." When Mr. Gbagbo himself
entered the stadium "the people, many visibly intoxicated, went wild."
One supporter explained his rapture, "he is a man of the people, and he
does not have a house in France."

I do not have a house in France, either, but I do not feel any need for
one. I have the bar back Scary Mike bringing me fresh beers as needed, I
have claimed run of the jukebox by playing Minus the Bears latest album
three times running, and I have not heard a peep about the days election
since I walked in. What else could life offer that I would want?
Certainly not the presidency of Ivory Coast: nor of America, for that
matter.

The bar is full now. It is just past f ive and the suits arrive to press
up against the hardhats that had arrived about three, and the hardhats
are now pressed up against the bums who have been here all day. I have
been here all day. The bar attracts a cross section of work-a-day New
Yorkers, the kind who care far more about the Mets and Yankees than about
whatever madcap scheme the political elite has dreamed up this election
cycle.

They are apathetic but not unintelligent (at least when compared to much
of Americas ruling elite), just not very inquisitive. The average mans
mental horizons are extremely limited, not only in America but also
throughout the globe and throughout recorded time. In his political
knowledge, opinions, and behavior the average American is for the most
part an ignorant savage, so when he sticks his nose into the democratic
process he displays much in common with his contemporaries around the
globe.

Those drinking beer in my bar are not of that type, they are of a mind
completely incomprehensible to the legions of do-gooders that infect
Americas body politic because they wish to be left alone, and like the
Ivorians they simply "long for a return to the boom years." And judging
by the fact that they, like me, are not running off to make the polls
before closing, they do not believe that the way home lies through a
voting booth.

Unfortunately some Ivorians, voting for the f irst time in a decade, seem
to have pinned their hopes that it does. "We have been waiting for this
for too long, too long" said a sullen Ivorian voter to a reporter, and he
thinks that after all the votes are tallied then "we will really know we
have done something."

"Yes, you have done something," I think closing the paper, "wasted your
day waiting in line to vote" and that, more than anything, is the crux
that all Ivory Coast and American voters share, this irrational
veneration of democracy and its absurd premise that the common man knows
best and should be, has divine right to be, the f inal arbiter in
political matters.

We may as well ask an auto-mechanic to perform open-heart surgery.

What then, you may ask, is my preferred system of governance? I leave
that question to better men than I, a mere beer drinker, so I will fob
it off on Catos Letters No. 23 to answer, and it declares,

"We Do Not Dispute About The Qualifications Of A Master;
We Will Have No Master."

I will drink to that.

November 13, 2010

CJ Maloney lives and works in New York City. He blogs for Liberty & Power
on the History News Network website and the DailyKos. His first book Back
to the Land (Arthurdale, FDRs New Deal, and the Costs of Economic
Planning) is to be released by John Wiley and Sons in February 2011.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.