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"I've heard many times that although democracy is an imperfect system, we somehow always muddle through. The message I want to give you, after long and hard reflection, is that I'm very much afraid it is no longer possible to muddle through. The issues we deal with do not lend themselves to that kind of treatment. Therefore, I conclude that our democracy must grow up. I'm not going to give you a magic recipe on how that will happen—I wish I had one—but I offer some thoughts that I hope will stimulate your thinking.
What's principally lacking on the federal scene, it seems to me, is the existence of respected, nonpartisan, interdisciplinary teams that could at least tell us what is possible and something about the pluses and minuses of different solutions. Take energy, for instance. What I would love to see established, with the National Academies or any other mechanism to confer respectability, is a team that will ... say, 'Okay, there are lots of suggestions around, and most of them won't work. But here are six different plans, any one of which is possible. We'll tell you what each one costs, what's good about it, what's bad about it, how dangerous it is, and what its uncertainties are.' At least each option would be a well-integrated, clearly thought-out plan. I do not trust democracy to try to put together such a plan by having each committee of Congress choose one piece of it. Suppose Congress designed an airplane, with each committee designing one component and an eleventh-hour conference committee deciding how the pieces should be put together. Would you fly on that airplane? I am telling you we are flying on an energy plan, an inflation plan, and so on that are being put together in exactly that way.
Unfortunately the original 1980 article that this was excerpted from is paywalled.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Geezer on Sunday January 01 2017, @04:02PM
Respected, nonpartisan, interdisciplinary teams are wrought of the same material as the politicians, and subject to to same failings of moral character and ethical thinking. The 20th Century's first technocrat "brain trusts" hatched Stalin's 5-Year Plans, and we all can see how that turned out. Technocracies are no better than PTA meetings for solving problems with political implications.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 01 2017, @05:02PM
I'd say the same thing, but from a different perspective: our elected officials are not interested in what's the best plan overall, least dangerous, least costly, in short: they don't care about doing the "right" or "best" thing. What they are interested in is what will get them re-elected, what will get them financial support, what will get them personal power, wealth and fame. It's just a happy coincidence that this sometimes coincides with what is good for the country overall, and that is why our system has succeeded as well as it has.
We are muddling through with a far from perfect system, that we are roughly on top of the modern world isn't a statement about how good our system is, it's a statement about how bad the competing systems are - and luck, so much is just sheer dumb luck.
If we want to improve our chances of staying roughly on top of the world, we really should endeavor to improve our systems, luck swings both ways, and we're overdue for some bad luck, historically speaking.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Sunday January 01 2017, @07:32PM
This is exactly it. Look at the last US election. One of the candidates wanted the best thing for the US (whether it would have worked or not is up for debate, but I think Bernie Sanders intentions were never in doubt), while others wanted either power or fame. Look how well that worked out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @08:39AM
He would never have supported Clinton and would either have requested to be put back on the Independent ballot, or agreed to the Green party offer and joined up with Stein to offer a third party solution.
While I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for most of the election cycle, that choice eliminated any respect I could have had for the man, just like the DNC/Hillary not shifting to support of other candidates when the full brunt of her controversies began unravelling at the beginning to middle of the year.
At the same time I hold the Republicans accountable for letting Trump win rather than at least voting for the libertarian candidate and actually showing the party that they would rebel rather than people a 'Republican Rebel' who flipflopped parties more than a hollywood movie star flipflops sexual identity.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 03 2017, @12:48AM
I don't agree with all of Scott Adams' political tripe, but his bit about persuasion is pretty good - persuasion is most effectively accomplished with:
1) Identity (does your target identify with you, are you "one of their people"?)
2) Analogy (can you make an analogy that the target "gets" at a gut level?)
3) Reason (logic, data, facts, proof)
The first type of persuasion "Trumps" the other two combined. The second type is o.k. and can strengthen the first, and the third type is basically useless in political transactions (popularity contests decided in voting booths.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday January 01 2017, @08:06PM
Term Limits solve much of this money grubbing of elected officials.
Politicians and baby diapers should be changed often. And for the same reason.
Still,,,
Perhaps there should be a technocratic branch of the legislature, with "divisions" that report to specific legislative comitties.
The members of such comitties may not serve more than one term, and no company can have a representative in the same technocrat-division for more than one term without a two term haiatus, as a means to attempt to control corporate take over.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday January 01 2017, @08:14PM
Your plan will ensure that nobody with any experience will be making the decisions. That's not a good plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 01 2017, @09:18PM
Why isn't it a good plan? Not all experience is good. Most of our politicians have lots of experience in being corrupt, authoritarian pieces of trash, but that isn't beneficial at all. I would rather have inexperienced people who would at least attempt to stand up for my freedoms.
Also, just because there are term limits on a particular political position doesn't mean that you won't have experienced people filling that position; there are plenty of types of political offices (governor, congressperson, representative, president, tons of local political positions, etc.), so politicians who have experience in other offices could move to a different type of office.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 01 2017, @09:27PM
The corruption primarily comes from the fund-raising and the ability to work for those firms after leaving office. Term limits don't really do much about that, the full solution is to bar public officials from taking jobs with companies that were lobbying them previously. As well as removing all the private funds from campaign finance.
That should address most of the problems involved.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday January 02 2017, @01:31AM
The corruption primarily comes from the fund-raising and the ability to work for those firms after leaving office. Term limits don't really do much about that,
Term Limits do more than you think.
They really do about all you can do in a free country. People should not be punished for life just because they served a couple two year terms as a congressman. Its not reasonable to restrict people from working in their field of expertise simply because they served in congress.
By assuring that a no one can have a "career as a politician" by limiting them to a small fixed number of terms you also reduce the value of that person to a company that might hire them as payback for favors done while they were in office. There's not that many favors you can do in 4 or 6 years.
I get it: You want fine grained control over the details of the life of anyone who ever takes a government job. Yet you rebel when anyone else insists on that level of control over your life. We don't live in that kind of world.
It is sufficient to prevent any elected office from being a permanent career. You don't get to run anyone else's life.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 02 2017, @04:36AM
Fancy term restrictions just make it harder for small time players to game the system. The pros can provide a string of ringers.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday January 03 2017, @07:47PM
The pros can provide a string of ringers.
Those ringers still have to get elected. The old plan of it being someone's "Turn" is out the window.
It was Hubert Humphrey's Turn.
It was Bob Dole's Turn.
It was John McCain's Turn.
It was Hillary Clinton's Turn.
The electorate is not buying into that any more.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:40PM
48% of the electorate voted with their gut this time (I can't get over the Brexit analogy... sure, you know it's going to hurt, but you just want to, so F-it and vote for the obnoxious egomaniac, because you like him better than the career pol.)
I saw some kind of meme about "W was so bad that we elected a black to replace him, so in 2020 we should be ready for a hispanic lesbian who used to be an exotic dancer."
Truth is, to get elected (not just CinC, but any big office) you need backing, backing to pay for advertising, backing to pay for polling of the electorate, backing to staff the strategists who use that polling data to craft the positions that are most likely to keep you in a winning position come election day, backing to travel where needed when needed and book the venues to get the audiences and the media coverage. You won't get enough backing to get elected CinC without some quid-pro-quo, unless you're Perot, Trump, Gates, etc. and even they need some things that money can't buy, but backing from the "usual players" can.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @06:45PM
Most of the arguments for term limits are actually arguments against democracy.
The real problem with Democracy in the USA is the public education system is bad.
[1] Having the same party gerrymandering/rigging things to keep winning in certain areas and just having to change candidates doesn't really solve things that much does it?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday January 06 2017, @10:19PM
They shut down the OTA (Office for Technology Assessment) which was supposed to supply the science-based advice.
(Score: 3, Informative) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday January 01 2017, @08:17PM
We got the bad luck already. Haven't you been paying attention? His name is Donald Trump. That's enough bad luck to last us quite a while if the gambler's fallacy is to believed.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday January 02 2017, @01:17AM
Never say "How could things get any worse?"
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 02 2017, @04:42AM
The bad side of Trump won't really show until 3-5 years from now. Right now we've just got the anticipation and uncertainty. And, all in all, he's not really out to wreck America.
A Yellowstone eruption, that would be bad luck. A nuke going off as part of a domestic training exercise, that would be bad luck (and almost happened more than once already.) Economic downturn due to bull-headed negotiation style - that's not bad luck, that's outright mismanagement, Trump may bring us this if he actually follows through on his swagger - and that's the unknown, how much is just hot air - hopefully quite a bit of it is just that: bark without bite.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 01 2017, @06:00PM
you can say the same about USA, it didn't turn out well for most
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 01 2017, @10:32PM
The 20th Century's first technocrat "brain trusts" hatched Stalin's 5-Year Plans,
Are you fucking kidding me?? "Brain Trusts"? First thing that was done at time of Stalin was to purge his perceived enemies, which included the entire intellectual class and replace them by frighted yes-man that did nothing but be yes-man that tried to survive in a cut-throat inner-circle. So before you talk about "brain trusts" and "Stalin" or even "Lenin", give your head a shake.
If you want to look at technocratic governments, look at Canada. Or Germany. Or France (unless they elect that right-wing nut).
Turkey *had* a technocratic government too, until last 15 years and especially now, as it is purged and replaced by yes-man and theocracy.
And finally, Russia, which is currently the opposite of technocratic government. And this is what US is now going towards since at least George W.'s days and when Tea Party took over the Republican Party. A brief reprieve forced by Obama, but that is snapping back faster to Stalinist/Trumpist style than you can say "5 year plan". Maybe US needs to wake up that they elected Stalin-like man.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 01 2017, @11:02PM
Maybe US needs to wake up that they elected Stalin-like man.
Won't happen. One thing I've noticed about strong man types is that when they inevitably don't do what people elected them to do, the people just double down. Obviously, if the strong man didn't succeed, it must be because his enemies are just that powerful.
Not sure if the USA can wake up from this. There's too much stupid, and stupid won. When stupid doesn't work, stupid just fights harder.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 02 2017, @03:52AM
When stupid doesn't work, stupid just fights harder.
Don't fight stupid directly. Let it fight itself.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 02 2017, @06:23AM
The problem with that is, stupid has gotten so big and so powerful and monopolized so many resources that in its fighting itself it's going to kill a bunch of us little people as collateral. Unless and until we get these bastards on both sides of the aisle onto the notional B Ark and aim it at the Sun, there's gonna be fallout, and we're gonna eat it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @09:57AM
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." (Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.) Friedrich Schiller