[EM] language/framing quibble

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Fred Gohlke wrote:
> Good Morning, Kristofer
> 
> Thank you very much for the link to the Mother Jones article describing 
> efforts to curtail the utter domination corporations exert over our 
> existence.  Perhaps, in time, reason will triumph.
> 

[snip]

Again, I don't have much to comment on, but I will on the few things I 
think I should.

> Do we have the stomach for such a solution?  We sequester juries in 
> important cases.  Should the conduct of our government be deemed less 
> worthy of objectivity?

Do the people? I don't know. If they do, and you can get this working, 
that is good, but I'm not sure if they would accept such... immediate 
difference. I'll reiterate that I'm not saying it can't work, just that 
I'm unsure if it would be accepted.

> re: "... what we really need is radical transparency ..."
> 
> In this section, you note the shortcomings of this approach.  In 
> addition to those you mentioned, there is the problem that, with the 
> proper incentive, one may justify taking almost any position.  It's 
> called obfuscation and the most corrupt people are the most adept at the 
> practice.  Demanding transparency from a partisan politician is like 
> holding back the tide with a pencil.

What I mean by radical transparency is not transparency of the 
candidates' thoughts, but rather an as extensive disclosure of the 
information that is part of the process. For instance, if a politician 
says he supports issue X (which can be anything), yet legislative 
records show that he votes against X, then the disclosure or 
transparency granted by the legislative records has served a purpose in 
informing the people that the politician is not being truthful.

Since legislative records are commonplace (both actions and 
deliberations, e.g the Hansard), this example may be obvious; but it 
shows that going by the idea of keeping everything related to a decision 
public unless the opposite is required (rather than private unless the 
opposite is required) can help the people find out if the 
politicians/councilmembers/etc. are acting for different reasons than 
what they claim. See also the Wikipedia article: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_transparency