35 thoughts on “Why Our Political System Is Screwed”

  1. It works just the way our ‘leaders’ like it to work. What are ya, unamerican? (See: Howard Dean.)

  2. So whats the fix apart from a full reform of voting system, to something more mathematically and theoretically solid like range voting ?

    2. Gerrymandering is a fundamental problem. Require that political boundary maps be
      drawn to the most compact borders and that variations away from that must be
      litigated and show to match some “Underlying political boundary” or geographical boundary.

      Make the districts basically reflect the City, the suburbs and then the rural areas.

      End silliness like we see here http://www.buzzfeed.com/qsahmed/the-10-most-gerrymandered-districts-in-america-dh45

      California did a non-partisan redistricting, i’d prefer it to be a “Algorithmic redistricting”, have a computer
      spit out a map with compactness and drawn against county borders and geography. Let the sizes of the districts vary by say 5%, but that way the map is pretty clean.

    3. The fix is competing ideology… disconnected politics if you will.

      Imagine different stars with different political ideologies. Assuming they could meet, over time one should prove superior to the others.

  4. >So whats the fix <

    article v convention 12 year term limits for all fed gov't employment

    2. And fail it does, thus giving us Obama, who is inarguably the most incompetent leader in the last 6,500 years.

  6. Yep, which explains the ISS and SLS. Pork flowing to districts make happy voters. Happy voters re-elect you to office so you may keep more pork flowing… And of course anything the interrupts the flow of pork and thereby threatens your re-election will not be allowed.

    Which brings us around to around Rand thread. Poor Mr. Musk picked the wrong fight going after those USAF contracts for launching. (i.e. threatening the flow of pork). I expect a series of “unfortunate events” may well start to plague not only SpaceX but his other two business dependent on U.S. government. Mr. Hughes learned how that game works in the 1940’s… Hopefully Mr. Musk is just as tough and sharp…

      1. Less democratic in what way? Less frequent elections, less than universal suffrage, loading the system so that the representatives are less representative of the electorate?

        1. Well, you could have a Constitution that limits the Federal government to doing only the things it’s better at than more local governments, then you wouldn’t need to worry much about what kind of voting system you had, because there would be few bad things the voters could vote for.

          Oh, hang on, you tried that already.

        2. Denying the vote to beneficiaries of the public treasury would shift electoral pressure in the right direction. Put people who pay the taxes in control of how they’re spent.

          1. or eliminate taxes altogether with real property rights (they could not tax, take away outside of free trade, regulate or do anything that restricted those rights outside of local government.)

  9. “Democracy” is inherently corrupt as you are discovering.
    Time to try something new.
    I quite like “Sortition” or randomly selecting a person from the citizenry to perform ONE function ONCE only. I.E. judge a criminal or civil case, be the mayor of a city for 5 years, be the governor for a limit time, be the police chief for a limited time.
    The proviso being that if the selected person does not understand any law, that law becomes null and void. That should put the wind up the lawyers and bring a halt to rule of lawyers. I would even restrict the selectees to not being able to pass new laws. Just adjudicate their application.

    1. No, democracy is not “inherently corrupt”, its just that “democracy” is not a unidimensional thing. “more democratic” or “less democratic” does not actually have a lot of meaning, because there are more than a few axes to measure on.
      “Democratically elected leader” for example is a very vague statement, until you look very closely at the election system, the level of populism and information flow and multiple other things.

      1. You’re a lawyer aren’t you.
        The first thing you do is try to redefine the word “democracy”. Such a typical lawyer reaction.
        “If it please your honour, my client is not guilty of justifiable democracy.”

        In practice ALL democracy relies on those being voted in to gather the greatest number of votes. So the easiest way to achieve that is to OFFER (bribe) the voters something to vote for them. See, inherently corrupt. Why else would anyone vote for anyone.

        Even if you believe in ideal politicians, what is on OFFER (bribe) is the good ideals to be implemented.

        1. So, by analogy, if a retailer offers a customer the more attractive deal, that’s corruption?

          1. If you cannot tell the difference between a commercial transaction and the governance of the country, that’s your problem not mine.

            Nice straw man by the way. Quick, which thing is not like the other?
            And do you have something of value to bring to the discussion, besides fake equivalences? Typical lawyer tactics. “look what I have in my other hand, some nice baubles.” Distraction is not argument or even a discussion.

            Sortition offers the value of limited terms, random and hence equal possibility of access to power, greater emphasis on common sense over “learned” law.

          2. In both examples you have buyers and sellers in a competitive market, you see the sellers offers as bribes in the political market, but not in the commercial market. Instead of firing off ad hominems, how about you give reasons for claiming the analogy is invalid.
            As you say, distraction is not argument or even a discussion.

          3. greater emphasis on common sense over “learned” law.
            “Common sense” is the refuge for people who can’t think for themselves.

    2. Ooh, how about we use sortition for other occupations as well?
      Brilliant, can’t wait for my next visit to the amateur doctor!
      Are you really so foolish as to believe anyone able to understand legislation would be a capable politician? Really??

      1. We don’t want politicians. Politicians are the problem, not the solution.

        I’d much rather a government made up of real people with real experience of the real world, than those who have never had any experience outside politics. I can’t see how selecting the government by lottery every year from the entire population could be worse than what we currently have; though you’d need to be sure the lottery wasn’t rigged.

        Modern mass democracy actively selects for charismatic psychopaths who are willing to devote their lives to the pursuit of power and can lie well on TV. At least with random selection, most of them wouldn’t fit into that category.

        1. You’re only looking at half of half of the job, if people think the bureaucracy is out of control now, wait till someone with no admin skills is put in power, communism would be a mercy in comparison.

        2. Random selection? From a pool of volunteers? Or are you advocating compelled service/conscription/slavery?

          Do you think it is possible to establish a more rights-respecting government with unwilling, coerced governors?

      2. Oh, and, yes, if someone picked at random to serve in the government can’t understand the laws, how is Joe Sixpack supposed to understand what’s legal and what’s not?

        We don’t want lawyers running the government either, because they’ll pass laws designed to keep lawyers in business.

  10. The US is not a democracy. It is a Democratic Republic, or supposed to be one. Republic is the word most of us forget to use. I was taught a long time ago that a democracy was the rule of the majority. For instance, two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. A republic holds an individual’s rights as more important, Free speech, freedom of religion, right to own property, etc. We, as individuals, elect representatives to speak for us in Washington. When they become corrupt, we should throw them out but we don’t because they give us things we want. The US has lost it’s morals …. Unless we, as a people, return to the basic moral values outlined in the Constitution, the country is doomed to become a very large third world country.

  11. In both examples you have buyers and sellers in a competitive market, you see the sellers offers as bribes in the political market, but not in the commercial market. Instead of firing off ad hominems, how about you give reasons for claiming the analogy is invalid. As you say, distraction is not argument or even a discussion.

    Is government a market? Really? The role of government is so far from the role market that to compare them merely shows your ignorance.

    To establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, ensure the blessings of liberty… We may argue over the points of our social contract, but nowhere does it say a political marketplace.

    1. The political marketplace is the electoral process in which politicians hawk their wares (policies) to the buyers (voters).

      1. That’s a narrow definition of the marketplace, but if you mean the marketplace of ideas, then I see what you mean.

  12. What about God’s kingdom?

    It has a political ruler with absolute authority that isn’t a tyrant and will not die to leave a tyrant to replace that king.

    Prophecy says the day will come when the flaws in all human governments will be revealed to all.

    Are we there yet?

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