[EM] Part 2, Mr. Lomax's posting

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

By the way, before I resume my comments on the posting, let me add that, 
before our first "service" to the Iraqis, the "Desert Storm" bombing, the 
kind of medical problems in Iraq were things like childhood obesity. Well, 
Mr. Lomax's "service" to Iraq has certainly gotten rid of that problem.

Mr. Lomax says:

Assumptions have been made about me that are actually ridiculous if one
were to simply look at my name

I comment:

Yes, what a ridiculous assumption, that someone with a name that's half 
Arabic would be an Arab.

As I began to say earlier, maybe your mother is Arab and your father 
American. Or maybe both parents are Arab, but your mother re-married and the 
entire family adopted the new name, as sometimes happens.

The fact that your last name is American in no way indicated that both of 
your parents are American. In fact, that would be a ridiculous assumption, 
given the Arab part of your name.

But since you're an American using an assumed name, I won't call you Abd ul, 
Abdul, or A.U.R. I'll just call you Mr. Lomax. You're not an Abdul, you're a 
Jim, or something.

Jim, I mean Mr. Lomax, continues:

, not to mention how I write

I comment:

How you write doesn't tell us that both of your parents are American. Many 
people of other ethnicity have alwlays resided here and use English as their 
primary language.

Mr. Lomax continued:

But Islam is  not the topic here. The topic here is Election Methods and, 
related to  that, how election methods and society interact.

I comment:

It's good that Mr. Lomax is back on that topic, and is finished with the 
topic of the whinyness of suggesting a change in ballot-ordering.

Mr. Lomax says:

Nor am I here to prove that any of the readers and writers here are idiots

I comment:

No need to. Idiots always prove it themselves.

Mr. Lomax continues:

...the delegable proxy concept, which I developed independent of other 
efforts,
long before "2002."

I comment:

I didn't say that I hadn't suggested it before "2002". All I said was that I 
proposed it on EM in "2002".

Mr. Lomax continues:

And the rest of you are welcome, if you choose, to continue to complain
about the way things are

I comment:

Or wear a smily-face button as you do?

Mr. Lomax continues:

, how idiotic those who don't understand you must
be

I comment:

I'll speak for myself on that, though I"m not the only person who's used 
that word here:

I never said that anyone was an idiot because they didn't understand me. 
I've only said it because of really idiotic things that someone has said.

Mr. Lomax continues:

, how the world would be a better place if just we could throw the bums
out

Mr. Lomax wants to throw the bums out, but that isn't good enough unless he 
has specific policy suggestions, to show that he and his new system won't 
likewise be "the bums".

Mr. Lomax continues:

, or institute some superior election method when what we are proposing
is just a band-aid on a gaping wound.

I comment:

A better voting system, one that doesn't share Plurality's lesser-of-2-evils 
problem, one that doesn't give voters an incentive to bury their favorite 
and conceal what they want--That would be a tremendous improvement. I 
suspect that we'd find out that the "middle", the voter median, isn't 
exactliy where Mr. Lomax's tv says it is.

This is quite common. Anyone advocating a more far-reaching reform will want 
to denigrate modest immediate reforms. Direct Democracy, with delegable 
proxy,  is what we should have, but it's hardly going to be enacted this 
year or next year. So right now it makes sense to use our effort to get a 
better voting system, for our single-winner elections of representatives of 
various kinds.

Besides, even with direct democracy, we'd need a good voting system, and so 
enacting one in the nearer term would be useful when the direct democracy 
proposal is later made. Direct democracy would be better accepted when 
people have seen how effectively they can implement what they want, with 
better voting systems.

Mike Ossipoff

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