Not that I'm trying to draw any parallels, you understand.

I don't get involved.

How many of the people who are angry at the government right now would ever run for office? How many would actually consider a career as a politician? How many might want to work for the government as a public servant for their entire career? Who would like to be a mid-level administrative manager?

Obviously, not me. It doesn't interest me, and I don't think it makes a good match. I've volunteered at organizations before, and I've tried to make a difference - sometimes it worked out, sometimes not. But how many kindergarteners in class today are saying to themselves: I want to be a administrator for the Department of Defense someday.

I'm thinking not so many.

In no way does this excuse this catastrophe. But if we want to make it work the next time, we need to be in the same room as those making the plans.

Since the time of the constitutional state, and definitely since democracy has been established, the 'demagogue' has been the typical political leader in the Occident. The distasteful flavor of the word must not make us forget that not Cleon but Pericles was the first to bear the name of demagogue. In contrast to the offices of ancient democracy that were filled by lot, Pericles led the sovereign Ecclesia of the demos of Athens as a supreme strategist holding the only elective office or without holding any office at all. Modern demagoguery also makes use of oratory, even to a tremendous extent, if one considers the election speeches a modern candidate has to deliver. But the use of the printed word is more enduring. The political publicist, and above all the journalist, is nowadays the most important representative of the demagogic species.

Plenty of sharp, tough observations in there amid the sociologese. This seems apposite for Sarah and for all of us during these grim days.

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth--that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word. And even those who are neither leaders nor heroes must arm themselves with that steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes. This is necessary right now, or else men will not be able to attain even that which is possible today. Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say 'In spite of all!' has the calling for politics.

I hate it when that happens.

As Simstim says, his essay on science as a vocation (also available online) is well worth reading too. Advice for people like me, who are teaching the social sciences, that if we fail to recognize that part of our duty is to recognize the truths that are uncomfortable for our political position, we're failing in our vocation.

Weber rocks. Everyone should read him in copious quantity.

Think the colonial conquests, or Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, saying "Greed is good," or the executives of Enron. More passively, the anti-tax Republicans and libertarians, Grover Norquist and the Randites, the defenders of repealing the estate tax.

Going with recent comments on other threads -- the above is a wonderful answer to Naderites.