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The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon. Others at SN have also voiced similar opinions so I thought this might be an interesting read for our members.
The voters who put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.
But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.
Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same? Critics tend to focus on Obama himself, a leader who perhaps has shifted with politics to take a harder line. But Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon has a more pessimistic answer: Obama couldn’t have changed policies much even if he tried.
Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.
[Related]: ‘National Security and Double Government’
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @06:28PM
Many people who voted for Obama obviously did not look into his voting history. Actions speak louder than words but the words were just sooo good.
Change that I can believe in. Wow.
I can hope for a better tomorrow.
Ignorance is bliss.
Voting being a placebo button or an office thermostat at best.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 21 2014, @06:53PM
As we say at work, "Hope is not a strategy."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:57PM
As we say at work, "It's not my fault, it's the other guy."
(Score: 2) by skullz on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:01PM
Or they looked into the other guy's voting history and ran away screaming.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JNCF on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:06PM
Too bad there was only one other option. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by skullz on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:23PM
I tried putting myself in as a writein a few times but no one else seemed to jump on board. You only have yourselves to blame.
(Score: 2) by redneckmother on Wednesday October 22 2014, @12:29AM
If I'd only known... I wrote in my neighbor.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:26PM
We in Canada are very, extremely aware of the problems that come from vote-splitting. 10-20 years ago it was the 2 right-wing parties splitting their vote and getting nowhere, then they unified under a single, further-right banner, and in the last 10 years it's been centrist/left voters split across 2 major and one minor parties.
Our current government won a majority with less than 40% of the popular vote, and it'll take 20 years to undo the damage they've done to our democracy, government transparency/accountability, science and research programs, social programs, and international reputation.
This is the biggest problem with first-past-the-post voting systems, if it's just your side that has plenty of people who dare deviate from the major party (if there is one...), or can't organize to vote strategically, then the party you like least ends up winning.
And since our current government got rid of the vote subsidy, where each vote literally counted for some money towards that party, your vote really is wasted now if you try "sending a message" by supporting a smaller party.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JNCF on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:35PM
Votes are always wasted, your one vote is ridiculously unlikely to change the outcome of a city election (let alone a national one). There is no reason to vote except as an idealistic gesture, so it seems odd to me when people use cynicism to determine how they should vote. If you're going to vote cynicly, please just stay home.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Leebert on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:56PM
You're not thinking strategically. Vote third party. Enough third-party votes attract the attention of politicians who will make adjustments to try to sway those third party votes, especially when they anticipate a tight race. From their perspective, it's better to cede a few issues and win most of the power than it is to cede all of the power to your opponent.
Absent a candidate whom you can truly support, your vote can still help make a difference. Admittedly a less impactful one that we'd all like.
(Score: 1) by JNCF on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:21PM
You didn't read the second half of my comment, evidently. I was totally encouraging people to vote third party. This will be even more apparent if you read the parent and grandparent posts (the grandparent was also mine). I still don't think that any one person voting third party will do anything - it's just an idealistic act. But I just so happen to like idealistic acts...
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:29PM
I've re-read it several times, and maybe I'm missing something but I don't see what you say is there.
"Votes are always wasted" seems pretty absolute to me, and seems to cover third-party votes. Likewise, saying that "[t]here is no reason to vote except as an idealistic gesture" implies that the vote has no value whatsoever, beyond some self-delusion that you're doing something. My point is that it CAN do something.
If I'm still being obtuse, please feel free to point out where I misinterpreted you.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday October 21 2014, @10:05PM
Me-quote:
I think the corollary to "if you're going to vote cynicly, please just stay home" is "if you're going to vote idealistically, please come out to the polls." I guess I should have stated this outright, because evidently it wasn't clear enough.
When I say that there is no reason to vote except as an idealistic gesture, I say that as somebody who voted in the last election and intends to vote in the next one. I like idealistic gestures. I don't see it as self-delusion, I see it as fighting the good fight and losing. Better to fight and lose than stay home apathetic. I think that being oppositional to those in power is something that we should be in the regular practice of, for personal reasons.
I still don't think that an individual voting third party changes anything, except in that individual. I agree with this part of your first post:
I just think that "enough" is a great deal more than one. Individual votes are statistically insignificant. If you could sway ten percent of the votes (or even two percent), I agree that putting it towards a third party would do more to pull the rope in your desired direction than voting Red or Blue.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Tuesday October 21 2014, @10:09PM
Fair enough; I think we're at a happy medium of agreement. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @10:35PM
No! That's not aloud! This is the internet.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday October 21 2014, @08:59PM
I can't figure out for the life of me why we don't switch to runoff voting, or proportional representation.
No, wait, I can. FPtP helps keeps incumbents in power, and it's the incumbents who have the authority to make the changes. Yet another way in which democracy is, in practice, a sham.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:59PM
In New Zealand, we're faced with the same problem. Our right-wing National government is running the country, and they only got something around 33% of the total vote.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:44PM
I find Duverger's Law [wikipedia.org] interesting. If you haven't heard of it, it's a good read.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:27PM
That was a good read, thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22 2014, @05:58PM
That is interesting, thanks for the link.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 22 2014, @04:09AM
Looking at that list, how many of those parties have ever gotten a president elected? Gotten a candidate into a televised debate? Even gotten their totes shown on TV for election night?
They may be an alternative if enough people get pissed off enough, but they're perceived not to be and because we are a first past the post system, voting that way might make the guy you're not quite sure is sane win.
(Score: 2) by velex on Wednesday October 22 2014, @01:54PM
How about this? [freeandequal.org]
Larry King being involved says that it's a bit more than some lame initiative in a high school gym.
Now, the question to really ask is why the American people care so little about their democracy that they allow themselves to be spoon-fed information from the Department of Propaganda of the One Party (otherwise known as the “lame-stream media”)?
How do we get this information out?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 22 2014, @05:13PM
It is something, but you can't really blame the general public for being unaware of something that received practically no publicity (this is the first I have heard of it and it was 2 years ago) that is appearing on a website most haven't heard of.
Of course we don't get to see the 3rd party candidates debate the Rs and the Ds even there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @07:45PM
Many people bitch and moan about what a piss-poor job Obama is doing, about how he not only hasn't delivered on his more significant campaign promises, but has made worse things that he had promised to make better. Yes, in retrospect, he obviously was not a good choice. Unfortunately, the only alternative offered was significantly worse. The people weren't given a choice between "good" and "bad", they were offered "less-than-wonderful" and "batshit insane". It was a lose-lose proposition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22 2014, @06:06PM
My ballot had many folks running. I voted for neither Obama nor Romney. I bet there were many other choices available on your ballot too.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 22 2014, @03:58AM
Nobody who liked Obama's words was going to vote for Romney, now were they? So what choice did they perceive?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22 2014, @06:06PM
All the other folks running for President? You do know there were more than 2 choices, right?