[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 03:55 PM 4/21/2008, Fred Gohlke wrote:
>Good Afternoon, Juho
>
>re: "I guess US is still a democracy in the sense that people can decide
>otherwise if they so wish."
>
>That is inaccurate.  The only choices the people have are those foisted
>on them by those who control the political parties that have a
>stranglehold on our nation's political processes.

This is the myth we have swallowed. *Within the official system* we 
only have those choices. But there is *nothing* stopping us from 
acting outside the system except our own belief that it is impossible.

Why is it impossible? Because we believe it is impossible, and if 
everyone believes it is impossible, they won't lift a finger to try, 
and if nobody lifts a finger to try, definitely, it's impossible. 
Very impossible, not to put too fine a point on it.

What is to prevent *two* people from deciding to cooperate toward 
making this a better system? Three? Three hundred? Three million?

How many would it take to have an effect?

Two.

Now, just try to get two people to cooperate in this way. It can be 
extraordinarily difficult, unless the method being used fits into ...

the system as it is.

People *do* organize to try to change the system, but they do it 
using the same defective methods that have been tried over and over 
again, and that always produce the same results. The faces change but 
the system does not change.

This is why I claim that if we really are going to change the world, 
we must change the way we try to change the world, and our method of 
changing the world must *be* what we are trying to produce.

So we organize with FA/DP in order to create an FA/DP environment, 
which, if it works, requires no changes in law or official procedure 
at all. FA/DP is designed to facilitate the formation and measurement 
of consensus, and if you can find consensus, you can use the existing 
system, if you have a majority participating and, because the 
existing system is vulnerable to manipulation by organized special 
interests, you need far less than a majority in order to exert major influence.

What is stopping us?

We are stopping us. Not "they."

>re: "Probably also the media loves the massive and long campaigns and
>the numerous intermediate steps (primaries, elections per state) on the
>way, and many citizens probably enjoy them too."
>
>Not as much as they (the media) love the political system that helped
>them achieve immense size and influence.

Do you blame them?

>re: "It is a pity that the needs of show business may sometimes conflict
>with the needs of a simpler and more practical (and maybe also better
>working) political process."
>
>Is it enough to merely tut-tut the show business aspect of politics?  Is
>it not time for specific complaints and specific alternatives?

Complaint is going to accomplish nothing. Immediate and practical 
alternatives may. They must be *easy.* And they must be *efficient*. 
And they must be sufficiently effective, even when engaged in on a 
small scale, that they will continue to attract energy so that they can grow.

>re: "It is probable that the changes will take time and they may happen
>as many small steps."

Actually, there is a single change required, it can happen overnight. 
The only thing that takes time is that this change, to be visible on 
a large scale, must take place within many individuals. There is no 
specific time that it will take. It could happen very rapidly.


>As I once said, about 200 years ... if we're lucky.  As far as the many
>small steps are concerned, where do we start?  Would it make sense to
>outline an alternative, analyze it, critique it, amend it and seek the
>guidance of other thoughtful people about how to improve the role of the
>people in their government?  (I may be able to point you to an
>entertaining approach to this question in the near future.  I have a
>friend in the U. K., who is implementing a neat idea.)

Hey, something possibly interesting! I'm not personally much 
interested in complex utopian concepts, but rather in ideas that 
could actually be implemented *now*, by a small number of people.

>re: "As already said, if people want some changes, in a democracy they
>can get it."
>
>Not when all political activity is controlled and directed by vested
>interests.  The only alternative available to the people is violence,
>and that's the poorest choice possible.  Much better if we apply our
>intellect to seeking a solution.

It's a false dichotomy. First of all, what was said is true. If the 
people want a change, they can get it. Yes, that's not unconditional. 
But in a democracy, it quite simply is not true that "all political 
activity is controlled and directed by vested interests." Rather, 
*public* activity, involving spending a lot of money, is so 
controlled. Private activity, where people actually ... t a l k ... 
to each other, amazing concept, eh?, or now, communicate with each 
other by email, etc., isn't controlled. This kind of organization 
has, in recent history, even brought down brutal repressive 
dictatorships. But people here are mostly asleep, quite simply not 
exercised enough to be interested in changing things. Besides, if 
things change, what if they change for the worse?

The Iraq war has gotten bad enough that many more people than usual 
are interested in some kind of change, but, at this point, it will 
only be change through the system, and though I have a lot of hope 
about Obama, I don't think it likely that he will actually change the 
system, he will merely run it better. And nicer. But, eventually, the 
benevolent dictator dies, or, in this case, is out of office and 
another face takes over. We think that changing the faces will change 
the results, and, to a degree, we are right. But it won't change the 
results permanently, because the existing system is vulnerable to 
manipulation by the focused application of power.

If the people were directly organized, focused power would have no 
node to corrupt. This organization, to be so immune to corruption, 
but be organized from the bottom up instead of the normal top-down 
organization we are accustomed to. It's actually the biological 
solution to the problem. Neurons associate with each other on a very 
local scale, one-to-a-few, and the overall network is built up in that way.

>re: "Much depends on how well the change promoters (as well as the
>opponents) can formulate and justify their proposals."
>
>Are you among them?  As a promoter or an opponent?

How about a "participant?" Promoter or opponent *of what*? If we are 
talking about a heuristic process, it should not be limited to the 
preconceptions of the participants. Rather, the process is, in 
itself, the solution. In other words, what if "the proposal" is to 
develop a proposal?

In other words, the proposal is to develop a process for developing 
proposals? Efficiently and maximizing group intelligence? What if 
there is some person, somewhere, who has the idea that will transform 
the world, but nobody listens to her? Nobody asks her. How would we 
discover and consider her idea, and find it among the noise of 
millions of other ideas?

>re: "I also note again that people will roughly get the kind of system
>that they deserve."

He said that one right. Within certain constraints. "the people" here 
means the collective, not individuals.

>As an old saw, that one is pretty good ... but it fails to lay the
>responsibility at the feet of the people's leaders.

Which is not where it belongs. The leaders are servants. Or would you 
have them be something else?

If they are servants, the master is responsible for properly 
advising, instructing, and, yes, controlling them, when necessary.

>re: "Maybe one could consider better education etc. to achieve better
>results."

While that is true, "better education" is totally undefined and, from 
what I've seen, political science, as a discipline, has completely 
missed the point, it got stuck in certain narrow definitions.

>We've had compulsory education in this country for over 150 years.  Can
>we be sure the educational system is not one of the causes of the
>problem?  Our local institute of higher learning has a substantial
>political science department.  It does a nice job of telling students
>what's wrong with the system (I sat in on a course, last year), but it
>does nothing to encourage them to develop thoughtful alternatives.

Largely because the political scientists are stuck in certain 
assumptions. They understand the problems of scale in democracy. But 
the solution has been staring them in the face for centuries and it 
is as if it's invisible. Even though it is common. At least *part* of 
the solution, an important part.

The assumption that we accomplish representation through elections is 
actually preposterous when closely examined. There are eleven of us. 
Five prefer Fred and six want Tom to represent us at a meeting. What 
can we do? If we hold an election, pure and simple, Tom is elected in 
most systems that satisfy the majority criterion. But that leaves 
almost half of us without someone we actually chose to represent us. 
How can Tom be presumed to represent the Fred constituency?

A partial solution to this problem has been known and expressed 
explicitly since the mid 1880s, by Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), what 
Warren Smith called Asset Voting. Asset Voting combined with direct 
voting on issues (which was always possible, in theory, and was 
actually the norm for Town Meeting governments, is actually practical 
now. Not that the normal objection, that people would be voting about 
matters on which they are ignorant, is actually a basic objection to 
democracy, turns out to not be the case if we look at how Town 
Meeting functions, and, with an Asset Assembly, electors -- who are 
unconditionally chosen, not elected, really -- would only 
occasionally vote directly, with those elected to seats casting the 
great bulk of votes. The seats participate in deliberation on behalf 
of those who elected them....

But that's a utopian scheme, and doesn't stand a snowball's chance in 
Hell in the short term. Middle term.... maybe. Asset is pretty 
simple, would works just fine with existing election equipment, but 
does take some kind of registration system and other thought.

>Should we be content to watch and, perhaps, smile at the foibles of our
>society without making a judgment as to the wisdom or rectitude of what
>we see?  We have described how our political parties (in the U. S.) have
>taken control of our government, why it happened, and why it is not good
>for the humans among us.  We have hypothesized that ...

No, we should not be content, but no, we should not judge the "wisdom 
or rectitude" of what we see. It is what it is. Is a tree "wise"? It 
is what it is. The system produces the effects we see. The system is 
bigger than any individual, though occasionally individuals do have an effect.


>... political parties are conduits for corruption.

Well, they are easily co-opted, it's a design flaw of the methods of 
organization which they use. Parties reproduce, on a smaller scale, 
the defects in the overall system, so it's not surprising that such 
parties can't change the system, since they are the same system. 
That's not intrinsic to parties, though. To consider this more 
deeply, we would have to define "political party." What is it? Is, 
for example, MoveOn.org a "political party"?

>... political parties control all political activity in the United
>States and are in no sense democratic.

No, they are democratic *in some senses.* Not in others.

>... allowing those who control political parties to usurp the power of
>governing our nation is the antithesis of self-government.

Well, to be a bit oppositional, it is, rather, a "method" of 
self-government. It's a hybrid, partially self-government, but so 
vulnerable to manipulation that it often doesn't serve the public 
well. However, it also serves the public *well enough* that it 
successfully competed with alternatives. And if we want to change the 
system, we damn well better understand how it works, and by that I 
mean how it *works*. What is *good* about it? Why was it better than 
what came before? -- and it was.

And how did it contain the seeds of its own corruption?

>... to improve our political system, we must find a method of selecting
>our representatives that is not controlled by political parties.

Brilliant.

But, a little voice asks? *What representatives? Representatives to 
what? What is the function of these representatives, what power do 
they have. Do they have executive power, legislative power, 
appropriate power (which is connected with the coercive executive 
power of taxation), or merely the power to advise? Whom do they 
advise, if that is, instead, their function?

>Are these points offensive?  Are they wrong?  If so, in what way?

Well, I've read the proposed solution, that's a problem. In the place 
of a "method of selecting" that is controlled by parties, there is a 
method of selecting that is controlled by, apparently, a government, 
since it has the ability to impose restrictions on the process. Don't 
choose your rep within, what, three days?, and you aren't 
represented. For how long are you not represented? What if you change 
your mind? Does Joe continue to represent me even if I have concluded 
that Joe is an alien monster out to eat my children, and he was 
merely smoothly deceptive?

What's offensive, Fred, is that you have stepped into a room where 
there are people talking about changing the world and, instead of 
first learning what they have to say, and trying to understand it, 
you are putting forth your own ideas that seem to be, at least in 
some cases, rather half-baked. By all means, your ideas are welcome. 
But you will also encounter, here, some people who might actually 
*understand* your ideas, possibly even better than you. Or not. I 
make no final conclusion about that, and I've been wrong. On occasion.

What you will find here is people who will tell you, straightly, what 
they think. It's not always very polite, but it isn't vicious; 
rather, it is the kind of discourse that takes place among peers in 
certain segments of society, such as the student body at the 
California Institute of Techology, my home for a few years.

>If not, are they worthy of considerable intellectual effort to correct
>their ill effects?  Ought we not stand up and be counted?  How can we
>correct the conditions we presently endure?  If we can't do it in our
>lifetime, is it not incumbent on us to start the process so our progeny
>has something to build on?

Fred, some of us have started the process and are working intensively 
on it, and have been for years. I am. Care to join us? What can you 
offer? Skills?

Money?

What?