Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnAn Electorate of SheeprnEven the weariest presidential campaignrnwinds somewhere to the sea, and thisrnmonth, as the ever dwindhng numberrnof American voters meanders into thernvoting booths, the sea is exactly wherernthe political vessels in which the nationrnsails have wound up. Water, water everywhere,rnbut not a drop to drink.rnIt is symptomatic of the disease ofrnAmerican democracy that one of thernmost frequently cited differences betweenrnthe Republican and Democraticrntickets this year consists not in what theirrnrespective candidates say they will do inrnthe White House but rather in whomrnthey might appoint to the judicialrnbranch of government. Mr. Clinton hasrnsuggested that New York GovernorrnMario Cuomo would be a goodrnSupreme Court justice, while Mr. Bushrnhas pointed with pride to his record ofrnsending to the bench such paragons ofrnjuristic erudition as Clarence Thomasrnand David Souter. Granted there probablyrnwould be a significant difference inrnhow the appointees of the two candidatesrnwould vote once they got on therncourt, but in a healthy representativerngovernment, courts ought to exercise sornlittle power that appointments to themrnshould not be political issues at all.rnMoreover, there ought to be many otherrnand much more obvious differences betweenrnthe candidates, the parties, andrnthe policies they espouse than eitherrnthey or their supporters have claimed,rnand citizens ought not to have to gruntrnand wheeze painfully in order to grasprnthem.rnIn an otherwise brilliant and movingrnspeech to the Republican National Conventionrnlast summer, Pat Buchanan endorsedrnPresident Bush and offered suchrnreasons as he could think of to supportrnhim. But to tell the truth, this was thernweakest part of Mr. Buchanan’s address;rnhe was obliged to dwell on the President’srncommendable personal warrnrecord of some fifty years ago as opposedrnto the still mysterious conduct of Mr.rnClinton when he was of draft age in thernVietnam era. The contrast in this respectrnmay well indicate an importantrndistinction in character between them.rnbut it’s really rather stretching to claimrnthat the two men’s performance or nonperformancernin two different kinds ofrnwars offers a compelling reason for enthusiasticrnsupport of the former fighterrnpilot.rnThen there is the issue of “family values,”rna phrase that at last begins to evokernmerely headaches and nausea. It is quiterntrue that for all the Democrats’ efforts tornco-opt that slogan, they remain undulyrninfluenced by organized lobbies of homosexuals,rnabortionists, womanologists,rnand people like Mr. Clinton’s wife whornbelieve strengthening the family consistsrnof facilitating litigation against parentsrnon behalf of their children. Yet despiternthe fraudulence of the Democrats’ adherencernto the institution of the family,rnit is significant that they find it politicallyrnexpedient to fake such adherence,rnjust as it is equally significant that thernRepublicans, for the most part, also fakernit in a different way. For all the repetitionrnand regurgitation of the sloganrn”family values” at the GOP convention,rnonly Mr. Buchanan mustered the sort ofrnauthentic rhetorical anger and moralrnconviction that are the appropriate responsesrnto the Democrats’ sly exaltationrnof perversion and their calculated supportrnfor the destruction of natural relationshipsrnbetween parent and child.rnThere are, then, at least superficialrndifferences between the two major politicalrnparties and at least personal differencesrnbetween their leaders, and thernpersistence of such differences will comfortrnthose Americans who continue tornthink that the political system today stillrnoffers them a real choice. But the truthrnis that the differences between the partiesrnare far outweighed by their similarities.rnBoth parties are committed to furtherrnexpansion of the role of the federalrnstate in managing and regulating therneconomy as well as private social relationshipsrnand institutions. Mr. Bush inrnhis own remarks at the convention chosernto dwell explicitly and expansively on hisrnaccomplishments in supporting the enactmentrnof such measures as the DisabilitiesrnAct, the Civil Rights Act ofrn1991, the Clean Air Act, child care legislation,rnand hate crimes laws, and hernand several other speakers boasted of hisrn”educational choice” bill, which wouldrnin reality go far toward establishing federalrncontrol of private schools. With respectrnto the fundamental issue of “BigrnGovernment,” there is little real differencernbetween the two political parties,rnand both of them now routinely invokernegalitarian and universalist ideology asrnthe legitimizing conceptual frameworkrnfor enhanced state power.rnNor is there much difference with respectrnto foreign policy. Mr. Clinton, ifrnanything, is even more committed anrnexponent of globalism and the “NewrnWorid Order” than Mr. Bush. For a fewrnweeks prior to the Republican conventionrnlast summer, Mr. Clinton found itrnexpedient to urge U. S. military interventionrnin the Balkan civil war for whatrnhe called “humanitarian reasons,” evenrnthough virtually all senior military officersrnand officials were attesting to therndangers and sheer impossibility of effectivernU. S. involvement, even if someonernsomewhere could discover a plausiblernnational interest in intervening. It mightrnbe thought that, given Mr. Bush’s constantrnbelaboring of his own foreign affairsrnexperience and claims to expertisernand his apparent good sense in stayingrnout of the Balkans, he would have madernMr. Clinton’s amateurish bellicosity arnmajor issue in the campaign. He hasn’t,rnand his silence, like the dog that didn’trnbark in the Sherlock Holmes story, mayrnsuggest a clue. Perhaps Mr. Bush, if reelected,rnreally does plan to intervene inrnthe Balkans himself.rnIn any case, there is little importantrndifference between the two parties onrnthe major issue of the proper Americanrnrole in world affairs in the post-ColdrnWar era. Both support continued adaptationrnof U. S. sovereignty and independencernto the fictitious “global economy”;rnboth support the integration of thernplanet into transnational trade zonesrnthat accrue to the benefit of multinationalrncorporations; both support continuedrnhigh levels of foreign aid and thernexport of democracy; both support orrnat least refuse to do anything significantrnto halt continued cultural and demographicrnderacination through massivernimmigration; and both support an expandedrnrole for the United Nations andrnother supranational organizations in determining,rnlegitimizing, and interveningrn8/CHRONICLESrnrnrn