08 August 2004

Another Interlude: It Was Thirty Years Ago Today…

Mr. Bork fired counsel so the band wouldn't play…

On 08 August 1974, the second-most-important proof that democracy works occurred. We had a regime change in this country. Without an election. Without violence. Without National Guardsmen dug in around the White House, waiting for a wave of protesters to come by and pelt them with bricks.

Think about that for a moment.

They couldn't manage that in England; look at the poll-tax riots over something as simple as changing the equivalent of our property tax system. They can't manage that in France; look at the crippling, violent strikes by farmers and truckers when subsidies are threatened (subsidies, I might add, that explain a great deal about why the French economy sucks). They couldn't manage that in Israel; they had to kill the Prime Minister. Then there's the aborted coups in Russia/Soviet Union, trying to determine who is in power in Italy from moment to moment, the so-called "elections" in Korea and Taiwan… you get the picture.

For all of this nation's faults—it has many, just like any human endeavour—that's a pretty damned impressive achievement.