Mining News: Senate race reflects political irony

Democrats fearful of a GOP win in November may have to support the Independent who happens to be Alaska’s incumbent senator

J. P. Tangen

For Mining News

“Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.” —Reinhold Niebuhr

Every two years or so we experience a glorious exercise known generally as the political cycle wherein, heretofore, unknown members of our community stand up and invite all the world to throw stones at them. At the conclusion of the exercise, those who have hung around long enough get to vote on who withstood the beating best. Truly this is euphoric to watch if, like me, you are a political junkie.

The victor then gets to wrap himself in the mantle of public office and does his best to formulate programs and procedures whereby government gets to reach into our collective pocket and buy things for us that we neither want nor need. It is often said that we get the government we deserve, and this election is unlikely to be different.

Looking only at the U.S. Senate race, we have a heretofore invisible Republican running against a heretofore invisible Democrat. Neither is particularly conversant with the second largest industry in the state, so the miners of Alaska have good reason to be concerned. Of course very little of the ongoing rhetoric has related to the problems or potential of mining in Alaska. Instead, the focus has been in discussing whether the Tea Party knows anything about tea – or anything else – and which invisible candidate is going to do a better job at saving Alaska from current and future catastrophes.

The Tea Party ostensibly supports smaller government and fewer taxes. How we get there will be resolved shortly after the election; but, unequivocally, it will entail destructing Big Government, wherever it may be found. Probably it will mean elimination of entitlements and embracing an earlier day when people were not encumbered by the illegal and the indolent.

I have long pondered the conundrum posited by this popular objective. How do we get government out of our face? It seems that there is an ongoing natural law in place here that holds that growth of any organization or entity will continue until implosion is inevitable. The smallest speck of stardust collides with another to form a larger speck and so on ad infinitum; except, galactically speaking, when the gravity created by a consolidated mass becomes great enough, that mass becomes a black hole from which even light cannot escape.

Likewise, social organizations, whether corporate or governmental, grow until they implode. The argument against consolidation always fails. Economy of scale makes it impossible for smaller organizations to survive in perpetuity. When the gravitational field of state government overtakes local management of civil affairs, the local government capitulates. When the gravitational pull of federal government sucks power and resources away from state governments, the force is irresistible. The same experience is true of private sector entities. Big companies get bigger until they deplete the air in the room, and then they implode (except for those companies deemed “too big to fail,” whatever that means).

The Tea Party wants less government; so do I. However, until the law of gravity is repealed, Big Government will continue to grow until the Implosion, whereupon, Chaos will ensue. There are those who think that Big Government is just fine. We should help the helpless and insist that old people retire. Everyone should get government-run health care. The fact that the federal government cannot run well the health-care programs it is responsible for already (e.g., Medicare, Veterans Affairs, Public Health Service, Indian Health Service) is completely beside the point.

The true irony for the current senatorial race, of course, is that the incumbent, unseated by the voters in the primary election is competing credibly to retain her seat as a write-in. In fact, she is doing so well that, if the polls are to be believed, she is consigning one of the major candidates to the role of being a spoiler. At last glance, Joe Miller and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, were polling in the mid-thirties, while the McAdams is polling in the mid-twenties. Democrats fearful of a Republican win may have to support the Independent. Murkowski represents everything the Tea Party opposes. She actually has a record of acknowledging the existence of liberals. The fact that she has a more conservative voting record than the late Sen. Ted Stevens does not redeem her in the eyes of critics.

Politics in America is a cascade of insoluble problems. Voting, for those who even bother, is a vain solution. Miners in Alaska, like everyone else, can only watch and wait. Our future, our fate belongs to those who darken little circles on ballot cards.