Posted by Bill McGonigle
Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:03:00 GMT
It is often opined that term-limiting elected officials is the only way to reduce corruption in politics. This analysis misses the obvious problem of lame-duck representatives, with fully one third of an elected body having perhaps no incentive at all to please its constituents. This makes a representative ripe for purchase with no recourse for the body politic.
Yet the problem remains, how does one keep career politicians from subverting the democratic process? As I write this, the Federal Congress is trying to ram through legislation, perhaps even avoiding Constitutional requirements, that polls show a majority of Americans are strongly against. Clearly the 'representative democracy' is not functioning as such. A better system would require a four-step change:
First, end gerrymandering of Congressional districts. Everybody knows that districts are drawn to favor the incumbents unfairly and the two-party system, neither of which is healthy for the free-exchange of political ideas. There have been proposals for fair redistricting for more than half a century - any of them are likely superior to the brazenly corrupt method currently in place.
Second, implement a modern voting system that takes into account voter preferences and reduces strategic voting for non-preferred candidates. The best of these is probably the Schulze Method but any one that satisfies the Condorcet criterion is probably acceptable (the system must pick the candidate who, when compared with every other candidate, is preferred by more voters). The Schulze method was only discovered in the last decade, and is markedly superior to previous voting-system reform attempts, such as instant-runoff voting in the 1970's which produced abysmal results. Organizations are rapidly and overwhelmingly adopting the Schulze method, and governments are now beginning to as well.
Third, end the political primary process. Only in Plurality Voting, the system we've been saddled with since the 18th Century, is such a process even necessary. In a Condorcet election, voters with a political party affiliation could simply rank all of their party's candidates first, in their preference order, to maintain their strategic advantage. But a Republican who favored Democrat #4 over Republican #2 could also express that preference. Our current system does not allow this. This also gets local governments out of the business of supporting the private organizations called political parties for free (though certainly not free to those government's tax base - how does an Independent feel about being forced to pay for primary elections?).
Fourth, require incumbents to achieve a threshold in the Condorcet election to stay in the race. If the first three steps aren't enough to guarantee that a Congressman will pay attention to his electorate, requiring a majority preference (for example among the top half, though more thought needs to be paid to the exact level) certainly will. Without the preceding three pieces, though, this criterion simply re-enforces the two-party system.
Given all of these criteria, the winner of an election will best represent the people who elected him, and, if an incumbent, he will have broad support from among his constituency. This does not guarantee a corruption-free government, but it does provide strong incentives for a representative to represent, offers a broader variety of candidates to the People, and provides an outcome that will maximize the happiness of the voters while avoiding the danger of unaccountable representatives under a term-limits system.
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Posted by Bill McGonigle
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:26:00 GMT
Once upon a time there were three little groups of pigs. No, not those pigs, this is a slightly different world.
In this world, most pigs lived in straw houses. A few pigs had started to figure out that twig houses were an improvement but they were relatively few.
Most of the straw-house pigs were quite happy. Their houses kept them dry most of the time and rarely did the gentle winds in this valley do enough damage to the straw houses to be much of a concern. Of course, it did happen on occasion, but most of those pigs chalked it up to bad luck and re-built their straw houses, though a few did see the wisdom of the twig houses and became Twig Pigs.
The Twig Pigs could not understand how the Straw Pigs could accept their straw houses. The Twig Pigs did what they could to try to tell the straw pigs what kind of trouble could be in store for them. Some did so gently, some were more obnoxious about it. Some even tried to huff and puff on the straw houses to make their point. But alas, pigs cannot blow down houses, that's a different story.
The Twig Pigs became more strident, warning of an impending storm that would take down all of the straw houses, yet the Straw Pigs didn't listen and went back to their food and their games. This only frustrated the Twig Pigs, and many of the Twig Pigs eventually gave up trying.
Then one day came a strong and frightful storm. Thunder and lightning, gales and hurricane-force winds whipped the valley. Straw house after straw house was destroyed. And so were the twig houses. The Straw Pigs were too disinterested and the Twig Pigs were too busy trying to convince the Straw Pigs that they failed to notice that a few of the Twig Pigs thought long and hard about their situation and decided to build brick houses. The Brick Pigs were well-protected from the storm, and invited in all of the Straw Pigs and Twig Pigs who could make it to the brick houses.
Once the storm cleared, the valley had no more Straw Pigs and no more Twig Pigs, for they were all now Brick Pigs. The first Brick Pigs had accomplished what the Twig Pigs could not, and then some.
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Posted by Bill McGonigle
Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:02:00 GMT
There's been a lot of work in the past couple hundred years on reasons to behave morally that don't require a hierarchy of supreme power.
Game theory, capitalism, free markets, bottom-up economics, wisdom of the masses, democracy, emergent behaviors - these all relate the idea that when people behave well all benefit.
In fact, I'd argue that leaving God out of it makes for a stronger system. If you take the original idea that God grants rights to all people and we then give up certain of those rights to the Government in return for protection of the others, the only thing that keeps the Government from turning tyrannical is the existence of God. Stalin and Mao seemed to understand this.
If instead, you realize that it takes millions of people making smart decisions to keep our society working smoothly then you have to maximize the freedom of each of those actors to get the best possible outcome. Each imposition on those actors brutishly eliminates a possible beneficial outcome in an incomprehensibly complex system, so to the extent that such restrictions aren't essential to the defense of rights required by us of our government, they only act to society's detriment.
This model still strongly supports the free exercise of religion but does not require it. It also recognizes the value of each and every human being as integral to a society, while concomitantly being their own sovereign masters, properly casting a government's role as the servant of society and mechanism to protect the weak. And by putting humans explicitly at the top (bottom?), it reminds those humans that they have to be responsible and make the right decisions, nobody else is granted a higher role.
Or, y'know, like Jesus said, "be nice to each other."
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Posted by Bill McGonigle
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:08:00 GMT
Here is a video from the UK addressed to the people of the US based on their experiences with having their means to revolution removed from them. Quote: "Get off your butts and wake up. Read the writing on the wall. Join up and be with the strength now. Never, ever, give up."
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Posted by Bill McGonigle
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:45:00 GMT
McCain says only World War III would justify draft
It’s astonishing to see how brazenly incoherent John McCain is on the campaign trail. He says that only World War III would justify a military draft. Yet one of his campaign planks is mandatory government service for all young adults. He can’t abide taking the freedom of young Americans for minor wars, but it’s fine if it’s to help out a soup kitchen? (By all means, people should help out soup kitchens, the issue is taking somebody’s freedom to do it.)
Does John McCain have any principles at all? His policies look like a random conglomeration of half-baked ideas pulled from a schizophrenic mind and stuck together with poll-tested duct tape.
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Posted by Bill McGonigle
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:29:00 GMT
Who owns your property (real estate)? You do, right? Or maybe your bank does if you have a mortgage.
Nope, the State does. It’s held in a feudal-style system where the State may tax your property or take it at will. You’ve paid for a title to it, that is an exclusive use of the land, but that title is granted by the State.
This is why the State may tax your land, and if it so pleases them, take it for other uses. We have a guarantee of restitution for such takings, by the Constitution, but not a guarantee against such takings.
So, be careful to say, “I hold title to this property”, not “I own this land”.
There is another option, that’s called Allodial title. Allodial is from “without a Lord”, a reference to the feudal system where the Lord owned all the land, and merely leased it out to those who would work it. With an Allodial title, you own the land. It’s yours. Nobody can take it away with force. Nobody can tax it, it’s yours. Certainly the State may attempt to ply the land from you with an offer of cash sufficient to convince you to leave, but they can’t serve you papers and cut a check of their choosing.
Many NH Citizens equate a property tax with increased freedom, but in this light, it’s really a drain on Liberty. Now converting all NH properties to allodial title overnight wouldn’t work at all, there’s still some area that’s undefined. It’s argued that an allodial title can’t be mortgaged and it can’t be subdivided, yet I’ve seen no justification for this (do try to explain it to me). There’s also the issue of replacing the property tax with a just, fair tax. So far the best option I’ve seen is a head-tax, where each citizen is assessed an equal fee to support the services of the government. Setting this use-fee at a rate that every citizen can afford (how’s $500/yr?) would ensure a government that is as lean as it can be, and largess by the Legislature would be felt directly in the next yearly bill, which ought to encourage proper behavior by a legislators who wish to retain their seats. The current system of ‘sticking it to the other guy’ that the politicians play is ultimately destructive, as some day you’re going to be the other guy (only they’ll only pander to other people about that one).
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Posted by Bill McGonigle
Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:59:00 GMT
Reason Magazine did an article a year ago profiling John McCain’s ideas and perspectives. It’s a good read and illustrates that John McCain is confused.
John McCain seems to have a strong moral focus, and a strong sense of national duty. He can’t be criticized for that nor his service to his country. John McCain also seems to feel that all of a country’s citizens should have a strong moral focus and a strong sense of national duty. He can’t be criticized for that either. It’s his opinion, for one, and a good opinion at that (in my opinion, of course).
John McCain then concludes that it is right to use force to compel a nation’s citizenry to have a strong moral focus and strong sense of duty. He is to be roundly criticized for this.
Whether it’s McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform or mandated national service, John McCain would seek to employ fascist techniques to limit the freedom of the citizenry in an effort to make them better people. First, compelling a people to be moral neither makes them moral nor can be successful on a large scale (he’s basically talking about a non-military draft for every citizen, the Fourteenth Amendment be damned). It also creates misgivings about the Federal Government such that, if implemented, each successive generation would feel less and less the way John McCain wants them to feel, though his government force brigade would be there to force them to act as if they felt the way he wanted them to.
So, John McCain’s root problem is that he thinks he can force people to think and feel like him. Certainly, when one holds a personal philosophy, one is bound, if he believes in the good of his philosophy, to educate, convince, and encourage others to embrace one’s philosophy (and I just may try to convince you of the virtues of pluralistic deontology in a subsequent essay) as the holder of such beliefs ought to be convinced that such a manner of thinking will maximize societal value. However, when one steps out of the ring of argumentation into that of coercion, he has admitted to losing the argument, and becomes an embodiment of the forces against freedom, the definition of fascist thought, and, one could argue, evil.
So, on the merits, John McCain’s Mandatory Patriotism is bankrupt. But on a practical level it also fails. First, his idea of a national-service draft does not reflect the operating characteristics of society. Why the focus on national government, for one? Because that’s where he wields power? What of state governments, don’t they deserve service? How about community services? NGO’s, non-profits? How about the people who feed the nation? Build the things the nation needs to work? In reality, everybody not involved in criminal enterprise is already working in service of the Nation, otherwise they’d be out of a job. What John McCain does is to conflate government and society (I’ve written about this before) and reverses the priority - the government is supposed to work in service of the society, not the other way around. He’s 180° out of alignment on this issue, and this position belies his disbelief in free markets and capitalism.
His position is best summed up in this quote from the article:
Defending campaign finance reform, McCain said, “I would rather have a clean government than one…where ‘First Amendment rights’ are being respected that has become corrupt. If I had my choice I’d rather have a clean government.”
It’s evident that for John McCain the individual exists for the benefit of the society, and the society holds primacy over the individual. There’s a term for that philosophy: Socialism.
The unfortunate situation for America today is that one of McCain, Clinton, or Obama are likely to be the forty-fourth President of the United States, and each feels compelled to use government force to impose their personal belief systems on the Nation. They each offer slightly different flavors of a Socialist agenda, each with some fleeting facets of merit, completely over-run by fascist implementations. That a free people are free to make mistakes, the wrong choices, is an essential part of being free. If one is not free to fail, one is not really free at all. Would it really be so terrible to have a President who reminds us (paraphrasing the Constitution), “you’re free to do what you wish so long as you’re not harming others” (what if the President spending most of his days on the golf course was a sign of progress, not sloth?) The members of the two dominant political parties in the United States seem to think so, and enough Americans support that system such that we may not have a choice but to be forced to act as if our morals are being changed every four to eight years. Of course, they aren’t, and everybody knows that - perhaps it’s instead time for people to vote what they know to be true rather than voting for the façade-du-jour being managed by the popular media (ironically enough, strongly empowered beyond all other citizens by McCain-Feingold).
Of course, perhaps John McCain’s confusion is one of an unexamined life, an emotional state of existence where logical reduction of philosophy is put aside with principles in favor of strong beliefs, however fleeting and amorphous they might be. If so, would he be the right person for the Presidency? However, if not, if his philosophy is grounded instead in an examined disbelief in the rights of the individual and ardent support of utilitarian collectivism, we’ve got something much worse on our hands than confusion.
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Posted by Bill McGonigle
Fri, 21 Mar 2008 10:11:00 GMT
I stumbled upon an essay today making the case that progressives are really ultra-conservatives in disguise, with a sprinkling of elitism thrown in for good measure:
"Progressives want comfort and certainty. They want to lock things down the way they are. They want to know that such and such job will be there tomorrow and next decade, and will always pay at least X amount. That is why, in the end, progressives are all statists, because, to paraphrase Hayek, only a government with totalitarian powers can bring the order and certainty and control of individual decision-making that they crave."
While this gets pretty close to the mark, there's one important additional point to make: trying to design a society effectively requires perfect information, which doesn't exist. Without it, the law of unintended consequences always applies. Would-be builders of the social utopia would be better off working on limitless energy and non-slave workers rather than trying to cement the status quo through totalitarianism.
Also found on that site was a link to a link to a link of a DVD ISO explaining the philosophy of individual liberty you can burn for your friends.
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Posted by Bill McGonigle
Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:07:00 GMT
The problem of airplanes being hijacked and used as weapons was solved at 10:03 AM on 2001-09-11 over a field in Shanksville, PA. 'Average' Americans figured out the security equation just more than an hour after the first plane hit Tower 1. Everything since is a distraction.
The specific problem that's supposedly being solved by Airport Security is using airplanes as weapons. That one's been solved - you can't do that anymore if you're a hijacker.
But, what if you're a hijacker who doesn't want to use the airplane as a weapon? Everybody is still going to think you do. So they're going to rush/kill you, probably before you even get to the cockpit. I agree that the hardened cockpit doors were a good idea, which is why the Israeli airline has had them for decades. But we have them now, let's move on.
The only thing you can do to an airplane now is blow it up. But, you don't even need to do that by suicide if you don't want to, so why would you? If you're a sociopathic maniac wouldn't you rather live and extend your reign of terror? In the US we have a policy against negotiating with terrorists, so you can't hijack to have demands met for release either. So, curiously, the 9/11 attacks dried up hijacking as a viable means of anything.
But to bring home the point, there have been hijackings for decades before 9/11, even bombings (Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie and perhaps TWA-800), and we didn't implement draconian searches after that. There was more reason at the time - nothing you can do can ever fully prevent these things, terrorists aren't stupid (they're doctors and engineers - at least some of them) and this kind of chicanery just wastes everybody's time and money. So long as a terrorist can take one up the wrong way and get binary explosives onboard, there's a hard limit on how safe air travel can be. Even at that, planes can't handle all weather, and life isn't a risk-free proposition.
Meanwhile, if you're in any number of professions which require even occasional air travel (or even a leisure traveler), the Federal government is infringing on the Fifth Amendment prohibition against being deprived of liberty without due process of law. The due process of law, and Hamilton was very specific about this, is a trial by a jury of your peers, and the liberties are derived from 'natural law', as described as 'the law of the land' in the Magna Charta, and inherited by our system. Let's not be coy - at these 'security' checkpoints you are being detained by the government, they're just letting you go quickly if you cooperate. If you don't cooperate your detainment will be longer.
Travel by air is the de-factor standard method of travel in the US for many businesses, and many would not be able to maintain their living without it. For those who answer, "just drive", this would be analogous to a practice at the founding of our country where your wagon was subject to search and seizure if it were on a road, but the government would tell you, "stop complaining, you can always walk through the woods." That would have been considered just as reprehensible then as it is now.
Truthfully I'd love to see a private-sector implementation of a 'safe airline'. There would be no carry-on luggage, pockets would be empty (standard-issue clothes would be best), and everybody would get an MRI on the way in to look for internally concealed weapons.
I think it would go out of business. Quickly.
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Posted by Bill McGonigle
Sat, 26 Jan 2008 07:44:00 GMT
Q: When does a politician issue a press release that's a 5000-word essay on history, political philosophy, and the sad state of affairs of his country while being hypercritical of his own party?
A: December 12th.
Yeah, it's not a joke. In the candidly-named, Let It Bleed: Restoring the Republican Party, Michigan Representative Thaddeus McCotter lays into the 'Cashocrats' in Washington, condemns the members of his party and lays out a set of principles for a coming wave of what he calls 'Restoration Republicans'. What do they want to do? Only wash away all the bad government of the past 100 years and re-focus on liberty and freedom.
In his essay he provides quite a bit of background, political theory, and makes many salient points about what shaped our government over the past 100 years and why current socioeconomic conditions render the entire premise for our governmentally-regulated society inappropriate.
This essay will probably be come to be known as a major catalyst for change - not on the level of Common Sense, but easily beyond the Contract With America.
I first heard about him in an interview on the Dennis Miller show. This guy is sharp and can go toe-to toe with Miller on obscure references and witty jabs, and he's already in office.
He's one of the good guys. Keep an eye on this one.
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