Friday, Oct. 31, 2003 | 5:02 a.m.
Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at [email protected].
"A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government."
-- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1
ON HALLOWEEN, which doubles as Nevada Day, the scariest sight of all was not any ghouls or goblins, but the face of an angry mob.
Like all angry assemblages, they started small, but their numbers will swell, buoyed by what Hamilton correctly foresaw as demagogues "paying an obsequious court to the people."
The lynching party that gathered at government buildings around the state Friday was, like most crowds fueled by fury, a little crazy, pretty clueless and very committed. Buoyed and magnified by the media, this group wants to do nothing less than strangle the very principles that Hamilton, Madison et al. so presciently laid out a couple of centuries ago, the ones that founded this country as a republic and not a democracy.
The difference, as Madison put it in Federalist No. 10, was that "the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose." The theory was that elected representatives, unlike a populace inflamed by charlatans, "will be least likely to sacrifice (justice) to temporary or partial considerations," as Madison put it. That is, ephemeral passions, no matter how heated, can be cooled, a leavening effect can be achieved.
To mention Hamilton and Madison in the same breath as George Harris, the opportunistic ringleader of this mob, is akin to comparing George Washington to George of the Jungle. But before you judge me guilty of hyperbole, know that what began Friday, as Harris tries to ban public employees from legislative service and repeal most of the recent tax increase, could be the beginning of the erosion of the fundamental precepts the Founding Fathers so brilliantly articulated -- and with disastrous results in the long run.
Harris has only progressed this far with his shell group known as Nevadans For Sound Government because he is on the speed-dials of a few media folks. He asserts he has thousands of subscribers to his daily e-mail screed and yet only about 125 people showed up at the Friday rally he has been hyping for weeks. When will anyone in the Fourth Estate call him on his canards?
Few will because Harris is ready to froth on cue; and like many demagogues before him, he has seized the moment, hoping the moment can eclipse his previous failures and true motives.
Folks, this is about partisanship, pure and simple. In the short term, it is about helping Republicans take the Assembly in '04; in the long run, it is about creating GOP hegemony in Carson City.
The Machiavellian method is clear. The only principle being articulated here is that the electoral process should be circumvented, that a republican form of government is not as important as electing Republicans.
Nearly all of the public employees in the Legislature are Democrats, which is no coincidence. And the claim by Harris and his cohorts that the $836 million tax increase is a direct result of public employees among the Gang of 63 has not a scintilla of evidence to support it. But it is viscerally appealing to the masses.
Make no mistake about where this leads in the short run: I would love to see the so-called Fearless Fourteen of the Assembly GOP return to Carson City and lead the way to slash $700 million out of the budget and then run for re-election. Many would then be exposed as the frauds they are because so many supported most of the $836 million.
But down the road is where the real potholes loom. If Nevada wants to mimic California and become another haven for opportunistic initiative-petitioners who want to flout the tenets of the Founding Fathers for their own ends, fine. But the costs are incalculable and I don't just mean to education, health care and social services.
What will occur is the gradual chipping away at the very foundation of what Madison et al. had in mind -- electing people to represent the people -- and replacing it with a system that all but renders elected officials irrelevant.
To a great extent, the Gang of 63 is to blame for behaving, as Madison warned, like "men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, (who) may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people."
That is what too many voters believe occurred in the 2003 Legislature and its pair of Halloween-like sequels. And that is what has provided an opening for Harris and other exploitative operatives to spout their sophistry.
I am still waiting for principled people, who may support the ends, to question the means to arrive there. Where are these voices in elective office, in the business community, in the Republican Party?
Hamilton, as he wrote in Federalist No. 1, knew that those who begin as demagogues, often mutate into tyrants. But this is not about historical footnotes named George Harris or what happens in Campaign '04. Those are trivialities.
Nevada Day 2003 might well be a day of augury, with portentous implications for a form of government that James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and many others would have given their lives to prevent.
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