[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Morning, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax

After studying your missive, it appears you make three points:  Your 
preference for Free Association, your advocacy of Delegable Proxy, and 
your travails with Wikipedia.  As to the latter, I can offer neither 
help nor guidance.  I will, however, comment on the other two.

Delegable Proxy
The wisdom of delegating one's proxy in an election is directly 
proportional to the knowledge one has of the person to whom the proxy is 
delegated.  In the absence of a clear description of the method by which 
one's proxy will be bestowed upon another, it is not possible for me to 
evaluate the logic of the suggestion.

Free Association
In suggesting government by Free Association, you cite the functioning 
of Alcoholics Anonymous as an example.  I stand second to no-one in my 
admiration for that organization.  To the extent we can learn from it, 
we will all be winners.

As an example of Free Association, though, Alcoholics Anonymous does not 
fit the bill.  Those who join AA are by no means free.  They are driven, 
to the point of self-destruction.  They join AA to avoid that terrible 
consequence.  Those blessed by nature with not having to spend their 
lives battling such an evil, lack the incentive for such association. 
You may argue, and perhaps you do, that humans are addicted to 
self-gratification and should form an association to control that 
manifestation.  If so, your description of how it's to be done needs body.

Your assertions that the solution is "astonishingly simple" and is only 
forestalled by "ignorance, cynicism, and despair" are of questionable 
merit.  By what yardstick can such a verdict be rendered?  Whose 
profound knowledge makes that judgment valid?  To say the people are 
ignorant, cynical and despairing must, presumably, include me, and I'm 
averse to accepting that characterization.

Such a view is self-defeating.  Voters are human.  They react to stimuli 
in a human fashion.  If they are lazy and ignorant, they have always 
been so and will always be so.  Sermonizing will not change them.

There are a multitude of reasons why people vote as they do.  Party 
loyalty, name recognition, union membership, corporate influence, radio 
and television promotion, "issues", and any number of other things 
influence how one's vote is cast.  The fact that the result of those 
votes displeases us does not justify impugning the intellect or ambition 
of those who voted contrary to our preference.

Those who control our political infrastructure are professionals and 
their profession is getting their candidates elected.  Their job is to 
persuade the electorate to vote for their candidate.  To imagine them 
incompetent at their trade is to grossly underestimate them.

We need to look deeper.  We have to question things we've taken for 
granted most of our lives because those are the things that produced our 
present state of affairs.  If you still feel the public is ignorant, or 
cynical or whatever, and the solution is simple it would be best if we 
move on to another ... hopefully more productive ... point.

Fred