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They’re Just the Voters… Don’t Listen to Them

Glenn Reynolds [1] yesterday noted that:

“The BBC recently gave its radio listeners a chance to express their will, but did not want to hear the result. The great unwashed mass, who cough-up the license fees which pay the Beeb’s freight, were asked to suggest a piece of legislation to improve life in Britain, with the promise that an MP would then attempt to get it onto the statute books.

Listeners to BBC’s Today program (the very same show which claimed that intelligence on Iraqi WMDs had been “sexed up” respondednded with a suggestion that would allow homeowners to defend themselves against intruders, without facing legal liabilities. The winning proposal was denounced as a “ludicrous, brutal, unworkable blood-stained piece of legislation” – by Stephen Pound, the very MP whose job it is to try to push it through Parliament.”

Reynolds suggests, in a classic Reynolds understatment, that the legislatorsare out of touch, and notes that David Carr [2] goes a bit further. I’d suggest reading Carr’s link. It tells part of the story, but not the whole story; The rest being that the government is unwilling to allow the people to defend their own… because they know full well, perhaps, that they will be the intruder someday.

Billy Beck [3]gives an example of this factor from Reynold’s own pages [4] about what happens when a leftist’s power gets threatened by the voters:

California Democratic Party Spokesman Bob Mulholland this weekend warned Arnold Schwarzenegger that “real bullets” will be coming his way during his campaign to be governor!

“Schwarzenegger is going to find out, that unlike a Hollywood movie set, the bullets coming at him in this campaign are going to be real bullets and he is going to have to respond to them,” warned Mulholland in an interview with a camera crew from ABC NEWS.

One line Carr comes up with though, is critical:

People are losing faith in the ability (and even willingness) of the state to come to their aid in time of crisis. As the police spend more of their time collecting taxes and scoring brownie points with their political masters, this disquiet will only grow.

The great socialist experiment in England has failed, and this BBC poll gave exposure to this.

Beck asks:

“(W)hat in the world is it that makes anyone believe that nations can, or will, vote themselves out of straits like these?”

… but I don’t think us in so dire a problem, as yet. It’s true, the leftists have been trying for years to move us in their direction…and away from our ability to protect ourselves… the direction we see so starkly depicted in this article. However, events since 9/11 see us moving away from that socialist horror quite quickly as an electorate. With the Leftist leader pulling only 35% of the vote in current polling, perhaps there is more hope than Beck is seeming to suggest, here.