Discussion Question

Has America's level of distrust in its leaders and the corresponding apathy made America fundamentally ungovernable?

WTF?

Do either of the major political parties have any clear direction right now? The Democraps can't seem to do anything except act like the government will save us from, well, everything, and the Republicants are trying to dance somewhere between "Rush is Right" and "Democrats are Wrong."

More Word Definitions

Elitist: Modifier used by default to describe any idea coming from some source other than some lowbrow social group. If the source of the idea is a member of one of these groups, the word elitist will only be used by a member of the same or another group who either perceives himself less worthy, due to social norms within those groups, or who considers the holder of the idea to be arrogant, due to a host of bad reasons that people use to say someone else is arrogant (such as "we disagree" or "he was smiling when he said it.")

Lowbrow social group: Any group that someone decides is not worthy to be a regular social group. Because politicians and bored high-academics use the word elitist in the manner of lowbrows, their groups may be considered for lowbrow status on a case-by-case basis.

Judge: A person who, for the common good, either interprets and executes the law or who reviews the consistency of law.

Authority of a judge: What a judge is and is not allowed to do. In colloquial language, a judge has the authority to make good legal decisions but not to make bad legal decisions.

Good legal decision: One that goes your way.

Bad legal decision: One that doesn't go your way.

Activist Judge: A judge who makes even one bad legal decision. Especially in plural, judges are accused of being activist without regard to good legal decisions, which must be ignored for rhetorical purposes.

Who Is Matt Drudge?

Discuss.

Gratuitous Use of Labels

There are reasons why I left Atlanta. Here is one more example.

McCain Goes Veeping

Well, he had to do it eventually, so I don't see why it's news. I did pick up a cute little bit near the end, though.

Turning to the future, McCain said Americans are cynical about their country and their idea of liberty is "the right to choose among competing brands of designer coffee."

My comments are

1) True, but that last part is about apathy and the paralleling lack of education more than cynicism.

2) What Americans obviously need to do is care less about coffee. They should care more about supporting the Patriot Act, winning a war where the definition of "win" has not been defined, and begging for tax cuts to keep the deficit up.

3) Do we have any non-designer coffees running for president? All I see are spoiled career politicians. Where's the political equivalent of tall glass of sweet tea with a slice of lemon?

Election Methods

How should we choose our Commander-in-Chief, known to those of us outside the military as our President? I know a lot of people with a lot of ideas, so here we go.

Some people want to get rid of the electoral college in favor of a popular vote. That's lunacy, in my opinion. It is rare when the electoral votes do not favor the popular vote-- the numbers are meant to work that way. (Remember, the founders of this nation actually believed in integrity and knew some math, unlike our current crop of rich pricks and blood sucking lawyers.) The only times a problem can happen are when electoral districts have their populations out of whack. We don't need to replace the system, we need to re-work it for a society that moves faster than our census plus congress. Doing the census on a year right after a presidential election, rather than the year of one, would put the redistricting time in a better spot for preventing problems.

Some people I know have completely different voting schemes.

One friend of mine wants to let everyone vote in all parties' primaries. In other words, anyone can vote in the spring, and when they vote they select their choice for Democrat, for Republican, and for any other party that wants to be in the game. Top choice in all gets the convention delegates.

Another few people, including ProLPconserve here, have suggested versions where individual parties run more than one candidate, maybe their top two. That's a neat idea. My favorite way to go with it would be that the electors choose from among the top three, which in a two-party system would cause more imbalance between the congress and the administration. Hey, maybe we could make this a Republic after all!

I know at least one person who approves of a certain weighted voting scheme. In this method, the person chooses their first and second choice. The first gets two points, the second gets one point. The candidate with the most points wins. Who can guess what this person's worst subject in school was?

Johnny has an idea for a vote of no confidence. He explained it in an earlier comment--

Add a vote of "no confidence." This way people could make it clear that they actually want to vote for one candidate as opposed to against another. Also, we know if people actually like the third party candidate or just hate the other two. Additionally, if the vote of no confidence is greater than the other two candidates, then we have a new election without either candidate.

In a similar vein comes my personal favorite. I know one person who, to better reflect the way people actually make their choice, strongly supports that everyone gets to give their vote a sign, plus to vote for someone or minus to vote against someone. People could then vote either for a candidate or against a candidate, but not both. The only caveat is that the winner needs to get a positive number in the end. What if there is no positive number? For one thing, it would show how sad and sorry our ruling class is. Just to keep things moving, we could let the highest scorer into office with more limited powers for a half term (doing things like having congress select their cabinet and removing certain rights of the office). Other ideas bandied about at the bar have included rock-paper-scissors, light saber duels, skeet shootin', and Beirut.

So, what did I miss? Do you have any other ideas?

A Word From Sajak

He says it all himself. (Pity I didn't find that few days ago before it was outdated.)

Something Scary

Thanks to a friend for pointing out this gem to me.

Recent Shootings

This week's news included two candidates, both Republicans, trying very hard, metaphorically or for real, to join Tricky Dick's Deadeye Gun Club.

Mike Huckabee decided that shooting over reporters' heads was a good idea. Honestly, I have no problem with that. As a wee one, I was always the kid who threw darts over other people's heads and stuff like that. I'm a regular guy, though. Wise presidential candidates should always remember that media types can't think in more than one dimension (you know, getting both sides of the story). I doubt they know the difference between, say, shooting birdshot over someone's head or shooting a 30-06 at an animal with a playground full of kids 200 yards behind it. You don't get kudos for demonstrating mad gun skills in front of reporters who know nothing of hunting. You only get kudos for pointing a gun in someone's compass direction if you actually shoot over them and drop a bleeding bird carcass right onto them.

Fred Thompson, meanwhile, has been shooting himself in the foot. A few readings tells me that Fred Thompson would be happy to put up with being married to the American people if there's something in it for everyone, and he's therefore more interested in being president than in running for the office. Um, wow. I mean, that's okay. He's probably being more honest than a lot of people running for office, and thinking like that will not make him a bad leader. But you just can't get elected saying stuff that sounds anything like like "I don't want to be President, other people just put me up to it."

PETA Sucks

Really, they do. Seriously, what's up with this?

Animal loving-- okay. Special interest grudge holding smear campaigning-- priceless.

Harmony Among The Candidates?

or: Pet Sounds?

Read the Chicago Tribune's pet blog, Unleashed, on the pets of various presidential candidates.

This so totally makes me want to vote for McCain.

Fast and Loose

Adding to the other case I know, it seems that New Jersey's new Gov will need to deal with the fact that PA's smokies are just better drivers than his road trip buddies. Seriously. Worse roads, lower performance vehicle, higher speeds, and still no crashes for our Gov. Jersey drivers-- you need to think about this one a little.

So, how many other governors can we catch going too fast?

[Update: It's all so clear now]

Political Cynicism

or: These Days vs. Those Days

I've learned a lot about politics in the past few years...

I've learned that the simple "Christian iff. conservative" relationship preached to me for years just isn't right. I can be a bleeding heart liberal to my conscience's content and know that Jesus hasn't left my heart, although it'll be a miracle if most of my church and/or James Dobson or Pat Robertson figure that out.

I've done some lobbying, even visiting The Hill personally, and have seen how much of this "Democracy" is just a big insider game. Have you ever tried to schedule an appointment with those people? Did you know how much crap paper gets passed around about who is already planning to vote for what, what those things are called, and how to go about finding which person on a staff takes care of them so that you know who your appointment should be with? Do you know that there is basically an ettiquite for lobbying, one that you'll only find by word of mouth, and if you don't follow it then your pitch is likely to be ignored? If you said no to any one of those questions, congratualations! Someone who is supposed to represent you just ignored your cause! But thanks for sending an e-mail anyway.

The people who run for offices are generally slimeballs. They all lie. They all manipulate. None of them are fit for the jobs they take. They all act like total dolts to anyone with two thirds of a brain. Well, maybe all of them except Tom Coburn and Bob Casey. maybe. Of course, they all can get away with this because even people with five thirds of a brain-- a whole brain more than you need to see the lunacy!-- have other things in their lives that need attention. I am lucky to have a position as haute academique, a position that gives me plenty of time to Think, an activity that is a danger to shallow anything, including all of politics.

So, then I am left to ask, why has politics gone downhill so much in the past few years?

This is a natural question, of course, but recently I've decided it isn't the correct one. I have a simple reason for that conclusion, too. People I talk to of all ages, regardless of their views unless they're stuck on some particular person like JFK or Reagan or Ike and "if only he were still with us...," often will have a number of years that politics has been going downhill. That number of years, when they have it, always seems to be their age minus about twenty.

My conclusion, then, is twofold. First, politics has always been going downhill. Second, you don't realize this until you're turning into something resembling a grown-up.

As with most things, I have no solutions, just a gripe in the bucket.