Don't Give Me Liberty. It's Better if I Have to Take It.

Libertarians have always struck me as really smart, but not very wise individuals. They are passionate and know a lot of stuff, but I wouldn't trust them to manage my stock portfolio or raise my kids if you know what I mean. They can go on for hours rationalizing their argument for the removal of government, but be startlingly unaware of the thousand ways that could go horribly wrong. Ultimately it still seems a fool's gamble that leaves too much to chance, as though simply destroying government (at least most of it) would automatically "restore" American society to a utopian state and wash away all the problems that government (along with sundry other institutions) has created. Deplorable dog-eat-dog anarchy seems to me a likely result, which is why people like me still cling to the Leviathan I suppose. I realize this is a highly over-simplified and poorly thought-out characterization and I'm sure I need to read dozens of important books about the subject before I say another word...but ignorance has never stopped me in the past.

Besides, as of today I have now read one book by a Libertarian (I had to skim much of it because I hate accruing overdue library book fines.) and I admit that I ran across some refreshing and relevant ideas in Charles Murray's latest book, Coming Apart. It is a thoughtful book about the decay American social fabric and I recommend it to anyone. One passage I found most intriguing was his speculation about what happens to people if they are kept too "safe." He basically argues that when we are protected from failure life becomes hollow and it is impossible for us to achieve genuine self-respect, meaningful relationships, and self-actualization because it becomes too easy to abdicate responsibility. Here is the beginning of the passage...

"People need self-respect, but self-respect must be earned - it cannot be self-respect if it’s not earned - and the only way to earn anything is to achieve it in the face of the possibility of failing."

Although this is true on an individual level I think it is true collectively as well and I have often thought that this is why many of America's efforts at democracy building have not been as successful as we hoped. Self-determination like self-respect has to be fought for and won. I am not one who has a problem with us ever intervening in other places, but I think we have consistently failed to consider how each citizen of that country engages with the overall narrative of their country and how people derive self-respect from it. For example, we as Americans identify ourselves with the plucky individuals who overthrew British rule and established a unique political and social culture that changed the world. I think this narrative is the subconscious source of much of our self-confidence, all the way from streetwise hustlers to elitist academic liberals. It's no good for us to think Iraqis or Afghans will embrace democracy as a gift bequeathed from someone else. We need to recognize their need to establish their own nationalistic narrative of self-respect. Coddling and attempting to mold someone into exactly what you want them to be is morally suspect, intuitively idiotic, and fraught with danger. Why would it be any different for a nation?

But this book was really more about American society. As a libertarian Murray thinks that slashing the size of government will solve many of our social ills. The main reason that I usually oppose the weakening of our government is that I am afraid it is the only viable counterweight to a competitive corporate culture which is successful largely because it fails to consider the external costs or future consequences of its actions. I know that government is complicit in the survival of this corporate culture but government has also been (think Progressive Era) successful at ameliorating its rapacious impulses in the past. But maybe it won't work this time. Maybe a libertarian would be right to say that removing government is actually the only way to defeat the current incarnation of this persistent corporate malady. Perhaps too much government has taken away our self-respect and we are losing connection with our own unique narrative. Instead of letting the government fight our battles against corporate America, perhaps we the people have to reclaim the responsibility to stand up for ourselves and defend our own future. Perhaps our older brother has been protecting us (not very well) from middle school bullies too long and if he moved on to high school we would discover that we actually have the self-respect and gumption to fight back against impossible odds. Perhaps if we realized that the buck stopped with us, and perhaps only then, we could write or rewrite our American narrative of self-respect with a renewed emphasis on civic engagement, community building, and the willingness to take responsibility for what we buy. What do you think? Wanna be a libertarian?

Warding Off Political Apathy - Part 2

I guess we're going to have to do more than just vote.

Since the last post I read Lawrence Lessig's new book, Republic, Lost and really liked it. He argues that in the U.S. a virulent new incarnation of an old political disease is threatening our republic. Politicians have recently become unprecedentedly dependent on campaign contributions. Like really unprecedentedly. They also need to spend so much time raising money that they are unprecedentedly ignorant about policy issues. Lobbyists (often politicians who have "graduated" from Congress) step in to solve both of these problems by financing and educating them on behalf of wealthy rent-seeking interests. We the people are left out in the cold.

Oregon's 1st district just chose the poison on the right
...or should I say "left." ugh!

Most of us know this, or at least sense that something like it must be true, and we tune the politics out. But we the people must overcome our cynicism (however justifiable) about federal politics if we want to prevent our government from leading us off a cliff. Simply casting our ballots is no longer enough. Both parties will continue to disappoint us. The financial power of special interests controls too much of the system. The only useful tool that we the people have left is engaged citizenship. That's the first reason why the ward system of voting discussed in my last post would be beneficial.

We can do this too, but with air conditioning and deodorant!

Reason number 1 - It will encourage citizenship. You and I still may not care about every issue, but for the issues we do care about, ward voting would be feasible to sway a large voting bloc to our way of thinking. Don't you think that would make political dialog seem worth the effort? We could meet and discuss policy and ideas with the people in our ward. Delegations could go to other wards to spread ideas and promote productive debate at a grassroots level. That sounds an awful like what those wig-wearing colonial agitators were doing in the 1780s, doesn't it? Old George and the boys didn't crowd into stuffy Independence Hall to create a set of laws so that the rest of us would never have to. They saw dynamic participation in lawmaking as the quintessential civic virtue, the only alternative to subjugation to the establishment. So a ward system would draw each and every citizen back to the founding principals of our democracy. Political virtues like conciliation, compromise, respectful dialog, empathy, deliberation, or initiative might be sorely lacking in our country now because so few of us have to actually use them.

Do not fear the ward. We're not talking about mental
hospitals or Mormon assemblies. A ward is also just "an
electoral district or unit of local government."

Also, in states that allow direct democracy (initiatives, recalls, and referendums) wards could introduce legislation or work with representatives to develop it more thoughtfully. In Oregon, a ward system would have helped us to avoid the Measure 37 debacle. Measure 37 was a citizen initiative (these usually bypass professional lawmakers) and a foolish and damaging over-correction to our admittedly stringent land-use policies. It reminded us of the benefits of a rigorous and synergistic legislative process. (Professional lawmakers are not useless!) Not only would a ward system have developed a more sensible measure, but less impulsive ward-bred voters would never have voted for it.

Reason number 2 - A ward system would reduce the influence of moneyed interests. By magnifying the effect of informed citizenship, fewer people will be swayed by fear mongering, shallow campaign slogans, and spurious arguments that corporations, unions, and wealthy ideologues use so effectively now. Measure 37 appealed to us because it purported to protect individual rights, but the people who were truly in a position to benefit were large-scale developers. These moneyed interests will at least have to make better arguments that appeal to a broader range of people if they are to successfully sway whole groups of citizen-voters.

To flex our political muscles we have to build some!

"But wait," you say, "This sounds like a lot of work." True, there will potentially be more effort involved. Some of us will undoubtedly continue to "phone it in" and engage very little in the process. Sometimes our life circumstances will even require it. That's OK. Those votes will count just as much as anyone else's within a ward, but for those ward-members who have the time and inclination they can profitably put in a lot more effort to influencing the voters in their ward. This may sound scary if you would rather stay at home and not be involved, but remember that your ward's vote still "only" counts for 1000 votes. Even if some whackjob liberal down the street from you is putting in WORK at your ward he will still only have a relatively small influence.

A lone sheep is a dead sheep.
Let's put our heads together!

And that's exactly the point. The people who will really lose are those associated with the big money that is running politics right now. It won't be feasible for them to "infiltrate" each of the 2000-plus wards that would be set up in Oregon in order to influence elections. They are happy to profit from the current system where citizenship is diffuse and money can be poured into your TV screen with great effect. But if you can easily go down to your ward to hear different points of view on a particular issue you are much less likely to default into thinking about issues in the simplistic ways that the super PACs define them. So right now you can influence politics inordinately if you have money, but in a ward system you will be able to influence politics inordinately with your sweat. That seems much more American, don't you think?

It doesn't have to be this way.

Reason number 3 - It will bring our country together politically. Politics is not considered good dinner conversation, but don't you think grown-ups should learn how to talk productively about sensitive issues? I bet we would see that although "tea partiers" and "occupiers" certainly have their differences, they have much more in common than we have been led to believe. In fact, in a ward democracy these movements probably wouldn't exist because the underlying issues would already have been addressed. We should view these movements as symptoms of our society's political dysfunction, rather than viable cures. I'm sure there will be some irritating ideologues in every ward (occasionally I'll probably be one of them), but I imagine a lot more people from the "busy majority" will be represented. In addition, these wards could foster much needed social cohesion at a local level. Rather than driving across town to commiserate with people who think exactly like we do in our clubs, activist groups, and churches, we will learn to relate, really relate, with our neighbors again. We will be able to see that the vast majority of pro-lifers or pro-choicers are rational, lovable people who grasp the thorniness of such issues much better than we would think. On most of these controversial issues we only ever listen to the radically cocksure minority. Then we hastily demonize entire thought categories because of their most vocal representatives. This silly ignorance is best diffused by providing people with the opportunity to confront the "demons" in all of their complexity.

Reason number 4 - Honesty would be better rewarded among those who hope to be leaders. Right now we the people are looking for a political savior. Our desperation is growing palpable and our ears are itching to hear the bold and sweeping promises of someone supremely confident and ostensibly competent who is faster than a speeding earmark, more powerful than a filibuster, and able to leap tall corporations in a single bound. We flit around from charismatic figure to charismatic figure hoping to be swept off our feet by another Abraham Lincoln. (Happy 203rd bro!) But as anyone on the dating scene will tell you, brash confidence looks attractive at first but usually veils a lack of substance. While we are obsessing over the latest Mr. "Political" Universe, all of the more contemplative and reflective (though less telegenic and self-assured) candidates realize that it makes more sense for them to just stay home. And when the veil is lifted we will once again find ourselves on our backs looking up at Lucy, duped again.

Warding Off Political Apathy - Part 1

Would you like to recreate this scene in your neighborhood?

In this election cycle Republicans have to be more conscientious than ever about saying that they will reduce the "size" of government. They might even have to mean it. I heard Mr. Gingrich make such a promise a few primaries ago in Johnston, Iowa. In exchange for reduced government however, he asked something of us: increased citizenship. Whether or not you think government needs to be downsized, most of us can probably agree that citizenship has waned substantially in our country and may be at an all time low. It's hard to imagine how JFK could tell us just 50 years ago not to ask what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country. Does that sentiment even make sense to us anymore? Our country should be able to take care of itself right?

Is my ballot in there anywhere?

My own lack of engaged citizenship has disturbed me for a long time. The primary problem is motivation. I feel incredibly distant from government power and my vote seems like little more than a token. It is discouraging to think how much hard work would be required to fully grasp the complexity of the many political challenges we face and then watch that hard work swallowed up by giant bins full of other ballots cast by people who think that political discernment is absorbed passively from cable news shows.

I guess he ran for NASCAR president too.

Maybe the enormous population growth in our society has alienated us from our government in ways we need to counteract. Consider the following: John Quincy Adams won* the 1824 presidential election with 113,122 votes. John McCain lost the 2008 election because he only got 60,000,000 votes. For every American that successfully elected JQA there were 530 who couldn't quite get it done for McCain 184 years later. It is astounding to think how small our electorate was in the good old days. There were fewer votes cast in that election than there are voting-age citizens in Multnomah County today! Back then, it seems to me, our efforts to understand the issues would really have paid off. Discussing and debating issues with those around us could really have an influence on an election, even at a national level. Now it just seems like an exercise in futility or pedantry depending on who you are talking with. People who "know" about politics these days are probably much more likely to be lunatic ideologues rather than the conscientious, wise, humble, and creative citizens we need.

So here's my plan to fix all that.

Ready?

It's simple:

Give up your vote. Rather than voting individually we can unite together and vote collectively. We would divide our country into equal sized wards of say 1000 people. These wards would have regular meetings, discussions, and rules of order. Each ward could cast one vote on any issues that we vote on currently: ballot measures, representatives, bonds, levies, as well as mayors, governors, and presidents.

 Who has time to fill out ballots? Can't I just "phone it in"
like I do for DWTS? Text "citizenship is dead" to
20500 to vote for Barack or Sara

This might sound like a radical, anti-democratic ploy by a half-baked, half-educated half-wit. Well…I’ll only deny the first bit of that…because really this is not such a radical idea. These wards would be democratic, so I’m not really asking you to give up your vote. In fact, I hope to amplify it. This is a tactic that states have been using for a long time. For example, in Oregon we expressed a slight preference for Obama in the last election, but we gave him all of our electoral votes so that we could maximize our influence on a federal level. At this point, state populations have grown so large that it would be helpful for us to have more manageable civic units so that politics could be thought of as a social enterprise again rather than a smattering of inchoate private preferences that we’d better not discuss with the in-laws. Take another look at the School of Athens painting by Rafael and imagine they are discussing political issues. It seems like truly democratic people shouldn't just be driving to the library twice a year to drop off their ballot, but should be lounging in some public square now and then to discuss their ideas with friends, acquaintances, and even strangers.

If you don't like my plan then Socrates
thinks you're an idiot.

When I think of the democracies I would most like to have been a part of I think of small polities where political discourse is not limited to a handful of demagogues, talking heads, and television pundits, but truly involves everyone. Perhaps this has never existed in the way that I idealize it, but I think it is much more likely to have existed in smaller sociopolitical assemblages like ancient Athens, some Native American tribes, the Republic of Venice, or a Swiss forest canton. In these smaller civic units I think it must have been much harder to disengage from politics. I believe that a ward system would draw us out from our private delusions and force us to expose them and refine them. Just like a flabby stomach, we are much more likely to tone up our political thinking if we know someone is going to be checking it out. Let's dare to make this "res publica" a truly public thing again. And while we're on word derivations, let me remind you that the word “idiotes” in Greek was originally the word for a private person, someone who didn’t participate in public life.

Anyway, I decided to break this post up. In the second half I will enumerate more specifically what I believe to be the benefits of this "ward system" of democracy...or maybe if I could just find some people to talk to about politics I could stop blogging entirely.

We the Consumers

If the financial stakes are really being raised in the political sphere as high as I indicated in my last post then I would like to predict at least one high profile assassination in the U.S. in the next three years.

Secondly, I would like to remind you that I promised to unveil an idea for a new form of democracy in the blog post after this one. That is still my plan. Be prepared. It will take the world by storm.

If you have one of these you are an active voter.

Now to the topic at hand: just wages. In my last post I explored money in politics, which I find vaguely frustrating since I can't do much about it. So now I want to think about the money in my wallet. The value of our political vote may be on the wane, marginalized by the rising influence of corporate cash, but our economic vote (how we spend our money) is as important as ever. Not only does it exert economic influence on the companies we are buying from, but it also has a moral component that influences our very character.

There is a good chance that you have eaten chocolate from
cocoa grown by these kids at this gunpoint. 69% of the
world's cocoa is grown in West Africa.

Unfortunately, the moral implications of our spending are often obscured by the increasingly impersonal relationship between us and the people we buy things from. This makes economic justice in the modern world bedevilingly complex. My argument here is that we are hurting not only others but even ourselves when we fail to strive for a better understanding of what our spending means. Ignorance is no excuse, but it is the only one we have. Consider the following passage from the Bible. 

"Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you." - James 5:1-6

This passage is basically saying that living large while taking advantage of other people is not only wrong, but will hurt you. With all the talk about fields, harvesters, and moth-eaten garments the passage might not seem very relevant to my highly sophisticated readership, but I think it is extremely important that we consider this passage in a modern context. So, if they aren't out your back door, then where are your fields? And if they aren't in your backyard, then who are your harvesters?

Sure, it looks like easy living now, but you should have seen
this guy an hour ago in the milking parlor.

In the time Jesus' brother wrote these words there would have been lots of people who were proprietors of some sort. Some of them were so rich that they didn't have to work their own fields. They were lucky enough to escape the curse of Adam. "Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken." With the exception of one good friend (shout out to Rohne's Long Island Dairy!) I don't know anyone who works their fields for a living. There are also very few of you who win your bread by "the sweat of your face" like Dirk does. I've seen him. It's not pretty. For the rest of us who have escaped this part of Adam's curse we need to look elsewhere to make sure that we are paying the mowers and harvesters of our food (and the producers of all the other products we consume) appropriately and that their cries of injustice will not ascend to the Lord's aural cavity.

Rather than the occasional wealthy landowner of biblical times, there are whole nations of wealthy individuals now who live with luxuries that our ancient forebears could never have dreamed of. If you are reading this you are one of them. Additionally, our world economy is structured so that we don't ever have to look the exploited people in the face. They are separated from us by oceans and centuries. They might be harvesting our 30-cent bananas right now in Ecuador or suffering from our depletion of resources one hundred years from now.

You are what you eat. Feedlot beef for feedlot people?

But it is not just they who pay a price. Those of us living in luxury risk being fattened in the day of slaughter by ignoring what luxury, self-indulgence, and self-obsession do to our souls. As James says earlier, friendship with the world is enmity with God. To follow Christ you have to "deny yourself" because you will either find your comfort ultimately in this world's pleasures or in Christ. No one can serve two masters. For me one of the saddest and most troubling passages in the Bible is Luke 16, which ends with a rich man in hell being told, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. Woe to us if we love our good things too much and do not count them as rubbish, in order that we may gain Christ.

Now I am not suggesting that we all should become Amish and categorically reject modern luxuries. I don't think the Bible goes quite that far. I'm not suggesting that income inequality should somehow be abolished. I'm not even suggesting that you should grow some of your own food in a garden if you aren't into that kind of thing. But I am saying that we need to think very carefully about what we buy and who is getting paid to produce it. If comparing prices is more important to us than comparing ethics then we are serving the wrong master.

Consider Tillamook Cheese. I don't like everything about Tillamook, but there are good reasons to believe that buying more expensive Tillamook products is morally superior to giving any more of your money to Kraft Foods. I realize that this is a bold and controversial statement, but consider the following. Tillamook is cooperatively owned (so my buddy Dirk is part owner). The cows are largely grass fed. Farms are "family" sized and thus the land is less vulnerable to the shortcuts of agribusiness. Farm laborers are valued and well paid. Finally, for those of us in the Pacific Northwest Tillamook is local so that shipping and refrigeration externalities are minimized. I realize that deciding which cheese is most ethically produced is a complex and somewhat subjective issue. You may not think that Tillamook is all I have made it out to be, but I hope you will accept the principle nonetheless. If it is a more ethically produced product, then you have some explaining to do if you are unwilling to pay more for it.

From latinorebels.com

If you were lucky enough to escape the working-your-own-land-for-your-own-food part of Adam's curse, then someone is probably suffering the curse for you. It might be exploited children on a cocoa farm in West Africa. It might be your great-grandchildren who will have to pay the external costs (low crop yield and thus higher food prices) incurred by our decision to drain the Ogallala aquifer and deplete our soil and water quality through over-fertilization. It might be small farmers who have been driven out of business because of policies, regulations, and manipulation that favors the big moneyed interests that produce the cheapest products.

So, I think we need to adopt a new attitude when we go to the grocery store. I admit that it is difficult to do and we won't be able to figure it all out right away, but let's walk the aisles thinking about fairness, sustainability, and if you believe in him, God. Remember that when we buy it we are complicit in whatever circumstances brings the food to the supermarket shelves. It may sound like a duty you will be shackled with, but I really believe this will set us free. We will be free from obsession with cheap food and good deals. We will be free to pay what our food is really worth. Our relationship with our food will be the slow, deliberate, lingering enjoyment of a man with his wife rather than the obsessive, lustful, exploitative fix a man gets from his mistress. As the Bible says elsewhere, he who loves his wife loves himself.

Love your food!

Politics is a Game. Money is How They Keep Score.

Vote for Teddy this year! You won't hear this from anyone else.

It is not my intention that this should be a political blog. This was conceived of as a no-niche blog and hopefully once I get all this political stuff off my chest I can get back writing about what I know best: nothing in particular.
  
Though my last post may have convinced you otherwise, I readily admit that autocracy is not a good idea. It may be more palatable when it is headed by dynastic monarchs rather than upstart demagogues, but either way the ride is going to be bumpy. But in America the ride is getting pretty bumpy right now anyway, don't you think?
  
So, having briefly considered the festering abscess that is Russian politics, I would like to turn briefly to the ingrown hair that is American democracy. Our problems are much fewer, but they may be growing worse. I ventured to argue in my last post that Russian politics is attracting the wrong kind of politician. Any unbiased observer of the current Republican presidential hopefuls would likely agree that we have a similar problem. This is not because Republicans are all complete tools. There are many intelligent conservatives (as well as liberals) who would do our country a lot of good if they were running things. But none of them are foolish enough to join the circus of casuistry (word for the day used here in its pejorative sense) that is bringing shame and international opprobrium to our country.

Good

Bad

As we consider the modern American political game I would like to draw a comparison from sports. You may know that I adore the game known as Ultimate. Many who know me would probably say that my adoration looks a lot like obsession so I risk carrying a good deal of bias into this analogy. Anyway, since its inception in the late 1960s Ultimate has gone through eleven editions of its rulebook to make the game more fun, fair, and safe for players and spectators. As an example, one of those rules is known as the Principle of Verticality. This gives you the right to the airspace directly above you. Anyone in your airspace who makes contact with you is committing a foul. This principle helps both to diminish the likelihood of injury and to prevent tall people from having too many advantages. Sports are much more fun to watch and participate in when skill and effort are rewarded more than size or height. 

"If I had a hammer, I'd open BLM 
lands for my gas fracking buddies 
all over this land." - Dick Cheney

Our political system is in need of a similar rule. It increasingly favors one political virtue above all others: money. You need it to run. You need it to win. Unwillingness or inability to obsess over money means that qualified leaders of every political stripe are less likely than ever to end up on TV answering questions from Brian Williams. Instead, our system is encouraging more and more fame-starved nincompoops to run for office probably because they weren't lucky enough to get on a reality show. More likely it is because they are the only people foolish enough to run our country exactly the way well-financed interests would like it run. These people are "tools" in the traditional sense I suppose, being unwittingly exploited by others to accomplish a task. For example, maybe oil companies don't have a hard enough fist to punch fracking deregulation through Congress, but once they can get a grip on the right hammer they will have no trouble. 

To borrow another sports analogy, it's kind of like the LA Lakers buying the "tool" of Shaquille O'Neal (an enormous man with limited basketball ability) in order to dominate the NBA for a few years. It doesn't really seem right that a man who is a worse free throw shooter than me should be making millions of dollars missing them on national television while winning the NBA finals. Perhaps the rules of the game need to be changed if the highest bidder buying the biggest oaf will win the games. The NBA will not likely make rules that help favor smaller more talented players (I guess because there are plenty of tall talented players), but they definitely need better salary cap rules so that teams can't just buy championships.

This is a visual representation of Senator Ben Nelson (D)
Nebraska trying to develop useful legislation.

Back to politics. The current rules on a variety of money related issues are changing the kind of people that we can elect and the bedfellows they must keep. The LA Lakers in the current scheme are multinational corporations which are now able to wield political influence in ways our Founding Fathers could never have dreamed. The rest of us are the Milwaukee Bucks, unable to win many games as long as the playing field is tilted in favor of larger market cities. We can't get good players (i.e. candidates) because we can't afford them. Instead we have to watch the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks, Heat, and Bulls choose who the winners will be. I don't pretend to understand the shadowy relationships between PACs, 527 groups, and 501 groups, but their combined use by candidates since the Supreme Court's Citizen's United ruling last year (and a subsequent D.C. circuit court ruling) results in a completely new campaign finance structure, which allows corporations to bankroll political candidates to their hearts content without ever sullying their reputation by having to reveal it to the public. Allowing corporations to anonymously fund candidates in this way is already having enormous consequences. 

As Lawrence Lessig pointed out in his recent C-span interview (and, I suppose, in his new book which I am waiting on at the library), fundraising has become so important to political success that it not only determines the outcome of the elections but has become what distinguishes candidates for perks and promotion within their party. Talent, leadership, ideas, and loyalty to voters in your district are far less important to your success than loyalty to those who donate to your campaign. This conflict of interest is now determining the kind of politician who can be successful. Fundraising rather than policy is what a new generation of politician thinks about, talks about, and relies upon. Long-serving Congressman Jim Cooper from Tennessee says that when he sits down with the Democratic Policy Committee in Congress they don't really talk about policy anymore. They mostly talk about fundraising. 

To $$$$$$$$$$ and beyond

I even heard one of the Republican campaign managers (can't remember which one) say that he too was worried about the rising influence of PACs. His concern was that with money being funneled straight to candidates it could altogether bypass political parties making them irrelevant. Although I am no fan of either party, that kind of radical change frightens me. Can you imagine what Ultimate would be like if some players were getting jet packs from an observer with a stake in which team won or lost? Certain players could fly all over the field and the Brodie Smiths of the world could do nothing about it. The Principle of Verticality wouldn't matter anymore because the jet pack gang could catch the disc without any worry of making contact with a player underneath. Similarly, the rules limiting and requiring disclosure about campaign financing are being nullified by Super-PAC jet packs. So this Republican primary debacle we are all watching is only ostensibly about politicians trying to impress us. More truthfully the presidential contenders are trying to impress the jet pack distributers.

Every political system filters out the vast majority of candidates for political office. The way this occurs in Russia, the US, or anywhere else is different and depends on a wide variety of factors. No country's filtration system is perfect and rarely are the traits needed for successful campaigning ideal when it comes to leading. Though I don't advocate aristocracy, monarchy, or the rule of philosopher-kings I do agree with Plato on at least this point: There are a class of people in every society that surely would make great leaders, but have little motivation to run for office.

Coming soon...everywhere!

Unfortunately, those people are currently farther than ever from wanting to join the farcical political sphere and less likely than ever to be allowed in. The problem isn't that Americans are too dumb to elect a good candidate. The problem is that they will never be allowed to elect a good candidate because good (thoughtful, perceptive, principled) candidates can't get the traction required to be admitted onto a ballot. Our political game currently honors fundraising ability above all other qualities. So let me join the new chorus of voices (Lessig, Catherine Crier, and even a reformed "Casino" Jack Abramoff are the ones I have run across purely by chance in the last month.) saying that we must change the rules (specifically campaign finance, corporate personhood, and the revolving door) if we want to avoid trading our democracy in for plutocracy or perhaps something we should call "corporocracy." Hopefully enough focused cheerleading by we the people can convince the players to call a timeout and change the rules.

The King is Dead. Long Live the King

Pick a card!

The end of my last post alluded to the difficulties Americans have had in selecting the best candidates for elected office. Against my better judgement I have since started four different blog posts related to this topic and hope to release them for thee (I don't think my readership is plural yet) to read in the near future. The final one will include a proposal for a new form of democracy that I hope would engage more people in politics and mitigate the influence of money. Bold move, I know. 

Obviously, democracy is far from flawless in producing great leaders. You don't get to vote for an Abraham Lincoln every time you go to the polls. In the West we tend to think of democracy as one of our highest ideals, the culmination of the slow and bloody march of lady freedom against the sons of tyranny. While I admit that I tend to agree with this view, I think it is important to explore democracy's shortcomings. Blind allegiance to some of our most precious institutions is probably what keeps us from tinkering with and improving them. So in this post I would like explore some of the unappreciated qualities of democracy's long-derided wicked step-father: hereditary monarchy.

Still angry after all these years.

Democracy has been around ever since "Occupy the Acropolis" 508BC. Athenian activists only needed three days to overthrow the system and give Isagoras the boot. They established a democracy, which lasted for almost 200 years until Alexander the Great popped in for a visit. However, long before this Athenian luminaries such as Plato were already sour on rule by the people. According to Plato the biggest problem with rule by the people is the people. Perhaps he was just bitter because five hundred of the people (an Athenian jury) condemned his beloved teacher Socrates to death. But after tasting the bitter cup of watching Socrates drink his bitter cup you could excuse Plato for likening the people to a mob, too easily swayed by rhetoric and demagoguery. 

The other problem with democracy is that the people with the desire and ability to get elected aren't the ones most qualified to rule. In Plato's mind the best rulers would have been the philosophers, who were breathing the easy air of Platonic reality. Unfortunately, when these people move out of Plato's "cave" they acquire wisdom enough to avoid the meretricious charms of political power. 

A new way to kill time. An old way to be governed.

The reluctance of qualified leaders to seek office is a problem that is hard to deal with. Old school hereditary monarchy has some benefits in this regard that alternatives like democracy can't often produce, and Plato would probably agree. Democracies are ruled almost exclusively by a class of men and women who are good at rhetoric and persuasion, sophists rather than philosophers. That could be a problem, especially if you have any doubts about the morality or character of that class of men. Monarchies on the other hand have produced a dazzling array of political leaders: sophists, philosophers, and idiots of every imaginable kind. Despite the risk of bad eggs and the potential of power going to one's head, there have also been many benevolent and forward-looking monarchs. Plato thought philosopher-kings should be trained from birth partly because they would never go into politics otherwise. If Plato is right then perhaps the only way an enlightened philosopher has ever been coerced into accepting political power was by the accident of being born to a king. Monarchy is a game of roulette producing a random assortment of leaders because, as Chesterton noted in this essay, you will never find a more dazzling array of personalities than a random sampling of your own blood relatives.

Give me your diabolical, your compromised, your
huddled asses yearning to scheme freely. 

If you still find hereditary monarchy completely odious, it is worth carefully considering the alternatives we have tried since the toppling of the ancien règime 200 years ago. For example, when Russia switched its authoritarianism from a hereditary to an ideological variety almost 100 years ago, they signed a social contract far worse than the one they broke. The last hundred years has proved their error. They have experienced democratization, economic reform, revolution, and the collapse of their communist empire but Russia is still sleeping in the political bed it made during the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Communism in Russia has produced the wrong kind of welfare system, one that provides political jobs for men with impoverished morals. If you aren't up for shady dealing, you'd better find another career. People who really care about Russia, like say a Solzhenitsyn, will never get anywhere near the levers of power. 

There were supposedly three bullets in this gun. Russia
should be so lucky.

If Monarchy is like a roulette table, modern Russian politics might be closer to Russian roulette. There's not much to win, but a lot to lose. In Russian roulette you have a one in six chance of getting a bullet in your brain. Not the worst odds, but it could be worse. In post-revolutionary Russia it is worse. You have more like a three in six chance of having a psycho in charge who will put bullets in many peoples' brains. In Tsarist Russia you were at least as likely to get a "the Great" as you were a "the Terrible." But since going Tsarless Russians have endured Lenin the Terrible, Stalin the Atrocious, Khrushchev the Less Repressive, Brezhnev the Megalomilitant©, Gorbachev the Pretty-good, Yeltsin the In-over-his-head, and Putin the Unscrupulous Macho-Man. Voting is not enough to undo the damage that has been done. The primary problem is that the kind of person you have to be to succeed in Russian politics precludes almost everyone who is actually qualified. Gorbachev seems to me like the best hope of Russia during this period, but his reforms were stymied by the hosts of lower-level apparatchiks, promoted I assume for their willingness to collude with the corrupt establishment.

"Fine," you say, "but that's not really an argument against democracy." I will address that in my next post, but for now I just want to show that political systems can be much worse than hereditary monarchy if they demand and engrain appalling character traits in their leadership structure top to bottom. Monarchies at least introduce a little festive randomness at the top. How much worse off would Russia be now if not just the top job, but every political job was hereditary? It sounds a little medieval, but if this rule was enforced it would stymie the development of entrenched, corrupt political cultures because of all the randomness in successive office-holders. I admit there are many shortcomings to this idea, like potential political disfunction, incompetence, and the establishment of a separate class of citizens, so it won't be reappearing in my fourth post about a new kind of democracy. However, I doubt it would be much worse than many of the "democracies" in the world today.

The Doge Abides: Leadership and Jeff Lebowski

As everyone knows, Barack Obama has not been a transformational president. He rode a wave of immense popularity into the White House, but squandered his political capital early in his administration to push through an eviscerated, zombie-like health care reform act and take the probably necessary but painful steps of bailing out banks, the automobile industry, and enacting economic stimulus. To be fair, Obama has had to deal with several once in a generation crises and some awkward albatrosses like a Nobel Peace Prize and international superstardom. Nevertheless, Obama is no Jeff Lebowski...and that's a bad thing.

Campaign manager. Check.

Of course no one would ever vote for Jeff Lebowski (the little Lebowski from the The Big Lebowski) for President and at first glance you probably couldn't think of any way you'd like Barack Obama to emulate "the Dude." However JL has one thing that BO doesn't have: according to Sam Elliot he was "the man for his time and place." Jeff wasn't the ideal man, but he was exactly the right man for navigating shallow, kooky, anything-goes Los Angeles. His degree of ineptitude, greed, passivity, laziness, connivance, compassion, and cowardliness were exactly the combination necessary to see him through the dangerous situation he was facing. He was by no means perfect, but he was the right man for the job.

Media resonance. Check.

Of course Barack Obama has a lot more than Jeff Lebowski in the way of presidential qualifications, but his enviable charm, pragmatism, and intelligence are not the combination our country needs right now. Obama understands the political landscape. He is well aware of what it takes to get stuff done in Washington. He knows how to work a crowd and convince us that we are better than we are. He is quite skilled at reading the American public, and pandering to our whims. Unfortunately, he does not seem so skilled at leading the American people, which is what we need right now. Perhaps at a time when America was less turned off by politics and more engaged that would have been ok, but right now we need a leader not a poster-boy.

We need someone to inspire us to make sacrifices because he himself is making sacrifices. We need someone to inspire us to take risks by taking real political risks himself. We need someone to believe in ideals higher than a churning economy and a polished reputation. We need inspiration to be better people than we are, but Obama (and most other fearful, poll-beholden elected officials) is like an indulgent parent treating the American people like spoiled children who want cake (read "jobs") now. Instead of coddling us and making promises about how to get us our cake as soon as possible, I would like to see a politician dare to raise the debate to a higher plane. Talk to us seriously and courageously about some bigger issues like how we really got where we are now, what pillars shaky or sturdy our economy is built on, and what kind of country we will leave for our grandkids if politicians continue to kowtow to the myopic, presentist, simplistic demands of the American people as interpreted by the pollsters (who never ask questions like "would you sell your soul for a job?").

Muscle. Check.

I don't want someone who knows how to play the game. I don't want someone who "inspires confidence." I don't want someone who looks good on TV. I just want a president who is courageous enough to make a stand on unpopular issues, to help us change our thinking even if it costs him reelection. I want a President who cares more about policy than about reelection. I want my President to convince me to embrace higher taxes (so that my grandkids don't have to pay them), to pay more for oil, gas, and electricity (by not using my tax dollars to subsidize its skyrocketing costs, both internal and external), and to support a fight for the new type of government that Mr. Obama promised (by ceasing to tolerate the increasing influence of well-finanaced special interests in the process for selecting and electing candidates for government office).

Frightening alternative. Check.

Lawrence Lessig was recently interviewed on C-span and said that when Obama received his first budget from Congress his instinct was to veto it because of the thousands of earmarks it contained. The "cooler" heads around him convinced him that it wasn't worth alienating both Democrats and Republicans by pulling such a stunt. Lessig believes that when Obama signed it he lost the moral high ground and along with it his chance to reform government. Jeff Lebowski may not have understood the budget, but he wouldn't have been nearly so calculating, political, or partisan and might have had the guts to veto it, or at least to take a leak on its rug.

My hope is that if BO wins a second term he will be freed from worrying about the next election cycle and will be able to start thinking more about his legacy, which at this point will be dubious at best. Show some real courage, Mr. President, or step aside so we can find the right person for the job. I know he or she is out there and no matter how bad it gets, I agree with Sam Elliot, "The Dude Abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowing he's out there." If we could just get him to run for office.