I’m very, very interested in why you made this last statement. Why do you think the Democratic party would instantly lose most of their membership? Out of all the economic theories, why do you think students of those theories would be taught Marxism due to a Democratic hegemony of control in the schools? Is that your own bias showing? Isn’t it equally possible that all political parties would lose most of their membership?
Seriously, Ucc. In your mind, what economic theory does any political party espouse? What politician even knows anything about economic theory or the Law of Unintended Consequences that goes along with the application of a theory?
Most Western, developed countries–perhaps all–have social programs. That doesn’t make them Socialist countries.
Good night–"…and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Here’s a reform I’d like to see. I proposed this before here at ILP put it got shot down by most Americans. I’m going to propose it again anyway because I think it would be a good idea:
Anyone who wishes to run for office ought to be pressed to take a psychiatric assessment. Not forced, as that would infringe on their freedom to run, but pressured (by the people). And no matter what the results of such tests are, they don’t impact on the candidate’s right to run for office, but they are however made publically available so that all voters may have the opportunity to inform themselves more thoroughly on the character of the person they’re voting for.
It’s the “putting pressure” part that would be the tricky part to implement, but I imagine it wouldn’t be that hard to foster a public atmosphere of expectations that candidates are to meet. I imagine it would be like two candidates being asked “What are your views on sexism?” and one says “I think sexism is wrong and measures should be taken to eliminate it,” while the other says, “No comment.” Which one would gain your vote? The one without any comment just sounds like he’s got something to hide. So I’d imagine that candidates who refuse to take the psychiatric assessment only have something to lose by so refusing (unless they’re actually psychopathic or something, but in that case, they still look bad in comparison to someone who has taken the assessment and passes with flying colors).
Now, I suggested this idea to James in our PM exchanges and he replied by saying that they would eventually rig the tests so as to cater to anyone running for office–redesigning them (or just lying about the results) to let through whatever psychological predispositions one or another candidate may have.
At the time, I agreed with him–this would eventually happen–but I have since re-thought this.
I’m now thinking that if we apply this screening process to those charged with administering and designing the tests to begin with, we might be able to minimize the degree to which it becomes corrupted (I’m reluctant to say we’ll make it absolutely corruption-proof because that, I think, is an impossible ideal). If we use this process to screen for qualified test administrators and designers–that is, individuals with not only the technical qualification (i.e. education, work experience, etc.), but with character traits such as integrity, commitment to the cause, mentally healthy and stable, capable of standing their ground, able to select qualified replacements for themselves by the same method, etc.–and if we do this at the beginning before it becomes corrupted, we will essentially have put in place a sort of “fire wall” which prevents corrupt individuals from tampering with or infiltrating the system.
Gib, Have you figured out how to get rid of the present infestation of corruption? You don’t just have corrupt leaders, we have corrupt lackeys all the way down the ladder. I would bet the White house has corruption in the maintenance crews. A single germ spreads. A janitor can cause corruption to spring back.
Apparently you have no idea of the degree of corruption that has been discovered and well known about for decades within the world of psychiatry, but especially in the last few years. You would merely be shifting the channel of corruption slightly, not changing the outcome at all. Psychiatrists have been used by corrupt socialist governments ever since they were given permission to exist.
In addition, even if psychiatrists were the altruistic beings promoted and imagined, all that would happen is that candidates would be kept “psychiatricly clean” until after their inauguration.
One cannot ask Science to qualify leaders of government, morality, nor even science itself.
The current state of corruption is another prong of this issue which we haven’t touched on–we’ve been discussing what a uncorrupt system would look like, one that has built-in fail safes that keep it uncorrupt. But how to clean out the corruption that currently exists is a whole other issue.
Presently, to me, it seems there is some promise in fighting the battle on legal grounds. It seems that before a politician makes a move for more power, he has to make it legal first (getting a bill signed, adding an amendment to the constitution, passing an act, etc.). So as long as it’s still within the people’s power to change the law, this is one avenue to pursue without any blood being shed.
However, if it is not within the people’s power, then bloody and violent revolution would be our only other option. Let’s get out the guillotine and chop off some heads.
Now, I don’t know if we’d have to chop off the heads of janitors. I’m not keen on this us/them view of the government and the people. I think it’s more of a mix and there is way more diversity amongst groups of people than we give them credit for (I know it’s long, but you should read the OP of my Are All Politicians Corrupt thread for my views on this). I doubt it’s anything like a sudden transformation that occurs the minute you get hired onto the White House staff–as if the minute some janitor walks through the front doors at 8:00 AM of his first day at work, he suddenly falls to the floor in convulsions saying “Trans… forming… into… a… corrupt… member of… government.” (like that scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when Indi’s forced to drink that potion).
You see corruption everywhere you go. I’ll bet you think the staff at your local Subway Restaurant is corrupt (everyone knows they’re poisoning us). Once again, I’m going to have to ask for proof.
Well, unless every competent psychiatrist in the world is somehow corrupt just in virtue of being a psychiatrist (like every janitor in the White House, I suppose), I’m not talking about government hired psychiatrists. I’m talking about independent professionals. Surely there must be at least a few typical American citizens out there with medical degrees and some experience administrating and designing psychiatric tests. I’m talking about a fresh batch.
What are you saying? That a psychopath can turn on and off his psychopathy at will? Obviously, you don’t know how psychiatric tests are designed.
James, everything I’ve gotten from you so far tells me that there’s no hope for humanity. All governments are destine to be corrupt and they will continue to slide deeper and deeper into corruption. It is an inevitability that something a thousand times worse than the Holocaust will happen to all of us. The solution then is for us all to get guns and shoot ourselves in the head–a mass suicide. I don’t know what other way out there is from your point of view.
Oh, yeah, there’s AM. But here, you are acting like the corrupt individual. Even if AM would work, you are campaigning it in the same manner as every other manipulative, lying, deceptive con artist–telling us all that you are our only hope, that no other solution will work, that if we follow you, Heaven will be ours. I expect those who are willing to add something productive to the discussion to see the cause as something above themselves, not as something that is going to boost their egos by having their names attached to it as he who brought the solution to the people.
Gib, what exactly do you mean by corruption in the government? And what sort of things would you be looking for in candidates’ psychiatric exams? Would you be looking for personality types, or personality disorders?
I’m curious. No one seems to want to comment on my thoughts about the need for knowledge of economic theory as essential in choosing a government; yet the economy actually runs the government. So, instead, let’s talk about personality ‘types.’
Which personality type do you think would be best for a winning politician. Also, in your opinion, which is the more important branch of a government–the Executive or the Legislative?
Excellent question, Liz. Let’s talk about that. What is political corruption? That’s an extremely delicate question, and we need to be careful how we answer it.
For my own part, I’ve been defining it as the unwarranted violation of basic human rights on a mass scale and/or the phenomenon of politicians, or entire governments, failing to preform the job they were hired or voted to do by the people.
But then there’s questions like: what if the politicians doesn’t think of himself as corrupt? That is, what if the corruption is unconscious? Should that make a difference?
And what about lying? This may come off as questionable, but I’m more or less convinced that politicians do have to lie to the people sometimes just to do their job properly. So should we look at the fact of lying or the intent behind the lie?
Either. Both. You can look for whatever you want.
Do you know how psychiatric tests like the MMPI are designed? I forget the technical name for it–it was a while since I got my psych degree–but I think they call it “key map testing”–which is to say that the test is designed by putting together a completely random combination of questions–usually several hundred–almost as if they drew them out of a hat. The questions can seem as arbitrary and irrelevant to the psychological predispositions being tested for as “What do you prefer: Daffodils or Tulips?” or “What is your favorite time of day?” or “Which month of the year is the most like a chili dog?” I mean, literally any kind of question will do… so long as there’s lots of them.
Then they administer the tests to groups already diagnosed with the condition being tested for (how they got so diagnosed in the first place is another question) and compare the results with those of a control group. For example, if you’re testing for psychopathy, you might administer the test to serial killers in jail and compare that with a group composed of randomly selected people.
The surprising result is, despite the questions being totally arbitrary and having nothing to do with the condition you’re testing for, patterns do show up–they show up for almost any predisposition you could care to look for (insofar, as I said, as the test has a large number of questions).
Compare this to the more intuitive way of designing tests: if you’re looking for psychopathy, why not ask questions like “Do you enjoy thinking about blood?” or “Do you feel bad about hurting other people?” ← a test like this would be incredibly easy to fake. The advantage of the key map approach (if that’s what it’s called) is the subject taking the test would have no clue how to cheat it. Even if he figured he’d be clever and lie throughout the whole test, or just pick random answers, that too would show up as a identifiable pattern (this has actually been scientifically supported).
As you can see, you can test for whatever the hell you want. Just administer the test to a group that likes pepperoni and anchovies pizza and compare that to a group that doesn’t, and you will get a pattern.
The bottom line I was getting at here was that the problem with corruption in today’s democracies pivots on our elected officials having inner characters that, if we had known at the time, we would never have elected (either that or we know they have unsavory inner characters but we feel we don’t have any other options). I figured if we could have a way of getting inside the head of one of these politicians or aspiring world leaders, making it publicly accessible so to speak, we’d be able to make much more informed decisions. We need to know who we’re voting for.
I can’t speak for others, but I did respond to your thoughts on this–I told you, among other things, it was insightful–if you want to continue, you need to keep talking about it, and I will keep responding.
Not sure. At the moment, I feel it should be someone who is able to put a worthwhile goal ahead of himself, someone who sees a cause as more important than his own ego, someone who would have the courage to actually step down if it meant furthering the ideals of his campaign.
But it wouldn’t be up to me. It would be up to the people. All I’m proposing is we make his psychological profile public. The people can decide what kind of personality they want (or what kind of ideals they want a politician to serve).
Geez, I haven’t really thought about that. Off the top of my head, I’d say the legislative–something about making laws for a country seems to have more impact than a decision made by an executor. Why do you ask?
Uh… yes? History doesn’t show a steady rise in the amount of power governments wield over the people, nor in the degree to which they grow corrupt. It shows patterns more like the stock market (and if you ask Liz, she’ll tell you it’s because of the stock market–or at least, economic forces)–on the rise over a certain period in history but then declining over some other period. Revolutions and government collapses do happen–empires crumble, like the Soviet Union, and Republics are reborn, like in the aftermath of the French and American Revolutions.
What do you mean by “independent”? Do you mean independent of government? That would be just another one of your baseless claims that you seem to be fond of making. But if you mean dependent on the whole social and economic world around it–like how I’m dependent on the agricultural sector because I’ve got to eat, or on the energy industry because I need light and heat in my home–then your claim is trivial and amounts to nothing (unless you want to say that everyone is always dependent on almost everything, which in turns makes everyone corrupt, but then so what?).
I don’t mind you demonstrating your logical and empirical proof; I’m just saying that I refuse to recognize anyone’s contributions to this thread as productive if they treat the issue as a competition of proposed solutions. Someone who is not in this for their own personal glory would, I expect, consider a variety of solutions seriously and with an open mind, even if such solutions aren’t theirs.
Just answer me one question, James: this cynicism of yours–is it directed towards any hope for mankind at all, or just to hope in solutions that aren’t AM?
Rather than start with personality types (mainly because I can’t find my notes,) shall we start with corruption. delicate though that may be?
But first, I took the MMPI as a part of the requirements for university admission. The results indicated that, while I had sufficient ‘smarts’ to go beyond the BA level, I was a depressive. That’s proven to be true, which is why I take anti-depressants and will probably have to do so for the rest of my life.
Anyway, one of the ‘problems’ with ‘corruption’ is that there is ‘legal corruption’ which can take many forms, particularly in politics. Despite that, it seems, most ‘legal political corruption’ in the US is the result of current interpretations of the 1st Amendment–freedom of speech.
It’s legal, for example, for a corporation to take a group of legislators on a ‘fact finding’ tour geared to show how the corp is benefiting the public. Nothing negative would be shown on such a tour. It’s legal for a lobbyist to ‘wine and dine’ a swing-vote legislator and emphasize the benefits of voting for what the lobbyist’s ‘boss’ wants. It’s legal to give a legislator unlimited campaign funds to use in an attempt to influence the legislator to pursue the agenda proposed by the contributor.
I think the electorate has turned the US from democracy to oligarchy without realizing it. Go to the grocery store and see how much of our food supply is generated by corporations, as a very basic test.
In answer to your question about political corruption, it is, for the most part, legal corruption. If the politician doesn’t think of himself as being corrupt, it’s because it’s legal.
There are two ways to lie–to withhold truth and to falsify–to commit a sin of omission or a sin of commission. Withholding the truth is often needed, but I think it’s been taken too far in a lot of ways and always in the name of National Security. Is the cost worth the benefit? Quite frankly, I don’t believe every entry into a forum, every telephone conversation, every person’s thoughts and habits are being monitored by the CIA, but it’'s the principle of the thing. It’s the fact that it would be legal, if the government should want (for whatever reason) to do so.
However, given how corporations have taken away so many of our unacknowledged, unrecognized, freedoms, the Patriot Act, as horrible as it is, is really negligible in the general scheme of things.
I would consider this corruption if a) the corporations or lobbyists were lying to the legislator as a means of manipulating him/her, or b) the legislator allowed him/herself to be persuaded away from the goals and expectations of his/her constituents.
I read that paper Moreno posted a few pages back (here). It said that corporations and prominent interest groups have far more sway over politicians’ decisions than common citizens, but also that their interests and goals tend to be highly correlated with those of common citizens. I still think it’s a cause for concern though–the decisions of politicians ought to represent the interests and goals of the people.
Now, in regards to the first amendment, I don’t know if we have to throw lying into the bag. Is lying a form of expression? Do we have a right to that, at least where Big Business is concerned?
Keep in mind, what the NSA’s spying technology is doing is collecting all emails, texts, phone conversations, etc., but that doesn’t mean there’s necessarily a pair of human eyes reading every one as it comes in. They just have them sitting in a database.
And internet forum posts are always public anyway. I’m reading your posts right now!
[size=50](PMs I’m not sure about, however)[/size]
Makes you wonder who should really be considered the government: The Democrats or Microsoft?
I know the periods you’re talking about, and they don’t add up to much- transition periods where one party dissolves and another hasn’t yet organized to take its place, is all.
Again, sometimes they get on the ballot. Sometimes they are even elected. It seems roughly proportionate to the amount of support they enjoy.
More than they get now? Of course they would. That's the whole point of your proposition, is to get fringe groups more money and exposure than they have now. How, pray tell, is it [i]democratic[/i] to have a Federal mandate demanding that a political party's exposure be disproportionate to their popular support? Sure, if you think there's a special reason why political parties that have almost no popular support should be given campaign funds that they couldn't have gotten on their own, then ok. But it's hardly democratic or even republican.
Why would it do that? I’m Uccisore the billionaire, I want the Bull Moose party to win. I was going to donate 10 million dollars to the Bull Moose party, but NOW, since the Government is mandating that my donation is split equally between all parties, I am NOT going to take that million dollars and use it to advocate for the Bull Moose party in other ways because…why? Why nothing, that’s obviously exactly what I’m going to do. The result of your idea is that billionaires would continue doing exactly what they are doing now, and small individual campaign contributions would dry up and become meaningless. If I can spent a million dollars, I make a private commercial for my candidate. If I have 10 dollars, I can either donate 2 dollars to everyone or I can keep my 10 dollars. Guess which one I’m going to do? Again, you can already donate to a general campaign fund now if you want to- check the stats on how many people do it.
This isn’t a video game or a story. An political process is only as good as the consequences it results in.
Why would that be equally possible? Is that your intellectual bias for equality showing? It’s no secret that I think leftists have really really bad economic ideas, and I’m not the only one- from what I can tell, most economists agree with me. So if you teach actual economics in schools, the left-most party, the Democrats, will lose membership. That, or they will use the influence they have in the teacher’s unions and academia to ensure that the ‘economic theory’ that is taught is exclusively favorable to their interests. Why do I think they would do that? Because my experience shows that they do it now whenever they can.
Democrats tend to be Keynesian if they are moderates and Marxists if they are left wing, and Republicans lean more towards Hayek’s ideas or laissez-faire capitalists if they are right wing. Is this a trick question?
Google the Goldwater Rule. There’s a good reason why people in the United States would be resistant to this. If this did happen, either we wouldn’t trust the word of the psychiatrist in question, or worse, we would. At best, the psychiatrist would become a sort of mini-candidate who’s background, qualifications, personal history, connections, and etc. would be delved into and made public by whichever political part(ies) didn’t like what he said. You’d literally have to be crazy to take the job. If you kept the psychiatrist anonymous, then the candidate would simply buy off a shrink to say what he needed- or if the candidate didn’t get to pick his shrink, you’d be asking the American people to trust whomever did make the selection to be impartial.
Natural Aristocracy. This really should be a thread unto itself, but here you go, the key to the whole mess.
In a perfect democracy, the political power of every citizen would be the same, call it 1. An aristocrat is anybody who's political power is greater than 1. So, obviously politicians are aristrocrats- they have far more influence than just some guy casting a vote and donating a few dollars to a campaign does. They can make speeches, appointments, propose/veto laws, and etc. Obviously, the extremely wealthy are aristocrats- they can create advertising, pay for trips, arrange meetings, bribes, provide services, all sorts of things to affect the political process. Somewhat less obvious but still true are entertainers and media personalities- they have a microphone, the ear of millions, they can get their political opinions out there, and people will listen. Hate it all you want, but Miley Cyrus saying something about Obama matters more than me saying it. Matters more than my vote. If entertainers are aristocrats, then educators are for similar reasons, on a mostly smaller scale. This goes all the way down to the lowest possible aristocrat being perhaps the head of household who's spouse/child/whatever votes the way they tell them to.
What you should conclude from this, is that there will ALWAYS, no matter what, be an aristocracy. An oligarchy, if you will. You cannot change this central fact. But this doesn't mean you have to have a systemic oligarchy- it doesn't have to be that the State enshrines or mandates that certain kinds of aristocrats run the show- but it will happen on it's own regardless of what the state says.
So, what I mean to say is, certain groups would like to take us away from a republic and towards a pure democracy because their interests have control over natural aristocracies that would fill the power vaccuum led by the weakening of the Constitution, Congress, or whatever. So for example, it would be easy to say "To hell with the Constitution, whatever the 51% says should be the law, as far as I'm concerned" if you were a Church leader and you knew damn well that the vast majority of people will vote how the Church tells them to. Might be a bit short-sighted to think it will always be that way, but short-sightedness is a classic problem of democracy.
Well, first of all, the proposal I’m suggesting isn’t that a psychiatrist give his/her professional opinion on the mental state of a politician but that the results of the test itself be made public. Hell, you could even have it all done through a computer, the psychiatrist only being present to vouch that the subject indeed took it (and didn’t cheat, etc.).
That doesn’t mean the psychiatrist can’t, in addition to overseeing the test, conduct a formal examination and give his/her opinion, but if it’s a question of ethics, the rule above clearly states it would be ethically permissible if proper authorization had been granted. But what politician in his/her right mind would grant such authorization? Well, that would be the point, wouldn’t it? Remember, choosing to subject him/herself to being tested in the first place is the politician’s own choice, the purpose of which being to get a publicly accessible scientifically objective measure of his/her inner character. If that’s the point, it would be kind of senseless to go through with it only to deny granting the psychiatrist authorization to give his professional opinion.
Either that or more concerned about who leads your nation than you are about your own reputation. But what kind of person is like that? Well, that’s the point of the test. They may be few, but they’re out there, and the test can be used as a screening process for finding them.
That makes total sense, Uccisore.
I don’t think there’s any hope of leveling the power playing field to the extent that a “pure” democracy would have it, but the issue for me isn’t about distributing power equally but managing the corruption of those in power. As I said to Liz, my current working definition of corruption is:
Although I think “pure” democracy is a pipe dream, I definitely think any properly functioning republic needs a democratic element. The only way to keep corruption in check is by limiting power–not leveling it completely, but preventing it from growing out of control. Those in power still need to feel that consequences will follow unacceptable behavior, and the democratic element will do that (so long as the people remember how a democracy works–i.e. you can’t just sit back and let it run on autopilot (i.e. the whole putting-your-gun-down metaphor)).
As I’ve said, there are two forms of lying–to falsify the truth, and to omit the complete truth. I don’t think corps and biased interest groups (with a few exceptions) tell the complete truth if for no other reason than they don’t take the rule of Unintended Consequences into consideration. The NRA is a good example of that.
If the average voter benefits from a policy espoused by the Elite (either Corporate or the Very Wealthy) and/or biased interest groups (yes, I read about 20 pgs. of the paper), then the combined interests tend to be “highly correlated” statistically. That’s what the Princeton paper was about. Statistically, the average voter has no say in determining national policy. I believe that’s one reason for a two party system. The average voter is either “for” a broadly defined platform or s/he is “against” it–two opposing opinions; two opposing parties.
The average voter is manipulated in many ways, however, as is the ‘non-average’ voter. We’re influenced by the analyses of the media, the ‘findings’ of think tanks, the wealth of individual campaign contributors, how much value is given to the currently popular entertainer.
Changing the subject, look up the Briggs Myers personality test and tell me if you agree with it, please.
Also, if the Legislature is more important than the Executive, why is the Executive always blamed for a ‘failed’ policy?
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