Re: Willful Ignorance
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Re: Willful Ignorance
 
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Many have been arguing for a long time that we need strict campaign finance reform laws. Most forget about it and allow their own representatives to vote against good reform laws propsoed in Congress. Without that, loopholes in any good legislation will be created and campaigning will be something funded by the wealthy and huge corporations.
It is loopholes that created the allowances to let many of these stock market heads, Federal Reserve and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac people to proceed. These loopholes are created by tiny amendments offered on seemingly important, ground breaking legislation. They are offered in return for cash contributions, etc. or for offers of getting to be a part of the action, of a future job, etc.
This isn't the only thing needing changed, but it is a large thing. We also need free or low cost courts .. if people could go to court more easily, or if good arbitration was set up allowing people to tackle the "bad guys" they knew of, then our system would also work better too.
But for now, the control is out of our hands ... we relinquish it every time we support candidates who do nothing, or refuse to run for office ourselves. I have been considering running for office, but wonder if I am not too burned out from my many years in Washington, D.C. ... We need many to run who recognize the need to trim the sails.
Peggy Miller
p.s. .. By the way .. hi to you all. Nice to read the exchange on this.
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peggy miller wrote:
> Many have been arguing for a long time that we need strict campaign > finance reform laws. Here's my suggestion - campaign contributions can only be given if one can vote in the election that the campaign is about. I wouldn't limit them if the donor is eligible - but all campaign contributions must be reported. -- Ray Parks [hidden email] Consilient Heuristician Voice:505-844-4024 ATA Department Mobile:505-238-9359 http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax:505-844-9641 http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Of course, the Supreme Court (the name now sounds surrealistic) has
prohibited the following suggestion citing a violation of free speech
but here it is anyway. All Federal elections should be federally funded
and all campaign contributions from any source should be prohibited.
Various qualification stages would be created and candidates would
then be given money. All candidates would be restricted to the same
spending limits.
Orlando Parks, Raymond wrote: peggy miller wrote: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Orlando -
I appreciated your riff of quotes earlier on this thread.... good contribution. Of course, the Supreme Court (the name now sounds surrealistic) has prohibited the following suggestion citing a violation of free speech but here it is anyway. All Federal elections should be federally funded and all campaign contributions from any source should be prohibited. Various qualification stages would be created and candidates would then be given money. All candidates would be restricted to the same spending limits.This sounds good on the surface but I fear we already suffer from it being way too hard for anyone without inside connections to get into the process. I have very few examples where bureaucracies (set up with all the best intentions) work to achieve the original purpose. They often seem to stymie as much as facilitate. That said, I'm not offering a better plan, though I agree that big campaign contributions are a problem in almost every case. - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Orlando Leibovitz
I think we should tax campaign contributions with progressively higher rates as the size of the contribution increases. If you want to give a candidate a million dollars, that's fine, by you'll need to cough up 10 million dollars because the contribution is taxed at 90%. Those who want to influence our government should be willing to contribute to paying the costs of their influence.
-- rec -- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Steve, it seems to me that if money was not an issue more people would
be able to enter the political process. Yes there would be a
bureaucracy but no larger then the one that currently exists...maybe
smaller. You get x signatures and you are in the process. You get more
and you begin to get money. Maybe people with no money and good ideas
would be heard.
Orlando Steve Smith wrote: Orlando - ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Thus spake Steve Smith circa 10/06/2008 10:46 AM:
> That said, I'm not offering a better plan, though I agree that big campaign > contributions are a problem in almost every case. But big campaigns (and big campaign contributions) are just a symptom of non-local (big) government. As long as we have a single government that governs 3.5 million square miles, we will have complex laws with lots of loopholes and aggressive special interests who drive campaigns (with money). The problem, in my view, lies with the way government accumulates upward to a peak. Granted, we have a decent system so that government accumulates upward to 3 (or 4, if you include the free press) peaks. But, it's still going from 300 million humans and 3.5 million mi^2 up to 3 peaks and 68 mi^2. I would suggest that the myriad problems with our government don't lie in any one identifiable cause, but are instead peppered throughout the accumulation... the way household government accumulates to neighborhood associations, villages, cities, counties, states, feds, etc. I'm totally ignorant of political science; but I wonder how much coherent work is out there on various objective-satisficing methods for accumulating government? I'm not talking about silo'ed research like "methods of state government" or "methods of county government", but methods for accumulating all the way up from (psychological) self-government of the individual to President, Congress, and the courts. Surely there exists some (by now, half-insane) systems theory people out there who've been ranting about this sort of accumulation, eh? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> As long as we have a single government that > governs 3.5 million square miles, we will have complex laws with lots of > loopholes and aggressive special interests who drive campaigns (with money). > Special interests with money would then just have to exert less energy manipulating any given local government. Without an encompassing government, there's no ready mechanism for enforcing regulation or a way to force large companies to break into pieces. > I would suggest that the myriad problems with our government don't lie > in any one identifiable cause, but are instead peppered throughout the > accumulation... Likewise for the inefficiencies in any large organization, whether it be a company, church, etc. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Orlando Leibovitz
Someone wanted to know what we could do. Well, to
break the connection between money and power which I think is a core
problem, nationwide, I'd start with:
Influence peddling:
Quick questions: What political animal does this make me? How do I get started? Can someone model all this to see if it would make a difference? Robert C ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Orlando Leibovitz
Orlando Leibovitz wrote:
> Of course, the Supreme Court (the name now sounds surrealistic) has > prohibited the following suggestion citing a violation of free speech > but here it is anyway. Ah, therein lies the beauty of my suggestion. By limiting contributions to registered voters, I've eliminated corporate and union backers from contributing (their members may do so). This should get past the Supremes because no-one not a voter can show a compelling interest in the race. Effectively, anyone not a voter in a particular race would have no standing to sue. Free speech is preserved for those who should have it - and denied to those without standing. -- Ray Parks [hidden email] Consilient Heuristician Voice:505-844-4024 ATA Department Mobile:505-238-9359 http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax:505-844-9641 http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Robert J. Cordingley
Lawrence Lessig is promoting his ideas on the topic of unbalanced influence and politics. Sent from my iPhone
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In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2
Excellent! That goes along with having people who profit
from pumping bubbles till their environments collapse to give it back. Another
impossibility would be persuade politicians not to sell themselves with
tempting empty promises, but by giving people better information for making
their own choices… Phil From:
[hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Roger
Critchlow I think we should tax campaign
contributions with progressively higher rates as the size of the contribution
increases. If you want to give a candidate a million dollars, that's
fine, by you'll need to cough up 10 million dollars because the contribution is
taxed at 90%. Those who want to influence our government should be
willing to contribute to paying the costs of their influence. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 11:46 AM:
> Special interests with money would then just have to exert less energy > manipulating any given local government. Without an encompassing > government, there's no ready mechanism for enforcing regulation or a way > to force large companies to break into pieces. Hmmm. I think I disagree. My first reaction is that mechanisms for "enforcing regulation" don't have to be artificial or explicit. In other words, there may be ways of constructing very local government so that aggregates of local governments have "natural" or implicit mechanisms for enforcing regulations. The same might be true for limits to certain types of corporate size. But my second reaction was that your response seems to indicate that you inferred my suggestion objects to big government. It doesn't. My suggestion is simply that the problems aren't _specific_ to any particular level of government. My suggestion is that the problem is with the way government accumulates (or aggregates). E.g. perhaps if state government was a direct, "natural", cumulative consequence (and _only_ a direct consequence) of city and county government, it would still exist as a big government, recognizable and identifiable, but then perhaps there would be many fewer "loopholes", nooks and crannies in the regulation and law through which its co-evolutionary population (us humans) could fit. >> I would suggest that the myriad problems with our government don't lie >> in any one identifiable cause, but are instead peppered throughout the >> accumulation... > > Likewise for the inefficiencies in any large organization, whether it be > a company, church, etc. True for any _artificial_ large organization. But is it true for a natural organization? I tend to think "no". It seems to me that the inefficiencies (loopholes, nooks, and crannies in the organization) of an organism provide a capability for balancing the fuzzy distinction between adaptive advantage and graceful failure. To a large extent, the more local the government, the more you see a similar balancing act. The peppering of problems throughout the "government stack" seems to be due to our crufty patchwork of explicit and naive applications at any given level. Perhaps we could come up with a set of integrative methods that helped ensure that any given band-aide (a.k.a. legislation) we applied would analyze downward and synthesize upward in a nice way. Do we do that already? When we pass a law (that's not ramrodded through like the Patriot Act or this $700b bailout), do we spend any time analyzing it to see its effect on lower levels of government or synthesizing it up to higher levels (UN?)? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
money is power (was Re: Willful Ignorance)
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In reply to this post by Robert J. Cordingley
Thus spake Robert Cordingley circa 10/06/2008 12:25 PM:
> Someone wanted to know what we could do. Well, to break the connection > between money and power which I think is a core problem, nationwide, I'd > start with: > [...] > Quick questions: What political animal does this make me? How do I get > started? Can someone model all this to see if it would make a difference? Well, I can't say what type of political animal it makes you; but I can say that breaking the connection between money and power seems like a fundamentally flawed concept to me. I take "money" to mean something like "a medium for exchange" ... a currency. And, in this sense, it's virtually identical to "power". The only way out of that is to establish some sort of non-exchangable rights... like inherited, non-transferable titles or ... royal blood. But, I could see attaching some sort of equitable transience to any given form of power. For example, the ownership, exploration, and maintenance of land is an inherently inertial form of power whereas money is very fluid (or even gaseous ;-). So, one could install, as a part of the definition of money some form of restrictions on its accumulation. Perhaps a promissory note should expire? Or degrade as time goes by? If I trade a pig for $50, then that $50 should only be good for about the same amount of time a pig would be good for? ... what? 10 years? This would discourage (though not debilitate) the trade of wealth for money and, thereby, discourage the type of money multiplication that's lead to the current crisis (and the paper millions of our newly rich). As for buying a political office (which is what we do in this country), perhaps those notes could be saddled with a decay appropriate to the office being bought? Pay for a 4 year position with 4-year money. Pay for a lifetime judgeship with 75-year money. Pay for mineral rights with 1000-year money. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)
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In reply to this post by glen ep ropella
glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> My suggestion is that the problem is > with the way government accumulates (or aggregates). > Ok, like the nature of the legislative process or what is constitutional. > E.g. perhaps if state government was a direct, "natural", cumulative > consequence (and _only_ a direct consequence) of city and county > government, it would still exist as a big government, recognizable and > identifiable, but then perhaps there would be many fewer "loopholes", > nooks and crannies in the regulation and law through which its > co-evolutionary population (us humans) could fit. I expect capable, intelligent managers are a subset of the population. If a local government represents too small of a region, there won't be competent people available to run things. I've seen plenty of incompetence and outright corruption in local governments too. Allowing for some expensive mistakes (and expensive successes) may encourage people to pay attention and engage -- they have something on the line. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)
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Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 01:49 PM:
> I expect capable, intelligent managers are a subset of the population. > If a local government represents too small of a region, there won't be > competent people available to run things. Good point. However, a complement is that if you have a small enough region, only those within that region can _possibly_ be competent enough to run things. A great example is an individual human. If _you_ can't manage your own mind/body, then nobody else has any hopes of doing it either. > I've seen plenty of > incompetence and outright corruption in local governments too. > Allowing for some expensive mistakes (and expensive successes) may > encourage people to pay attention and engage -- they have something on > the line. Yes. The beauty of local government is that it's easy to put someone in charge and it's easy to remove them, too. Sure, there's plenty of corruption and incompetence at any level; but the degree of accountability, installation, and removal scale, too. Likewise, the stakes for success and failure scale. One reason for the "nasty" politics we see is this very scaling. If you've got someone in an aggregated seat of power, then a) it was difficult for them to get there and b) it will be difficult to get them out of there. The trick is to find the critical spot in the hierarchy. And that usually turns out to be illegal behavior (based on nefarious and ridiculous nooks and crannies of the law) or _disgrace_. So, we politick by calling people hypocrites, racists, or whatever epithet may fit the bill because these control points trigger catastrophic collapses of the inertial systems built up in the government hierarchy. Of course politics for heavily inertial aggregated government positions will hinge on nasty cheap shots and sound bites. As much as I hate the idea, we _need_ things like President Bush's immunity from prosecution for decisions he made while doing his job. We need it to preserve the stability of the office in correspondence with the amount of effort it took to put him in that office. But what this leads one to (I think) is the conclusion that high office should be pressed upon the unwilling rather than sought out by those who want to hold that office. Perhaps we should make it a requirement of citizenship that you can be drafted into office when a "jury" of your peers decides that you're the best person to fill that role? Of course, that would lead to an entirely different selection mechanism that would encourage the occult jockeying for nomination, false modesty, etc. But I wonder how different (or how much worse) it could be than what we have now? It may even result in a "brain drain" where all the people at risk for being drafted move to Canada or something to avoid being forced to play President. ;-) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)
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glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> If _you_ can't > manage your own mind/body, then nobody else has any hopes of doing it > either. > But removing a brain tumor is beyond what I could do for myself. I'm also not the best person to build a space shuttle or for that matter solve a city septic system problem. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)
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Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 02:36 PM:
> But removing a brain tumor is beyond what I could do for myself. I'm > also not the best person to build a space shuttle or for that matter > solve a city septic system problem. Cute. [grin] But you're not talking about management, there. You're talking about execution. You _are_ the best person to determine whether or not you _need_ a tumor removed from your brain (regardless of how much an elitist M.D. might tell you otherwise). As for the much larger issues of space shuttles or septic systems, it is best to have a citizen of the city solve city septic problems. And it is best to have someone from the space shuttle affected regions to decide the when/where/who of building a space shuttle. The trick with those large region affecting decisions, of course, is how does one pick amongst many candidates from the region? But I certainly would not recommend drafting a person born, reared, and living in Milwaukie to make decisions about Los Angeles' septic system, because that increases the chances that "externalities" will be ignored (because the decision maker is out of context, abstracted, ignorant). -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)
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glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> But you're not talking about management, there. You're > talking about execution. You _are_ the best person to determine whether > or not you _need_ a tumor removed from your brain (regardless of how > much an elitist M.D. might tell you otherwise). > If a community doesn't access to people with the skills to effectively solve a problem, then the problem won't get solved. Management is just one skill set. I could have a brain tumor that's just a lump of harmless gunk, or one that was likely to kill me, or one that would be likely to kill me, but intervention will only kill me sooner. The `management' decision I can make is basically limited to how many opinions I can get or how much research it's feasible for me to do in a short amount of time. It's parameterized by my desire for quality of life over a certain amount of time and tolerance for risk. The medical advice drives the decision and in this sense, the decision is made for me. > And it > is best to have someone from the space shuttle affected regions to > decide the when/where/who of building a space shuttle. Here again, the benefits of developing a space program are intangible to many, yet hugely valuable in the end. The car salesman that didn't want his taxes going to (frivolously) a send a man to the moon, doesn't connect the fact that 45 years later she is watching DirectTV thanks to that leadership and the national aggregation of wealth that facilitated it. The most real stuff there is comes from sustained developed of theory and technology, and that often takes real money, beyond what local communities can fund. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Robert J. Cordingley
Robert, You complain about the dominance of money?? How about adding
a way to cap the compounding of unearned income somewhere below infinity…? I
can only model the negative image of that, what can’t happen if that’s not done,
though. Very few people are exploring the consequences of making money finite
and sustainable that way. Phil From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Robert Cordingley Someone
wanted to know what we could do. Well, to break the connection between
money and power which I think is a core problem, nationwide, I'd start with:
On voting
rights and polling
OR
and
it probably goes on ... We might need a national voter registration database
(ooooo...tricky) and way more cooperation between different arms of government
than we probably now have (ever more tricky). ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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