Factions, Fury, and Foolishness

In The Federalist #10, Madison laid out his argument for a republican form of government. Madison acknowledged that many "factions" would exist in the nation, and would compete against each other, but Madison argued a republican form of government would not let any group gain absolute power over a minority. Factions would have to compromise with each other.

In defing a "faction", Madison wrote:

By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

What gives rise to these "factions"?

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests.

The Founding Fathers suffered no illusions about the nature of humanity. They viewed government as a brake on our baser instincts. Madison writes:

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.
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No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time;
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It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.

The inference to which we are brought is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.

In short, we form ourselves into factions, we can get heated in our passions, and it is not a good idea to assume we can be objective in deciding matters where our passions are involved. This is why Madison says the causes of faction cannot be removed, but the effects can be controlled, through a republican form of government.

I bring this up to say as it was then, it still is today. We form our political factions based on our beliefs and interests, and we still view each other with "mutual animosity", and we still are "much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for [our] common good".

However, there are some worrisome aspects of the behavior of some of today's factions.

A textbook example of this took place in New York on Wednesday night. Christopher Hitchens debated George Galloway, principally over the war in Iraq.

For those not familiar with these two combative combatants, Hitchens was a far-Left Lefty, and in many respects still is. His views on religion are not particularly attractive. However, 9/11 so moved him, he became a supporter of strong action, such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. His former colleagues on the Left have never forgiven him for this.

Galloway is a fool. I'll just let Hitchens himself describe Galloway for you. If you think Hitchens, as his debating opponent, is biased, let me say Hitchens didn't begin to scratch the surface in this column. As a brief example, Galloway has been accused of taking money from Saddam Hussein in the Oil for Food scandal.

You only need to know Galloway is an odious man, a man who has praised the insurgents in Iraq, and has said...

Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners - Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent.
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It's not the Muslims who are the terrorists. The biggest terrorists are Bush, and Blair, and Berlusconi, and Aznar, but it is definitely not a clash of civilizations. George Bush doesn't have any civilization, he doesn't represent any civilization
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Most of the children, most of the schools, most of the buses, were bombed by the United States. Let's keep this clearly in perspective: Most of the children who died in Iraq were killed by George Bush, not by Zarqawi. Most of the schools that were wrecked, buses that were bombed, hospitals that were destroyed, lives that were taken, were taken by George Bush, not by Zarqawi.

This is background to the debate Wednesday night. Hitchens and Galloway. One of these men is hated by the Left, and one of these men is cheered by the Left. Do you find it troubling that Galloway is the one cheered by the hateful, anti-war Left?

A number of bloggers were there in person, and have provided captivating accounts of the debate.

Tigerhawk's account is here. I'll just pull out some of the passages about Galloway and the crowd's reactions to him

Galloway banged away at the idea that the cited threats were themselves the consequences of British and American foreign policy. But for American support for Saddam (his atrocities were "mostly in the 1980s, when he was the closest friend of the United States") and the Afghan resistance to the Soviets (who grew up into al Qaeda and the Taliban), these threats would not exist. The Arabs hate the West because of Anglo-American support of Israel and the corrupt dictators of the region. The most massive lefty applause of the evening came when Galloway demanded a reversal of our policies toward Israel.
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Most of the rest of the debate was taken up with expansive rhetorical flourishes, mostly from Galloway and mostly involving red meat for the audience. Ms. Katrina popped up again and again, and Galloway did not miss his chance to skewer Hitchens for his comparatively mild criticism of Cindy Sheehan (the mere mention of whom triggered wild applause, which is more than a little creepy, if you think about it).

Oxblog has another account of the debate here. Again, I'll give you some of the passages about Galloway and reaction to him.

People like Hitchens are content to fight to the last drop of other peoples' blood. (applause) Parliamentarians should have been wisely against American independence because the country one day would be ruled by Pat Robertson and John Ashcroft and didn't pick up dead bodies in New Orleans (because the few competent people there were trying too hard to find living ones). Galloway was for Irish independence. Hitchens was apparently in Bloomsbury and slobbering in opposition to it. Funny, neither of them looked quite that old. So he should also be for the right of the Iraqi people to be free and against the foreign people who invaded them. my God, this man should've been a logic professor. Fallujah! (crazed applause)

Douglas has another account of the debate here. Again, I'll give you some of the passages about Galloway and reaction to him.

Galloway prattled on about Ireland for a bit but said that the fundamental questions was, "Are you with the foreign occupation of Iraq or are you with the right of the Iraqi people to be free and to resist the foreign armies who have invaded them!" Applause.
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"And it was all for a pack of lies." The thousands American dead and wounded were "testament to the folly of Cheney and Bush and the neo-con gang..."
(Heavy applause.)
"...scarcely a sentient being who believes that the war in Iraq was either necessary or just." Then "...our two countries are the biggest rogue states in the world!"

This same blogger had a telling comment about something he heard before going into the debate:

While I was waiting on line out in the street an argument broke out behind me. An old man who was hard of hearing was going on about Manuel Noriega and then about the marshes in Iraq, saying that during the UN sanctions Saddam cleared them in order to have more arable land: "that's why he did it! He was trying to grow food!" I suffered his presence for you, dear readers.

Folks, just what goes into creating a human being who believes Saddam Hussein drained the southern marshes to grow food, rather than to wipe out his Shiite enemies living there?

Folks, what kind of people cheer Galloway? What kind of people cheer the idea that Iraq has been invaded and Iraqis have the right to resist, not allowing that the majority of Iraqis want to be free? What kind of people cheer the idea that the US is the biggest rogue nation in the world?

The Belmont Club said this of the debate:

Hitchens opposes Al Qaeda because of his Leftist beliefs; Galloway supports Al Qaeda in despite of them; and to the traditional socialist this can only be explained by the inducement of cash. That was Hitchen's wider and subliminal reproach to the audience: what manner of men would pay to hear to George Galloway?

Could Madison possibly have had factions like this in mind when he wrote Federalist #10? Or has something changed for the worse?

These don't seem like arguments over whether or not to raise a tax. These are arguments over what is right and what is wrong, over what is good and what is evil.

Is it not troubling that so many seem to praise deeds done in the name of evil?

Jesus said in Matthew 24:12 (NIV):

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold

The Apostle Paul wrote this in II Timothy 3:2-5 (NIV):

People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

In this form of government is it possible to have nothing to do with such factions? How does one combat such ugliness in our fellow countrymen? I regret I am not smart enough to know the answer to that question.

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More debate accounts from Alcibiades, Kesher Talk, Atlas Shrugs, Exit Zero, Alex Massie, and Kimberly Strassel
MOBster stalwart Fraters Libertas has debate reactions here and here.
MOBster Freedomus Caninus would have stopped the fight.
Austin Bay talks about the lambasting of "terror’s Lord Haw Haw".