[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Afternoon, Juho

Curses!!  When I returned Friday, ready to resume our discussion, I 
found a communications failure.  A report to my "service-oriented" 
telephone company elicited a promise to repair the problem before 8 p.m. 
Monday.  I didn't think they'd take nearly every minute of that to 
finish the job.  Ohhh, the blessings of science ... no telephone ... no 
internet!  If we ever have a hurricane, I'll be incommunicado for a month.

Ah, well, the kids came for a visit and that's better, anyway.


re:  "But trying to find better solutions (not just push one's own 
solutions that one might consider to be the best) ..."

A cogent assertion.  It will happen naturally when one's solution is 
rationally shown to be unsound.


re: "The decisions that politicians make do involve large sums of money, 
and there are nice job opportunities and also publicity etc.  In these 
circumstances it may be difficult to get through the buzzing crowd and 
meet the original intention of politics, to improve the system."

But, as you said, "... this is how the system typically works".  When 
such circumstances are deeply woven into the fabric of our political 
existence, they tend to be seen as 'inevitable',  That dissuades many 
from believing it possible to correct them.  In addition, the symptoms 
of corruption become so common we waste ourselves battling the symptoms 
instead of curing the disease.


re: "In politics the dependences to various directions may easily get 
too strong."

And THAT'S a fact ... but knowing it is not enough ... the question is 
how do we use the knowledge?  We know these things work to our detriment 
and we lament them vigorously.  We would do better to weaken the bonds 
that make them possible.


It occurs to me you may think me one of those who pushes their own 
solution.  It's a valid perception.  I live in a once-great nation 
suffering the evils of an incestuous political system that long-since 
lost touch with the people.

Yet, when I look among my peers, I don't find people carefully analyzing 
the causes of our system's breakdown.  I find proposals for electoral 
methods like "delegable proxy" which will see votes sold on eBay before 
the ink is dry on the enabling legislation.

The only proposal I've heard that would improve our political system is 
mandatory single-term limits for all elective offices.  That will not 
eliminate the corruption inherent in partisan politics, but it will 
prevent the long-term rot that currently pervades our political 
infrastructure.

Every impropriety in our system is traceable to acts of our 
legislatures, enacted by individuals whose obligations are to their 
party rather than to the people who elected them.  That is the origin of 
our political plight.  Clearly, the method by which our legislators are 
chosen is deficient.  Studying the deficiency shows that allowing 
external entities to insinuate themselves between the people and their 
legislators is wrong.  As we've seen in my country, it's more than 
wrong, it's devastating.

You feel my estimate of 200 years to make a significant change in our 
political system is pessimistic.  Perhaps, but so far it looks like it 
will take 199 of those years for the people to recognize the kudzu-like 
effects of partisan politics.  By then, perhaps we'll have gained the 
wit to design an alternative that selects the best of our people and 
raises them to positions of leadership in our government.

Fred