[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Afternoon, Puho

I apologize for the tardiness of my response.  I've been away and had a 
considerable amount of work to dig through when I returned.

re: "I don't trust that groups of three would always make good decisions 
even if given time."  (I see you expressed a slightly different view in 
a later post.  My response is to this comment as it stands.)

As to any specific group, one may question the wisdom of their 
selection.  To doubt the wisdom of all the groups is to doubt the wisdom 
of humanity.  If that is your position, there's little I can say to sway 
your view.

For my part, I am confident that, allowed to individually and freely 
participate in the electoral process by expressing their views and 
questioning the views of others instead of responding to the mass 
manipulation of the media, the people will do so wisely.  They will, 
because it's in their own best interest to do so.  It is inconceivable 
that, when people are obligated to select between two others, their 
choices will consistently run counter to their own interest.  It is true 
some people consider their interest best served by their bigotry, but it 
is equally true such people are an infinitesimal part of society.


re: "Still I see 'good' and 'bad' partisans. We need to try to make the 
atmosphere and rules such that the good part gets more power and the 
risk of the system escalating to strange paths is small."

It is one thing to make such a statement.  It is something else entirely 
different to make it happen.  As I've said before, partisanship is 
healthy.  The danger is in allowing partisans to gain power.  We have 
far too much experience with the excesses of partisans in power to not 
recognize the danger.  If you feel that politics should be based on 
partisanship, you should be happy with the systems extant.  I don't, and 
I'm not.


re: "I'm sure there were people that felt something similar.  Many 
people don't open their mouth if they see the mainstream appearing to go 
in some other direction that what they would take."

That is, precisely and exactly, the point I've been making.  I've 
absolutely no doubt there were many people who felt as I did. Why did 
they not stand up and be counted?  They didn't because, as I said in an 
earlier message:

"... there is an enormous difference between our susceptibility to ideas 
spread by that technique (i.e., mass marketing) when we act as a large 
group and our ability to evaluate the same ideas rationally when we are 
called upon to consider them, individually."

You obviously recognize this, so I'm not sure why you resist the concept 
of a political system that allows people to consider issues, 
individually, rather than having answers, which they personally believe 
to be wrong, provided for them by mass marketing techniques.


re: "I think we are to some extent missing a commonly approved theory 
that would explain such phenomena where the current leaders may not take 
us into the right direction ..."

Perhaps you'd like to look my "Partisan Politics" post of Sunday, March 
2nd.  You may feel what it says is not commonly approved.  I will agree 
... as soon as someone rationally explains the flaws in the reasoning 
offered in that post.  As I've said before (though probably not here), 
one of the earliest lessons I learned in life was that it's OK to be 
"wrong".  The error is in refusing to consider the possibility.  Most of 
my ideas started out being "wrong" and gradually assumed their present 
form as I learned to understand why they were wrong and how they could 
be improved.  If someone can provide a rational refutation of any part 
of that post, I'll be indebted to them.

Fred