[EM] language/framing quibble

[Stéphane Rouillon]

Hello Fred,

if I understand well you promote concurrency between political parties 
because we would benefit
from it as much we benefit from concurrency between companies. A copy from 
the capitalist dynamics from the marketplace toward the ideological ring? 
The more choice we have, the more power the customer or the voter has. Nice 
analogy.

But I was already a fan of proportional representation. You should try to 
sell your stuff to mecreants. ;-)
Steph

>From: Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke at verizon.net>
>To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
>Subject: Re: [EM] language/framing quibble
>Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:21:49 -0400
>
>Good Evening,
>
>re: "The construction of organizations and their interplay in the domain of 
>politics is, I think, more than anything else a process."
>
>I agree, and understanding the process is critical.
>
>Parties take on a life of their own ... and their life-blood is money. 
>Their primary and continuing concern is to attract the support they need to 
>insure their existence.  Ultimately, support is and must be financial.  
>Thus, parties are standing targets for the vested interests that benefit 
>from the laws they enact.
>
>In the United States, this process has been running for over 200 years.  
>During that time, we've seen the birth and cancerous growth of behemoths 
>that owe their existence to the laws they've purchased from the people we 
>elected, at the behest of the parties, to represent us in our government.
>
>As you say, it is a process, a process that includes gutting the laws 
>passed after The Great Depression to limit the excesses of huge financial 
>interests.  As a result, this very weekend, we are pondering how we can 
>prevent severe losses to foreign governments that trusted the integrity of 
>our financial institutions.
>
>The aspect of this circumstance that is commonly overlooked is that the 
>legislative acts that allowed the current contretemps were not seen to be 
>ideological in nature.  They were proposed and enacted as 'routine 
>housekeeping' tasks ... just 'cleaning up some old legislation'.  Since 
>they were not branded as liberal or conservative in nature, both parties 
>were able to support the changes without violating their ideological 
>franchise, hence their actions were unchallenged.
>
>By far, the greatest proportion of bad legislation is purchased and passed 
>in this way.  Imagining that ideological differences have a significant 
>impact on our legislative process is the height of folly.
>
>(In this connection, it is important to recognize that lobbying is a vital 
>part of the democratic process.  The evil is not lobbying, the evil is our 
>failure to build an infrastructure that can forestall the potential for 
>corruption inherent in the legislative process; the evil is our failure to 
>devise an electoral process that makes integrity a valuable trait in our 
>public officials.)
>
>
>re: "The process is influenced by both external and internal constraints: 
>what weakens and what strengthens."
>
>That's true.  It is a process that, by the natural operation of 
>self-interest, strengthens partisan control of our government and weakens 
>the people's influence.  That is NOT a good thing.
>
>
>re: "... multiple parties would keep any one party from gaining such 
>dominance that it could trump through policy unopposed, even more so since 
>the opposition of multiple parties would be stronger than the opposition of 
>a single party."
>
>That is correct.  The more we atomize the perspectives that combine to form 
>policies, the less opportunity there is for single-party dominance.  On the 
>other hand, to be effective, opposition parties must achieve significant 
>size and the larger they grow, the greater their susceptibility to 
>targeting and subversion on matters purported to be non-ideological.  That 
>portion of the process is Darwinian, and, right now, the 'fittest' are not 
>the humans among us.
>
>I must interject here that changes that weaken the stranglehold the two 
>major parties exert over the political infrastructure in the United States 
>are valuable.  My opposition is to the lack of understanding of the 
>process, the dynamics that produced the monster we currently endure.  As 
>you said, we need "... something with which to replace the old party 
>dynamics ..." but we can not find that 'something' until we understand how 
>and why our present system evolved as it did and learn to harness the 
>forces that guided its development.
>
>
>Fred
>----
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