Violating a Trust (Updated)

A stable, long-lasting government is something like marriage: it is based on mutual trust, respect, and well-established borders. Anything that upsets the balance is what I consider to be a Bad Thing.

While I understand the desire to protect the American elections from ephemeral incidences (like a terrorist attack the day before the election), the answer to the problem is not to postpone elections. Anything that would postpone the elections would simply be a violation of the trust--not enough of a violation to spark a revolution, I admit, but a violation that simply adds weight to the wrong side of the trust equation along with things like draconian and arbitrary drug laws, confiscatory taxation, and seatbelt laws.

Okay, that one might just be me--but if you follow the logic, it does serve to illustrate an interesting point. Namely, that most of the governed (us) have areas where we simply do not trust the government to act in good faith on our behalf. If enough people come to the point that they do not trust the government with enough of our affairs that the government cannot govern effectively, you have the constant regime churn that occurs in developing nations. The most practical argument for limited government intervention that I know is that limiting government interference also limits the number of people who will be pushed further into a mistrust of the government.

I would imagine that most self-identified libertarians (especially the big L kind) would find a postponed election to be a violation of trust. I would also imagine the most self-identified Democrats and "progressives" would also find a postponed election at the end of a Republican Presidential term would find more fuel for their conspiracy theories. Just imagine the next movie Michael Moore would helm after that kind of an event.

Add to those numbers, any of the GOP like me who understand the desire to protect the election from outside tampering of this kind--both in the sense that it might influence the election in an ugly way and in the sense that it would create a template for influencing major political events in American politics that just can't be accepted--but still find the idea of postponing the elections to be unacceptable. The sum of that political equation is simply this: a great many people would be alienated by this one event that was intended to preserve trust, not erode it.

A better--although difficult--solution might be that if there were an attack, allow for the actual election to be extended in any state directly affected by a terrorist attack. While the logistics and the expense would both be high, it would also be a visible act of good will on the part of the government. It would show the trust that the government has in the civilians to not allow an outside force to unduly influence the election and it would allow citizens in those affected areas to still feel a part of the entire process.

The trust balance is more resilient in a long-lasting liberal government like ours. The government has proven to move slowly, but to move toward greater rights and freedoms for the citizens over time. The relationship between our government and ourselves, then, is one of cultural habit--that is, we are mostly taught from a young age that though our government may make mistakes, it is always working to mend those mistakes and that, although we are cynical about our public servants, we are overall optimistic about the course our nation takes.

This one event would not be near enough to push that balance to a tipping point, but it would be a mistake and it would be a violation of the trust that we have in our government's operations. God, luck, and homeland security willing, we'll never have to face the issue as anything other than a thought exercise, and I have no problem with mulling over the proper response to an election day terrorist attack. I do hope that the brains that decide the issue came out of the thought process in the same place that I did.

Read the story.

Update: Read Will Collier's thoughts on the subject. Then read what Stephen has to say.

And then this round-up of voices on the subject.