Eubulides wrote:
>
> And a functionalist fallacy alert is called for on both the posts.....
If I claimed that the leadership of either party so defined their purpose, you would be correct. My personal conviction is that the leadership of both _believe_ in the policies they carry out. In an article in today's WP Kissinger writes, "Both Obama and the secretary of state-designate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, must have concluded that the country and their commitment to public service require their cooperation." I think he is correct: that's how Clinton & Obama think. That's how the DP leadership on the whole thinks. Left-liberals avoid facing this fact by accusing DP politicians of being incompetent or cowardly or weak -- thus maintaining the illusion that they are in some ultimate way on "our" side. They aren't. They will never be. They _may_ even believe that what they do is "best" for us: ruling-classes have often deluded themselves in this way. See Plato in the Republic. (Cornford is a wonderful scholar -- but he deluded himself into thinking the lies Socrates says will be necessary are just a harmless metaphor.) They don't necessarily intend to delude anyone: liberals delude themselves, clinging to the notion that "progress" depends on electing good people requires that they delude themselves as to the intentions of the DP, explaining the gap between alleged intention and actual policy as hypocrisy, cowardice, etc.
That argument may be correct or incorrect, but I don't see what is gained by labelling it "functionalism."
Carrol