If you're a Republican, the richer you are, the more likely to identify as conservative you are. If you are rich, you are more likely to be economically conservative and socially liberal, which partially explains the dramatic overrepresentation of useless Friedman/Brooks types in the chattering classes.
Financing public elections with private money is a terrible way to run a democracy. Full stop.
Here's what I don't understand -- what's the alternative?
I understand why it would improve things to have more public financing, but I don't think it's going to be possible to get private money out of it entirely.
I just think that election outcomes have too much value to people for it to be possible to completely restrict their ability to put weight one side of the election or the other.
But no, while it's a statement of faith among Republicans that all liberals are limousine liberals, the numbers don't really seem to bear that up, and the Bopp argument that rich people are a fifth column of Alinsky sleeper agents is risible.
I understand why it would improve things to have more public financing
See, for example Michael Waldman:
The next generation of reforms must build on the hopeful trends of recent years. The small-donor revolution most evident in the 2008 Obama campaign is real, if incomplete. Social media have begun to transform campaigning while lessening costs. A new democracy movement, I believe, should pursue two key reforms that share a premise of maximizing participation.
First, we must finally and fully embrace a model of public funding focused on boosting the power of small donors. For example, New York City's system provides multiple matching funds for small contributions. A contribution of $100 becomes $700 (real money, even in Tribeca). Candidates fuse their fundraising and organizing strategies.
Such an approach does not end all private fundraising. (Indeed, it recognizes that some giving is a token of enthusiasm by real live voters.) It does not purport to stop spending by wealthy candidates or independent groups. It does, however, create an alternative platform on which to build a different kind of politics without addiction to special-interest funding.
The second key pro-participation reform is to ensure that every eligible citizen can vote. . . .
I'm not sure what the relevance of Bopp's claim would be even if it were true. Suppose most rich people are liberal and rich people donate a lot to liberal causes; so what? What's that got to do with corporate spending?
Well, you all know what I think about elections in general.
Part of the solution is not to have primary and electoral campaigns that last for years. I'm sure all kinds of smart people have made policy proposals on how to accomplish this, so I won't try to come up with anything here. (And I have no time right now to look up what ideas are out there.)
6: I actually don't know, but if you're going to say it doesn't make a difference who's in power, I'm going to smack you with a transvaginal ultrasound probe.
You're all so focused on the trees that you can't see the forest.
5: he's just trying to level the playing field. If you don't allow big corporations with their heartland values to contribute unlimited funds to political campaigns, the limousine liberals will buy off all the politicians and run roughshod over the common people, burdening them with progressive taxation, crippling them with subsidized healthcare, and crushing their innovative spirits with environmental regulations, social safety nets, work-safety rules and the like.
10: You joke, but I heard the argument that this would finally provide a counterbalance to the unions made explicitly and without contradiction on NPR the other day.
Well, you all know what I think about elections in general.
I think replacing elections with selection by lot would shift the money to lobbying rather than remove money and influence from the political system (and, yes, we've had that discussion before).
Lessig has a new-ish book on this very topic. I haven't read it yet.
Gelman's "Rich State Poor State, Red State Blue State" really gives the definitive answer to this questions, not that that means that the bullshit will stop.
1. In every area, the rich are more Republican and more economically conservative than the poor.
2. In the poor states (South, great plains, and mountain, mostly) both the rich and the poor are more conservative than their counterparts in the rich states.
3. In the rich states, the divide between rich and poor is less than it is in poor states, mostly because the well-off in these states are much more likely to be liberal Democrats (though still less liberal and Democratic than the poor in those states).
4. The rich are far more likely to be socially liberal than economically liberal, and the reverse is true for the poor.
5. The culture wars are within the rich demographic.
Not mentioned by Gellner, but the poor in all states are less likely to vote. Also not mentioned specifically by him, politicians pay a lot of attention to the top third of the income pyramid, some attention to the middle third, and no attention to the bottom third.
9: The complaint cites Dred Scott, "which has never been distinguished (overturned)."
I saw this post right at the hour and so turned on my local NPR affiliate to listen to the interview referenced, thinking perhaps it would help me make a thoughtful and substantive comment.
Here is that comment: I am sick to the bone of listening to cynical conservative pigfuckers tell the most outrageous lies and pretend to believe the most retarded nonsense while feeling obligated by social convention to pretend that I could even momentarily take them seriously.
So, I fail at advancing the discourse.
My favorite part of Bopp's interview was at the end where he suggests that Ted Olson took the gay marriage case because he's a mercenary lawyer who goes where the money is (with homo-loving liberals, see!?) and is of course not a principled conservative.
Oh, now NPR is telling me about the Virginia dildo-rape law. Excellent.
DRED SCOTT, OFTEN IMITATED, NEVER DUPLICATED
the Virginia dildo-rape law
There were some odd moments during Diane Rehm's show recently on the Virginia law during which the representative conservative said that according to abortion provider places, 85% (or more) of providers already use a transvaginal probe as a matter of course prior to the abortion procedure. Huh. Diane et al. didn't really question whether that was true, or say much about it.
@21: I want to move to the planet where a radio host, taken by surprise by the latest hard-to-believe conservative bullshit talking point factoid, which, given the white-hot creative forge for bullshit talking points conservatives have at their disposal, is totally forgivable, would respond by saying something like, "is that true, really? Can you refer our listeners to a source for that information, because I think many will find it surprising, like I do. If you don't have it handy, you can contact the station after the show and we'll link your reference on the show's website."
Hahaha. I know, I know.
19: I'd like to commend your use of the term "pigfuckers," which I've been muttering under my breath for years now but haven't heard in the public discourse nearly enough.
On topic, I am for some reason on an election law listserv where Bopp is an active participant, and can confirm that he really is a dick all the time, and that for him to say that "liberals spend money on liberal causes" as though it were somehow dispositive of the issue of the influence of corporate money in politics is 100% in character.
the representative conservative said that according to abortion provider places
Wait, was that actually how he cited the source? "Abortion provider places"?
The proposed Virginia law was stupid and offensive, but I am not comfortable with arguments against it that equate a mandatory medical procedure with rape.
Thing is, sex and medical procedures have very different rules surrounding consent. For instance, you can give proxy consent for a medical procedure, but you cannot give proxy consent for sex. Also, if sex required medical levels of information disclosure to be consensual, the paperwork would almost make it not worth the effort.
If a mandatory transvaginal probe is rape, does that mean a voluntary one is sex?
This may be a pedantic philosophical point, but then again, I'm a philosophical pedant.
Also, it pains me to say that, as much as I disapprove of Stanley's puns generally, I approve the title to this post.
Even supposing 21 to be true, surely there's a difference between an invasive procedure performed as a matter of course, with consent, and the same invasive procedure performed as a matter of law, without consent.
22: Diane Rehm normally does do that. The token conservative panelist said that if you call Planned Parenthood, they will confirm what she said (that 85-90% of abortion providers already do a transvaginal probe). Diane repeated that and asked about it a couple of times, about what Planned Parenthood has to say, but didn't go any further to say that her people would investigate. I was disappointed, it's true, but Rehm is not generally among the useless on these kinds of things.
To be clear, I agree with you that all these pigfuckers really are pigfuckers. I just think about the ethics of consent in my job a lot, and develop strong opinions about it.
21 - And of course, Diane Rehm (who is a fine radio host) was too busy ignoring the large, grunting pig that her guest was fucking to note that there's a distinction between a terrifically invasive procedure that you're undergoing as part of a larger medical procedure and being forced to do so against your will? (Or was the idea more like, "Oh, hey, we're only using the power of state coercion to shove oversized dildos up the hoo-hahs of 15% of women receiving abortions for no reason, what are you zany dames complaining about?")
@23: Thanks. After a while, one's power of profanity never seems adequate to the job.
he really is a dick all the time
Based only on the Fresh Air interview, I certainly find this easy to believe.
My OTHER favorite part of the interview was all the long pauses where it's clear that Gross, not exactly inexperienced at dealing with full-of-shit guests, still could not believe the shit this guy was saying.
I didn't get to hear much of the interview, but my favorite part was when she called him "Jim Bopp" in saying farewell.
but Rehm is not generally among the useless on these kinds of things.
Is there another Diane Rehm somewhere? Because that has not been my listening experience at all. Not that she's particularly useless, just the typical NPR useless.
I haven't actually followed this controversy at all, other than through blog comments, mostly here. What is the conservative argument in support of the law? That the transvaginal probe is an improvement to the process, that should be used by all providers anyway? (That would make the fact that 85% of providers already do it a fairly relevant fact; it's "look, we're trying to protect women from that unscrupulous 15%".)
25: I agree to equate this procedure with rape is problematic. The related point to which I am much more sympathetic is that people should be especially careful not to be pushy about this sort of thing when the law affects a population who are disproportionately likely to be rape victims in the first place.
Granting that not all cases of penetration-without-consent are the same, these women in particular should not be subjected to it. That's where I've seen the word rape enter the discussion for the most part, and that point I think is valid.
27: That's the approach most of the Diane Rehm panel took to the question. I'm not sure it entirely works, if it is indeed the case that consent to an abortion already includes consent to the ultrasound anyway.
There's an important line to be drawn, obviously, but IF it is the case that consent to abortion requires consent to the ultrasound already, then you can't make out that women consenting to an abortion are being legally forced to submit to an unconsenting ultrasound.
34 gets it right: if (IF) most women getting abortions already get this, it doesn't need to be legally mandated.
I disagree with gswift about Diane Rehm, but I was seriously disappointed with her on this one.
6: I actually don't know, but if you're going to say it doesn't make a difference who's in power, I'm going to smack you with a transvaginal ultrasound probe.
The reason we need to look beyond elections is precisely that it does matter, quite a lot, who's in power; and while elections are certainly superior to pure oligarchy or autocracy, as a method for restraining elite dominance, they've just not good enough.
What NickS says about how resources would shift towards influencing the representatives rather than electing them is probably true, but this would still be an improvement. The problems with lobbying as it stands are twofold:
(1) because politicians need buckets of cash to run competitive campaigns, even if there aren't any explicit or implicit quid-pro-quos going on, the simple need to always give a respectful hearing to the people with money means that they simply don't have the time to listen to other people; their sense of what counts as a reasonable argument gets distorted; and
(2) because of (a) the need to continually raise money alluded to above, (b) the felt need to spend much of the remaining time (and staff resources) on constituency services, and (c) the short-term time horizons felt at least at the level of House members in the US, it's very difficult for individual legislators to really invest in policy expertise. So lobbying often takes the form, and has influence as, outsourced policy research. And it's not that any particular lobbyist-pushed policy argument is wrong, but simply that when the only arguments you hear are the ones that have money behind them, it changes things.
How would this change under random-lot selection? Well, you (as legislator) no longer need to campaign, so you don't need lobbyists' money, so there's simply no reason to give them your precious time if you don't find their stories intrinsically worthwhile. You also have much more time to spend on learning policy, since fundraising & constituent services currently take up the lion's share of (at least House members') time; the former would be entirely pointless, and the latter would be institutionally separated and assigned to different (also elected-by-lot) officials.
It's true that officials will have, if anything, an even greater demand for accessible sources of policy knowledge. And it's true that right now, this ecological niche is dominated by the Heritages or at best Brookingses of the world--institutions that exemplify that old "where you stand depend on where you sit" line. But I believe that, when decoupled from the functional need to give limited time to those with cash, as well as the need to make decisions based on reasons that can be justified to an ignorant public, legislators would have more incentive to look for reliable rather than simply safe sources of policy knowledge.
That said, because of how dependent the outcome of even perfect procedural rationality is on one's pre-existing beliefs, that might well mean a massive increase of extreme views, on all sides, within the new Random Lot Legislature.
36.2: Maybe I'm misinterpreting something, but "as a matter of course" doesn't mean 100% of the time to me. It just means that most women do consent, which has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you can override the objections of those who don't.
What is the conservative argument in support of the law? That the transvaginal probe is an improvement to the process, that should be used by all providers anyway?
No, of course not. The law is in no way designed to improve medical services. It serves the same purpose as this law.
If a mandatory transvaginal probe is rape, does that mean a voluntary one is sex?
Sometimes, yes. I would have thought one wouldn't need to be reminded of this At The Mineshaft.
Less flippantly: just because everything that counts of sex, when consent is subtracted, becomes rape or sexual assault, doesn't mean that you can reverse this transformation, because "sex" is such a normatively-loaded conceptual mess. (Though if you add not merely consent but enthusiasm, desire, and pleasure, that's probably a reliable guide.)
39: of course. I wasn't asking what the purpose of the law is--that's obvious. I was asking what the conservative argument in support of the law is.
40.2 is right. I need to think about this more.
what the conservative argument in support of the law is
Well, the lame argument I keep seeing trotted out is that "why would anybody oppose a law that simply makes a consumer more informed about what they are purchasing?"
Because, of course, no pregnant woman has the first idea what's inside her. Might be a Pokemon. Or a banana. Or a ball of string.
What NickS says about how resources would shift towards influencing the representatives rather than electing them is probably true, but this would still be an improvement. The problems with lobbying as it stands are twofold:
I'm still not convinced and, reading that now, I would offer a question -- what motivations do you think would push these randomly selected legislators to try to do a good job in their time in office?
I feel like humans have natural tendencies towards both responsibility and irresponsibility and that it's worth thinking about how that would play out if somebody was given a job that they didn't (necessarily) seek and will have for a specific period of time.
One motivation might be a general sense of responsibility to one's community. But, as you acknowledge, that doesn't necessarily include an desire to expand one's definition of "community." It's easy for people to think of that as, "I want to help out the people that I think of as my peers."
One motivation might be a desire to not be publicly embarrassed -- but I feel like that's a standard set by the group behavior not by any objective standard. If everybody on the legislature is half-assing everything it's hard to be embarrassed if you're doing so as well (the converse might or might not be true. The US Congress proves that some people are highly resistant to embarrassment).
44: They're trading on the same form of argument liberals use in support of the health care reform bill's mandates that various types of preventative care be provided free of charge.
40:Vat da fock, ain't that complicated. Everding that ain't tot is Wunsch.
44 is almost totally incoherent in this context. "More informed about what they are purchasing"? What? That doesn't make any sense.
Also, I've never heard a conservative wonder why anybody would "oppose a law that simply makes a consumer more informed about what they are purchasing" in any other context. Especially one that imposes additional regulation on the private sector.
I don't think there's even a surface argument other than McMegan's "it's meant to discourage abortions."
50: but that's not really good enough, is it? (Legally, I mean.)
I mean, I'm generally against trying to make moral arguments through conceptual fiat ("theft" instead of "unlicensed copying", etc.). And "rape" is probably a bridge too far here, so to speak--but "sexual assault" seems on pretty solid ground. The entire reason there's such an elaborate institutional structure of consent built up around the practice of medicine is precisely that (a) so much of what surgeons, in particular, do would otherwise be assault, while simultaneously (b) it's individually and socially hugely valuable to have a regular way for this to happen as an everyday matter-of-course. What you say about how the institutional structure for medical consent would, if applied to sex, make it not worth the bother, is missing the point: it's not that the act is different because of the institutional safeguards we've set up around it, it's that we've set up the institutional safeguards because the social context of surgery as something that needs to happen on a mass scale, and not merely can but ought to be performed in a public, specialized setting, allows for and recommends the institutionalization of consent in a way that "normal" sex doesn't.
So: in both cases, the very same fundamental interests in bodily integrity, and particularly bodily integrity related to one's sexual organs, are implicated. That said, if we think the perpetrator's state of mind or intentions are relevant to the wrongness of sexual assault, of course the mandated-ultrasound case is different--but I suspect we think the perpetrator's intentions are relevant only to our judgments of blameworthiness, not to our judgments of the harm done by the act. Certainly the history of the medical profession is littered with horror stories of doctors who probably didn't intend to but nevertheless clearly violated their patients, largely because consent wasn't so thoroughly institutionalized.
51: Good enough for what? To get my vote, certainly not. But to garner support among legislators, it obviously is, and to pass constitutional muster, sure -- nearly all laws just need to have a rational basis.
I guess it's not much different than waiting periods or mandatory pro-life brochure distributions, come to think of it. Although those at least had more colorably legitimate defenses.
I dislike 40.2 a whole lot.
The really big important words like "human" "freedom" and "sex" should be kept as broad and ambiguous as possible, including as much as we can sanely fit in them, precisely to obligate and empower the descriptive and normative faculties, our right and responsibility to categorize, value, rank.
Really "bad humans" are still human for any meaning of "bad"
46: I'm still not convinced and, reading that now, I would offer a question -- what motivations do you think would push these randomly selected legislators to try to do a good job in their time in office?
You're certainly right that this is the crux of the problem, and I don't pretend to have detailed prescriptions. It's easy to imagine the kind of "everyone half-assing it" equilibrium you describe emerging, and being self-reinforcing. (However, I think what you say about Congressfolks being immune to shame/guilt has [you guessed it!] a lot to do with elections--elections select for extroverted sociopaths; the sort of person who can walk into any room and have everyone love them is often the sort of person who will rarely be paralyzed by regrets.)
That said, I think people generally want to do a good job when entrusted with positions of honor and responsibility, and often the real trouble comes when there are external measures of "good job" that allow such people to actively evade doing the right thing. Not just the old "I was only following orders," but also "it's our job to maximize shareholder value" and even "I'm doing what my constituents want." In a sense, the lack of any such external standards--no sub-constituencies, for example--in the Trapnel Lot System is a feature, not a bug: I think legislators, more than anyone else, ought to wake up every day in a state of existentialist near-terror: I must choose!
However--and there's a bit of tension here, I admit it--the Trapnel Lot System would also have randomly-selected grand-jury-ish panels to investigate cases of truly gross incompetence/dereliction of duty.
The really big important words like "human" "freedom" and "sex" should be kept as broad and ambiguous as possible, including as much as we can sanely fit in them, precisely to obligate and empower the descriptive and normative faculties, our right and responsibility to categorize, value, rank.
I actually sort of agree with this, at least a certain interpretation of it, at least sometimes; what I was trying to get at with 40.2 was an explanation of why often people will, as Rob did, judge that "sexual assault + consent ≠ sex"--the answer being precisely that folks in fact tend to load "sex" with a lot of extra (usually positive) baggage.
In a sense, the lack of any such external standards . . . I think legislators, more than anyone else, ought to wake up every day in a state of existentialist near-terror: I must choose!
I really like that idea, I also don't see that being stable.
One of my repeated experiences of adolescence was starting some new activity, and becoming disillusioned by the fact that what motivated people was not [intrinsically cool aspect X of the activity] but rather [wanting to look like they were performing X]. My personal theory is that people really, really want standards and that if they don't exist then some culture will quickly come into existence which provides such standards -- inevitably distorting people's behavior.
It is one of the few beliefs which I strongly hold which I also consider to be deeply cynical, but I'm pretty convinced by that one.
I admit that 59 gets at something very real, and that might well be a real problem for my scheme. (Though it's a problem that any system that takes democratic authority seriously has to deal with.)
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Meanwhile, in Canuckistan... some more wacky hijinks from GOP North!
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I understand from TPM that in Virginia, both the transvaginal ultrasound bill and the odious "Personhood Amendment" have been postponed. TPM's headline seems a bit off: it's not clear that the personhood amendment has been 'killed'.
61: Wow. Took one from the Bob Ehrlich playbook.
61: Sorry you guys are going through that. It's not uncommon down here in GOP south -- a case involving deceptive robocalling here in Maryland did wind up going to prosecution, and the evildoer is duly sentenced to, um, some fines and like 120 hours of community service. But at least he was taken to task!
Since this is the gender rights thread, I'll note that Maryland's same-sex marriage bill passed its Senate today. The Governor will sign it, 'cause he's a good guy, and it was actually his bill in the first place.
Fan-fucking-tastic. Of course it will probably go to a popular referendum to overturn it in November, but let's just say this is wonderfully good news.
It's true that officials will have, if anything, an even greater demand for accessible sources of policy knowledge. And it's true that right now, this ecological niche is dominated by the Heritages or at best Brookingses of the world--institutions that exemplify that old "where you stand depend on where you sit" line. But I believe that, when decoupled from the functional need to give limited time to those with cash, as well as the need to make decisions based on reasons that can be justified to an ignorant public, legislators would have more incentive to look for reliable rather than simply safe sources of policy knowledge.
Er, why? Why wouldn't lot-selected officials become figureheads for the civil servants who know where the bodies are buried? Why reliable? You are assuming these representatives share your opinions. Fund raising is overrated as an explanation of policy stances.
Also, you're nuts if you think politicians don't have time to do policy; they don't spend time on it, but that's cause policy is No Fun, and in fact actively unpleasant. But politicians have people of their own to do policy, and it doesn't help. Time is not the problem.
Eliminating constituency work is actually an appallingly illiberal and anti-representative idea (and in America unconstitutional): the right to petition the government is hugely fundamental. It would also further seperate legislators from the public.
I don't think they'd share my views, no. They'd probably have fairly representative views, and mine aren't those. I don't feel like addressing 1 or 2, except that I disagree and think I have good reasons to disagree, but as for 3, I'm not talking about eliminating constituency service, just reassigning it. There's no particular reason why I should be writing to my Congressperson in order to get a SNAFU with my Social Security checks sorted out. Neither liberalism nor representative theory give good reasons for so closely tying legislative function to ombudsman-ism. As for constitutionality, I don't give a fuck about the constitution. Let's start with California.
Yes they do, it's one of the fundamental features of representative democracy that people be able to go to their representative if they have a problem. If you reassign* that duty, you destroy one of the most valuable tools a representative has for actually connecting with their community.
(It isn't just unconstitutional in a big C written down way, but in a deep-constitution sense, in that it is one of those things so deep in our system that to remove it would require destroying pretty much every other right going.)
There's two good reasons that you should write to your rep about social security fuck-ups**: they have an (indirect) governance & oversight role over Social Security, & they write the rules Social Security works under. It makes sense that they should hear problems about the system.
Further, what incentive to find reliable policy is there? In fact, what incentive is there to find any policy at all, as opposed to just following the policies you are given, by the lobbyists & civil service power structures? After all, the US already has citizen-decision-making-procedures called elections. You seem to think they don't work. Why should this one be any better?
* Reassigned being one of those classic euphemisms that covers up the reality of what would be essentially impossible.
** There should, entirely obviously, be ways to resolve most of this stuff that don't require going to your representative. But the ability to go to your representative is important.
I'm kind of puzzled by what you seem to imagine my idea is--I'm not saying legislators ought to be sitting in some Undisclosed Location somewhere, unreachable by anyone outside. If anything, because (a) I would want there to be more of them than there are currently, and (b) they'd be randomly selected, your median citizen would be "closer," in a sociological, knows-someone-who-knows-them sense, to some legislator than is now likely to be the case. Of course folks can and would and should contact legislators if laws aren't to their liking, or if their execution seems to be going awry. The difference, of course, is that under my system you couldn't vote out a legislator just because he was ignoring your emails, though, as I said to Nick, there's doubtless some role for tribunals to investigate true dereliction of duty.
Look, I'm very much aware that parliaments--some more so, some less so--have evolved to have oversight roles at least as important as their legislative roles. And I'm all about multiple, even multiply redundant, layers of oversight and accountability. I just don't think elections are a particularly helpful mechanism for that, certainly not so much so that we ought to think of them as the fundamental core of democracy. It's just weird to think that we ought to be ensuring the performance of (to continue the Social Security example) a vast civil-service protected bureaucracy by giving a vague, not-really-legally defined power to "get stuff done" to individual legislators, who in turn exert themselves and devote staffing to the issue out of fear that a reputation for not doing so might have them lose the next election. As opposed to, as you acknowledge, regular and well-institutionalized mechanisms of resolving grievances with bureaucratic agencies.
As for what's the point of all this--what's wrong with elections--I don't feel like rehashing here what I've already linked to, but basically: people who can get themselves elected are not normal. This isn't just about wealth, though wealth plays a large role; in every dimension, they're much more likely to be members of society's winners. I think this is problematic.
The difference, of course, is that under my system you couldn't vote out a legislator just because he was ignoring your emails, though, as I said to Nick, there's doubtless some role for tribunals to investigate true dereliction of duty.
In fact I would have almost no way of influencing a legislator at all. I would still be in the top ten percent of people in terms of input into the political process in your proposed plan, because I am a well-spoken, articulate, privileged member of the technocratic class. A rich person who could hire large numbers of people like me to work for them full time lobbying would have a huge amount of input compared to me. Most people would have no input at all.
The fundamental problem is that your system destroys representative democracy & to be honest, I would rather live in bob's revolutionary soviets than under your dictatorship of the lucky and the extremely good at doing the numbers.
Part of the solution is not to have primary and electoral campaigns that last for years. I'm sure all kinds of smart people have made policy proposals on how to accomplish this, so I won't try to come up with anything here. (And I have no time right now to look up what ideas are out there.)
Difficult when all elected offices are for fixed terms. Everybody knows when the next election is going to be so obviously they start campaigning as soon as the last one is done. Or you get a case like Chris Christie who is clearly running for President in 2016 because he knows there's going to be a presidential election on a set date in that year.
But the only current alternative is the one where the incumbent can pick the date of the election , within limits, to suit themselves, as in many parliamentary systems. In Britain, frex, the election has to be within 10 weeks (I think) of the dissolution of Parliament, so unless the government lets the Parliament go to full term, which is more unusual than not, parties are only in full on campaign mode for two or three months every few years. But there's a strong argument that this unacceptably biases the election in favour of the incumbent. So.
It's just weird to think that we ought to be ensuring the performance of (to continue the Social Security example) a vast civil-service protected bureaucracy by giving a vague, not-really-legally defined power to "get stuff done" to individual legislators, who in turn exert themselves and devote staffing to the issue out of fear that a reputation for not doing so might have them lose the next election. As opposed to, as you acknowledge, regular and well-institutionalized mechanisms of resolving grievances with bureaucratic agencies.
You know, I may be a bit of an outlier here. I volunteered --- on the political side of things --- for one of the MPs here in Chch in the election campaign after the earthquake. I have friends that worked for MPs doing constituency work.
I would say that the most important thing Brend/on did was be an effective advocate for his community. And a large part of that was to officialdom. And the same for the other Christchurch MPs. And you can't replace a committed advocate with a `mechanism of resolving grievances etc'. That's not how the world works.
I think you are writing off constituency work as social work, the kind of thing legislators* shouldn't have to bother with. But that's deeply deeply perverse.
*legislators is a bad word too. Move to Westminister systems everyone, it's way better and stabler!
Everything 73 says. But you can't ask Americans to move to the Westminster system, it's against their religion.
But the only current alternative is the one where the incumbent can pick the date of the election , within limits, to suit themselves, as in many parliamentary systems.... But there's a strong argument that this unacceptably biases the election in favour of the incumbent.
The obvious alternative is to have elections at random dates, so nobody knows when they're coming. But it would be tricky to have a provably random system, and you'd want to have a cap on the term length anyway...
Does it actually bias the election in favour of incumbents? The UK seems to change parties in government roughly as often as other countries with fixed-term setups.
Does it actually bias the election in favour of incumbents?
In ideal scenarios it does: 1966, 1974.2, 1983. But there aren't as many such as the advocates of fixed terms claim. Ex recto, I'd suggest that when a Parliament runs to 5 years the incumbent usually loses, but they have a better chance of winning if they tailor their legislative programme and call an election at a point where they're seen to be doing shit; or where the gods have just thrown them a bone, as in 83.
Well, rough count: the UK's had 17 general elections since 1945 and 8 of them led to a change in government.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8654338.stm
The US, meanwhile, has had 17 presidential elections since 1945 and in 8 of them the incumbent was replaced by someone from the opposing party.
When you look at governments that actually ran out of time it's 1950, 1964, 1979, 1997, 2010. Four out of five of them lost power.
Regarding constituency work, I'm all for it and anything that makes MPs spend more time on it is good, for reasons I set out here.
I mean, you could theoretically have a parliament selected by lot on a localised basis, thus creating a constituent link. Draw a citizen in each constituency at random. It would probably increase the frequency of parliamentary bar brawls.
I didn't know legislators still did constituency work. You never hear about that in the news.
And 1950 was a damn close run thing.
As were quite a lot of them. I hadn't realised just how many really close elections Britain had had recently. For all that people say FPTP inflates the winner's majority, you've got 1950 (majority 6), 1951 (17), 1964 (4), 1970 (minority), 1974 (3), and 1992 (21).
Constituency work is like being on the x-factor but not being able to say `fuck off you're nuts'.
Also, when there was a landslide, it wasn't necessarily decisive. Who remembers the earthshattering consequences of MacMillan's win by 100 in 1959* or Wilson's by 98 in 1966? Supermac didn't take the country in a dramatically Tory direction after '59 and Wilson cracked on trying to create an indicative-planned economy with a majority of 4.
*actually, come to think of it, the answer is probably "Africans." Ghana and Malaya had got independence in 1957, but MacMillan really went for it after '59. He did have a nasty group of far right empire-loyalist types to deal with, and the big win would have given him more authority to tell them to shut up and sit down, as well as putting new MPs into the party who would dilute them. Either way it certainly wouldn't have done any harm.
Women get the probe here before getting an abortion. FWIW, which is not much.
Also, from above:
Financing public elections with private money is a terrible way to run a democracy. Full stop.
Here's what I don't understand -- what's the alternative?
Publicly funded elections. I'm pretty sure you were talking about what could feasibly be changed, but nothing can feasibly be changed. But there is absolutely no reason any candidate should be able to accept private funds.
(An alternate idea I've heard is that every citizen gets a $50 voucher which they can donate to candidates however they want. No money beyond that is involved.)
every citizen gets a $50 voucher which they can donate to candidates however they want
That's one motherfucking expensive election. Are you sure you don't mean a $5 voucher? Even that's pretty high, when multiplied by roughly 300 million.
$5x300M would be less than 1/3 of what the 2008 presidential election cost.
Voting age population of ~230M and you're up to about $25. I want better cgi, though, so make it $30.
I'm not sure the level of spending in the 2008 presidential election was entirely healthy.
We'll need vouchers for all the other races too.
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Gah. Just had the first "negotiation" with the future (I hope) boss. He was obviously taken aback by my saying that I wanted more money. He's going to get back to me later today, and I'm 99.99% sure that he won't revoke the offer. Now I'm obsessing about the 0.01%, but also that I've started on a bad foot with the boss. Now he's surely thinking I'm a combative employee. These negotiations make me so mad and angry and I hate it.
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He was obviously taken aback
I think you're getting played.
He was obviously taken aback by my saying that I wanted more money.
No, that was just negotiating posture on his part. He's clearly a saavy negotiator, and I bet he respects the fact that you are too. If you really want to impress him, if he accepts your counteroffer when he contacts you this afternoon, say that you've thought about it further and ask for an additional 10% increase.
No, no. Ask him over to your office for further negotiations, and have it set up like the set of Johnny Carson.
Well, let's hope so. I figure that after he makes his counter offer or sticks his first, I will accept (sorry urple), and tell him how you stupid made me feel like less of a man if I didn't try to bargain. It was the imaginary internet people who made me do it! That will inspire confidence.
You're going to want to ask his secretary to turn off the AC before you stop by his office. Then say you're getting hot, and ask him to open the window, which you've previously nailed shut. Then the next round of negotiations can begin.
I figure that after he makes his counter offer or sticks his first, I will accept (sorry urple)
Oh, that's fine, if you don't mind letting your new boss know you're a pushover. At least he'll know who to talk to whenever he needs someone to work on weekends and holidays.
You're going to need to bite him, but don't break the skin. Just nip at his elbows a little. Show him that you've got herding instincts.
Schedule it right after lunch, get there early and be sitting in his chair when he comes in.
101 is crazy talk. 102 is great advice. I'm not drawing any gendered conclusions about negotiating skills from that, but I'm not not drawing any either.
104: oh, maybe heebie is a better negotiator than I realized.
It's always possible that the distinction between male and female salaries is in the process of going away, as the "women don't realize they can negotiate" phenomenon is obviated by the new labor market in which women are correct and no employee has any bargaining power.
You'll need to wear your formal peacock tailfeathers splayed out, to show proper dominance.
Actually, thinking about it, taking his chair may come off a bit aggressive in this context. But you should definitely prop your feet up on his desk when you sit down. And then, if it's a no-smoking building (which most are these days), light a cigar.
106 is hilarious. Though awful and true.
107: I do still have the top hat I got for my wedding, and have been looking for a reason to bring it out.
Other than the next Boston meetup, of course.
A cigar is too obvious. You'll want a wad of dip in your lip, and then ask him to hold out his hand, when you need to spit.
What does the word 'legislator' have to do with the presidential system? I thought it was the generic term.
That's disgusting, heebie. What's wrong with you?
113: It's a Jewish Texas thing, urple. You wouldn't understand.
Mama wants a new pair of shoes.
And if it comes to that--"and that would be very unfortunate, don't you agree Mr. Future Boss, so try to keep up"--you know where to put the horse head, right?
Don't call his wife a horse. That's rude.
99: It's a bolder move to march into his office while he's there, nail shut the window and door, and then shoot the air conditioner. Let the negotiations begin!
119: Wearing a Richard Nixon mask.
I don't think the gambit in 119/120 works unless you're going bold with your request. 10% over the offer isn't going to cut it. Your starting point needs to be 2x his salary.
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Awkward Kristin is cracking me up well out of proportion to the clip's actual inherent humor. It must be Friday.
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That's great. The first time I watched it, I didn't even pay attention to the woman in the background.
I had to go back and rewatch it after 123. Now it's funny.
Alfrek: one negotiating ploy I'd advise you to stay away from is threatening to hold your breath until he gives you the salary you want. I know it's considered a classic technique, but it's effective far less often than you'd think.
I don't have enough procrastination time available to read the whole thread, but on the consent/rape/ultrasound thing:
I've been thinking about this, since I've been trying to decide just how shrill I want to be about the law.
I don't think that you can have a meaningful definition of rape that excludes any vaginal insertion without consent.
So the question turns to consent in a medical context. And looking for less fraught circumstances, I recalled the issue of an IV being put in AB during her labor with Kai.
Here's the thing: AB hates needles. Push a 9 pound human out her hoo-hah without sedative? Sure. Have a tiny needle put in her arm? Only if it's absolutely, unavoidably necessary.
So we had this one nurse who wanted to put a needle in her while she was still in triage. Does she need it? No, it's just in case she does later. Well then, no. We have a written birth plan (which has legal weight iirc) saying no unnecessary needles, AB says no, and I say no (legal rights as spouse, het privilege fuck yeah). The nurse ended up leaving the room in a huff.
Point being, I would have had a serious problem with it if she'd forced AB to take that needle. I wouldn't have called the cops, but I would have been tempted to call it assault. AB's person would have been compromised against her will and not for medical necessity.
So I don't think you can wave away consent because it's a hospital setting, or even because an invasive procedure is about to happen. Had it been necessary, the hospital staff could have cut open AB's belly, no problem. But that tiny needle prick would have been a form of assault. And an unnecessary, nonconsensual use of a transvaginal probe is rape.
He is a negotiatiom master - he still hasn't contacted me. My previous confidence that he wouldn't retract the offer is waning. Gah!
127 is right, but I think no one is going to be using a transvaginal probe over the objections of someone saying "no! no!". So consent will always be there. The point is just that if a woman isn't willing to give her consent to this procedure, she can't have an abortion.
So the issue I guess could be reframed as "is the consent only being given under duress, and therefore it isn't real consent?" Which, maybe it could. But that's the issue.
128: contact him with a deadline, and let him know your salary demand will go up by 1% for every hour he's late.
Alfrek, congratulations on the job and I'm sorry you're having to wait. This is probably just one of those things where it matters a lot more to you than to him and so the waiting is only hard on your side.
Thank you Thorn! You are almost certainly right. One stage of this process was dependent on a vote at a city council. I knew that the vote went through on Thursday night (and they did too), but he didn't contact me until Saturday. It was the fact that he said he would contact me again today that worries me.
Alfrek, after 136, which seems earnest, I feel like I need to be straight with you. I've been joking with you in this whole thread. I wasn't serious about all those things you should say or do to your potential new boss. I hope/assume you are joking, too, about having asked your brand new boss for extra money, before having done even a single day's work for him. The people advising you to do that were also joking with you. I mean, jesus, who would be arrogant enough to do something like that? Talk about entitlement.
Well I'm Mike D Natilo Paennim and I'm back from the dead 8 days in the hospital having my gall bladder removed.
Emergency? Either way, glad to hear that you're up and around.
Or maybe bedridden but able to comment. Either way, can you send me your gall bladder? I'm cooking up an aphrodisiac and could use it.
You're cooking up the aphrodisiac as part of recruiting the grad students, aren't you? Perv.
140: Sadly, for your Lothario-esque purposes, it was "almost completely necrotic" (which would be a hell of a title for a Norwegian Black Metal anthology).
I guess "technically" it is the bile backing up and inflaming one's pancreas that makes one sick. So really I was in for pacreatitis (which another guy in the MPLS theater scene died of 2 weeks ago without warning), and getting rid of the "near-gangrenous" gall bladder was the treatment.
Good lord. Glad to hear you are well.
Eek. Speedy recovery and all that to you.
Hurt like the dickens too! But I remained stoic, and only became slightly grumpy at the nurses because of the stupid oxygen monitor thingy a couple of times.
That dilaudid is some powerful stuff! The Renton-falling-into-the-carpet-hole feeling is very compelling indeed, which is precisely why I stay away from opiates recreationally. Still have the damn song stuck in my head. Not "Lust for Life" either.
146: I know! I was like "I've heard of biliousness, but this is ridiculous!"
The fountains of brilliantly sea-green vomit cascading from my mouth were surely a sight to see, let me tell you.
138: Twinsies, alas! Though my similar and scary experince was before I commented here. I'm sorry we weren't just stomach bug twins. Be gentle to yourself and don't do anything that would open the sutures. And when they tell you what to eat, they're not lying.
What does the word 'legislator' have to do with the presidential system? I thought it was the generic term.
In Westminister systems, the legislative and executive functions are fused in the Cabinet, which is drawn from and dominates the Parliament. So there isn't the same body of people supposedly just concerned with law-making. So the term legislator is not as commonly used in Westminster systems, because we don't have the same division of powers.
Oh my god, Natilo. Um, do you have everything you need? Do you want me to bring you some soup? Are you allowed to have soup? Don't over-exert yourself! Do you need an extra pillow? Are you warm enough? No, no, don't get up! etc.
Get well soon, in other words. Glad you're okay.
I don't think legislator implies "concerned with lawmaking as opposed to executive functions" in any way but the etymological - and it's not that common a term anywhere, it's pretty formal - but if you say so.
151, 153: I'm doin' ok, considerin'. Cat just came to comfort me, so that is nice. Glad to get away from psychotically chatty roommates and disgusting hospital food. (Although I was nil by mouth for about half the time, so I didn't get a chance to really plumb the depths.)
Glad to hear you're okay, Natilo. What an ordeal.
Look at it this way: you can fret about your scar now (which nobody cares about, honestly, you're lovely just as you are). Take care in your recovery.
Yikes, Natilo. Very glad to hear you're recovering.
Wow, Jesus. Feel better, Natilo, that's messed up.
62-64: Thanks. Apparently it's a lot more than just a robo-calling scandal; because specifically Liberal Party members were targeted, it's also a spying scandal. When pieces like this start to appear at the National Post, you know it's serious.
159.2: It is serious. I'm sorry to say that that kind of shit has been going on down here for a while now, between robocalling and mailings or leafletting (to tell people their polling station location has been changed, or the date of the election has changed). That's not to pull a "pshaw, you think you got problems?" maneuver: just, good luck. Your laws and sense of national outrage may be better equipped to address it.
Did I miss an update somewhere from Alfrek?
It's sort of astonishing how much less funny this thread would be in retrospect if his job offer actually was retracted.
It would be the opposite of funny. If there's been an update, I haven't seen it.