BattleMaster Community
Community => General Talk => Topic started by: DoctorHarte on November 23, 2011, 10:01:12 PM
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Just wanted to say, US Congress has declared Pepper Spray to be a vegetable, but I can't seem to find it at the super-market.. ???
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It's amazing they find the time to do all this. Considering we have a massive debt, the conflict in Afghanistan (along with helping set up a stable government there), the recent revolution in Libya we helped support, and so on, I'm amazed they find the time to do such important work as figuring out whether pepper spray is a vegetable...
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Morons...
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It's amazing they find the time to do all this. Considering we have a massive debt, the conflict in Afghanistan (along with helping set up a stable government there), the recent revolution in Libya we helped support, and so on, I'm amazed they find the time to do such important work as figuring out whether pepper spray is a vegetable...
psst
its a joke
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It's amazing they find the time to do all this. Considering we have a massive debt, the conflict in Afghanistan (along with helping set up a stable government there), the recent revolution in Libya we helped support, and so on, I'm amazed they find the time to do such important work as figuring out whether pepper spray is a vegetable...
Considering the Republicans aren't even open to the slightest form of compromise, I think that if they actually debated such things, it'd actually be a better use of their time. ;)
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Considering the Republicans aren't even open to the slightest form of compromise, I think that if they actually debated such things, it'd actually be a better use of their time. ;)
Compromise would possibly allow the current government to actually DO something, which may make them look effective and thus increase their chances of re-election. The opposition here in Australia is doing the same thing, constant negativity and blocking every piece of legislation they can, all on the premise of "holding the government to task and making sure they are accountable" when it is obvious to anyone that can think the reason is purely to hamstring the government to increase their own chance at election. Sure some policies are bad and need to be opposed, but it has gotten to the stage where the opposition party will cripple the country, so long as they are confident they can shift the blame to an "ineffective" government.
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Compromise would possibly allow the current government to actually DO something, which may make them look effective and thus increase their chances of re-election. The opposition here in Australia is doing the same thing, constant negativity and blocking every piece of legislation they can, all on the premise of "holding the government to task and making sure they are accountable" when it is obvious to anyone that can think the reason is purely to hamstring the government to increase their own chance at election. Sure some policies are bad and need to be opposed, but it has gotten to the stage where the opposition party will cripple the country, so long as they are confident they can shift the blame to an "ineffective" government.
I know, it's disgusting.
It's not as bad here in Canada, but that's basically because every party not in power has imploded recently. At the federal level, the once upon a time "natural ruling" party, the Liberal Part of Canada, gradually decayed after the sponsorship scandal and is now left in tatters, without a leader after having chewed up four leaders over the last five elections. The New Democratic Party's (new official opposition) leader died to prostate cancer, so there's also a huge void there. The Bloc Québécois got decimated and the leader left as a result, so again, huge void there. Provincially speaking, the Parti Québécois (official opposition) had huge dissent a few months back, many MPs bailed out, two of them are joining to form a new party. An old-time ex-PQ guy who had quite long ago is also forming a new party promising lots of change (details are, imo, intentionally sketchy as he knows people want change, but wouldn't agree on what kind of change). One of the opposition parties is thinking of merging with this new party...
Both at the federal (Conservative Party of Canada) and provincial (Parti Libéral du Québec), the ruling parties stand strong against crippled opposition. But since they have majority governments anyways, the opposition couldn't do !@#$ even if they were organized. Considering our economic situation isn't as bad as the US', I'd honestly happily trade the political context. I'd rather the PLQ be paralyzed than it be allowed to continue screwing us over. And it's fairly clear that if they had a minority government and the opposition wasn't in such turmoil, we'd have the same blind partisanry, considering what I've heard of our various ministers and MPs lately.
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Just wanted to say, US Congress has declared Pepper Spray to be a vegetable, but I can't seem to find it at the super-market.. ???
Meh. The crowd-control concentration of pepper spray that US cops use is pretty nasty stuff (been sprayed with it myself once), but hardly some great atrocity. Even in the UC Davis incident, the cops appear, from most accounts of the incident, to have attempted to peacefully remove the protesters several times, and only to have used pepper spray after protesters refused to vacate the space. IMHO, protestors do not have a right to obstruct a public service or good (such as a road, a walkway, or a park) unless that specific public service or good is identifiably and directly connected to an active and ongoing injustice (such as lunch counters in the 1960's). Protesting by obstructing a sidewalk in a college town that is overwhelmingly liberal anyways is just childish.
Compromise would possibly allow the current government to actually DO something, which may make them look effective and thus increase their chances of re-election. The opposition here in Australia is doing the same thing, constant negativity and blocking every piece of legislation they can, all on the premise of "holding the government to task and making sure they are accountable" when it is obvious to anyone that can think the reason is purely to hamstring the government to increase their own chance at election. Sure some policies are bad and need to be opposed, but it has gotten to the stage where the opposition party will cripple the country, so long as they are confident they can shift the blame to an "ineffective" government.
That's one interpretation. I actually have an increasingly positive outlook on the matter. The reason is that I don't think politicians are idiots. Evil, maybe, but not dumb.
Most politicians recognize that budgets eventually need balancing. Most politicians recognize that there is no way to balance the budget without some kind of political suicide, especially in a nation where the electorate is extremely radical and polar. In such an environment, "compromise" will create primary challenges that result in MORE radical representatives being elected, and MORE protracted stalemate. Thus the optimal strategy for representatives seeking the "best interests of the nation" is to create situations wherein budgets can be balanced without any party (or possibly the other party) being viewed as the group that "did it," whether "it" is tax increases or spending cuts.
That is, with things like the supercommittee and last-minute brinskmanship and apocalyptic deal-making, representatives can make some kind of cut without having to take full political blame, meaning that electorates won't hold them as accountable for disagreeable or uncomfortable policy positions, meaning that they won't elect even more intractable candidates.
Think about it. The supercommittee failing triggered huge spending cuts and a (slightly) more balanced budget, composed almost entirely of spending cuts (the remainder being a few technical points and interest deductions), apparently a Republican "victory." Yet it is evidently a politically costly one, but one that also fulfilled something most people know is true but that is political suicide: the Pentagon's budget needs to go on the chopping block.
Somehow, without compromise, a compromise position happened. Conservative Republicans prevented tax increases, which is apparently the end-all-beat-all of their policy platform, and Liberal Democrats basically got to slash somewhere between $400 and $600 billion from the Pentagon's budget.
Brinksmanship and multi-tiered commitment mechanics with major consequences are a reasonable practice in a political environment where passionate activists un-interested in political necessity (or national welfare?) coincide with competent, ideologically committed but moderate representatives of the electorate, who do care for national welfare.
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If you were talking about the average canadian/québécois MP, I'd say you give them too much credit. Don't really know much about the american elected, though, but I tend to believe that they aren't all scheming geniuses as you seem to suggest they are.
I also doubt that fear for the "greater good" is that much of a cause, else I'd expect a lot of ex-officials to testify to such a thing fairly regularly. Just looks like partisanry to me, though this doesn't mean that the people doing it are stupid. After all, a lot of money is involved here...
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I tend to believe that they aren't all scheming geniuses as you seem to suggest they are.
It doesn't take a genius to realize that going bankrupt is bad, but compromise gets you killed by your voters... so you've got to find a way to not go bankrupt without compromising. Answer? A deadly game of brinksmanship. Both sides have nukes, and at least some on both side are probably willing to use them (i.e. let the nation collapse). But through a series of careful aggressions, proxy wars, periodic detente, and political exhaustion, the issue can be resolved. Compromise would be optimal, but compromise leaves you to open to attack.
The world is my prisoner's dilemma.
I also doubt that fear for the "greater good" is that much of a cause, else I'd expect a lot of ex-officials to testify to such a thing fairly regularly. Just looks like partisanry to me, though this doesn't mean that the people doing it are stupid. After all, a lot of money is involved here...
I think that most politicians have at least some notion, however misguided, that they are acting, ultimately, for the good of the nation. Not all, but most.
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It doesn't take a genius to realize that going bankrupt is bad, but compromise gets you killed by your voters... so you've got to find a way to not go bankrupt without compromising. Answer? A deadly game of brinksmanship. Both sides have nukes, and at least some on both side are probably willing to use them (i.e. let the nation collapse). But through a series of careful aggressions, proxy wars, periodic detente, and political exhaustion, the issue can be resolved. Compromise would be optimal, but compromise leaves you to open to attack.
The world is my prisoner's dilemma.
I think that most politicians have at least some notion, however misguided, that they are acting, ultimately, for the good of the nation. Not all, but most.
I guess one of my main problems with this is that all they do is perpetuate the situation where such actions are necessary, that is if I am even willing to buy into the notion that it is a round about way of accomplishing something, which I'm not entirely convinced of, and certainly isn't the case in the Australian system.
The end result is that such actions are constantly required, meaning the compromise result may be satisfactory but not optimal, and take far longer to arrive at which in many situations only results in the end compromise needed to be sufficient to dig you out of an even bigger hole. Look at the debt crisis in Europe, had nations like Greece been willing to take austerity measures MONTHS ago when other nations first started pushing for it, then would they need to be making such serious cuts now?
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The main problem with the American system of government is the two-party system, which is reinforced at pretty much all levels of government by winner-take-all systems. A proportional voting system would ideally produce 4 or more political parties, each with less than 30% of the votes, and political parties will have to at least get one other party to go along with whatever they're proposing.
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Vote for Ron Paul!
I think Congress also decided to put Pizza as a vegetable as well. The reason behind it was because people are trying to make kids eat more vegetables and Congress thought why not put Pizza into the vegetable family so schools can continuously supply kids with Pizza. They are not helping Americans with their obesity problem.
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If I am right, then tomato paste was declared a vegtable by congress for school lunches. But as european I don't pay much attention to the news on the other side of the ocean so I might be wrong.
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I trust that most politicians in Canada probably think they are doing the greater good. And that the vast majority of political candidates are convinced of it.
However, in systems like the states where there is no electoral spending cap, then my trust in said politicians lowers quite considerably. It can easily become more important to satisfy the people funding your campaign than the people you are supposed to work for. After all, even if you screw them over, you can still get them to vote for you with good ads. Or at least not make them vote for the other.
I also don't buy your notion that all solutions must be publicly loathed by all parties in order to only be reached by hidden compromise. Fixing a few root problems by causing a wide array of other ones could have been better delt by simply being gutsy and doing the right thing to begin with. Many governments get themselves elected by promising measures that are generally considered unpopular, after all. Nor do I, from the little I know, consider that "compromise" to be a good deal: even many of US' richest were saying: "tax us more!", and there's none of that. It's trading one half of the solution for the other half, doesn't bring anyone anywhere.
As for bankruptcy being bad... As any economic event, nothing bad for everyone. At least, in their head. There are plenty of people around that believe that the government is evil incarnate, and while they may not wish it to completely fail, the temptation to push it to the edge in order to force it to cut it's spending could be of interest. The rich would then benefit from the lowered taxation, as they can pay for all the public services they lost anyways.
Furthermore, whenever I watch videos of parliament, what I see is nothing like what you describe, or how De-Legro seems to describe. Because unlike in the states where the ruling party doesn't have a majority in both chambers, in Canada the tories have a majority in both the lower and upper chambre, and in Québec the liberals have a majority in the lower chamber (got rid of the useless upper chambre). Both parties have a majority that allows them to do whatever the hell they want, be damned the public opinion and the opposition's stances.
Yet, we see the exact same kind of partisanry in there than we hear about in the states, where they lack any power whatsoever to influence government policy. They bicker, they oppose just to oppose, they accuse the government of doing things they do or did themselves, and basically just try to make it sound as if they have the perfect solutions and that the government is bringing ruin to everyone (though it's true).
Just as the republicans are doing. Except that since they have the power to actually block the project, then it's all really a cunning plan of compromise by well-intended do-gooders who want to save people from their misguided selves? I have a hard time believing that.
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I trust that most politicians in Canada probably think they are doing the greater good. And that the vast majority of political candidates are convinced of it.
However, in systems like the states where there is no electoral spending cap, then my trust in said politicians lowers quite considerably. It can easily become more important to satisfy the people funding your campaign than the people you are supposed to work for. After all, even if you screw them over, you can still get them to vote for you with good ads. Or at least not make them vote for the other.
I also don't buy your notion that all solutions must be publicly loathed by all parties in order to only be reached by hidden compromise. Fixing a few root problems by causing a wide array of other ones could have been better delt by simply being gutsy and doing the right thing to begin with. Many governments get themselves elected by promising measures that are generally considered unpopular, after all. Nor do I, from the little I know, consider that "compromise" to be a good deal: even many of US' richest were saying: "tax us more!", and there's none of that. It's trading one half of the solution for the other half, doesn't bring anyone anywhere.
As for bankruptcy being bad... As any economic event, nothing bad for everyone. At least, in their head. There are plenty of people around that believe that the government is evil incarnate, and while they may not wish it to completely fail, the temptation to push it to the edge in order to force it to cut it's spending could be of interest. The rich would then benefit from the lowered taxation, as they can pay for all the public services they lost anyways.
Furthermore, whenever I watch videos of parliament, what I see is nothing like what you describe, or how De-Legro seems to describe. Because unlike in the states where the ruling party doesn't have a majority in both chambers, in Canada the tories have a majority in both the lower and upper chambre, and in Québec the liberals have a majority in the lower chamber (got rid of the useless upper chambre). Both parties have a majority that allows them to do whatever the hell they want, be damned the public opinion and the opposition's stances.
Yet, we see the exact same kind of partisanry in there than we hear about in the states, where they lack any power whatsoever to influence government policy. They bicker, they oppose just to oppose, they accuse the government of doing things they do or did themselves, and basically just try to make it sound as if they have the perfect solutions and that the government is bringing ruin to everyone (though it's true).
Just as the republicans are doing. Except that since they have the power to actually block the project, then it's all really a cunning plan of compromise by well-intended do-gooders who want to save people from their misguided selves? I have a hard time believing that.
Yup happens when our Governments have majorities as well. The policy of negativity and opposition can work even when there is very little you can actually do. Just need to make sure that you are SEEN to oppose everything. Of course in this case you have to be cleverer and actually pick policies that have a good chance of flopping, or be very good at spin. You don't want to get caught rubbishing a policy that turns out to be a huge success. You can see that here now, for example even though the opposition is against the new taxes we are going to levy on the mining industry, they are promising to keep the income tax cuts that are to be funded from the mining taxes. Where they propose to get the money to keep them once they repel the mining tax they won't say. The have also promised to keep the increase in our Superannuation Scheme, even though ideologically they are against all forms of compulsory savings, because who is honestly going to take away an increase to everyone's retirement savings?
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does it matter how many parties there are? by nature and definition, a party can be subdivided into smaller groupings.
even chairman mao thinks having cliques and groupings within a party is perfectly natural and conversely it's extraordinarily strange if there isn't.
the difference is obviously by having smaller parties, they mix and match their partners more fluidly.
then again, having smaller parties doesn't make politicians more accountable, because at the end of the day, a coalition's compromise policies basically isn't voted in by anyone.
thus you can think of big parties as coalitions that people vote upon and then buggers off to do something different... as opposed to coalitions formed after people have voted and then do something different..
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does it matter how many parties there are? by nature and definition, a party can be subdivided into smaller groupings.
even chairman mao thinks having cliques and groupings within a party is perfectly natural and conversely it's extraordinarily strange if there isn't.
the difference is obviously by having smaller parties, they mix and match their partners more fluidly.
then again, having smaller parties doesn't make politicians more accountable, because at the end of the day, a coalition's compromise policies basically isn't voted in by anyone.
thus you can think of big parties as coalitions that people vote upon and then buggers off to do something different... as opposed to coalitions formed after people have voted and then do something different..
Not sure how it works for you, but in theory we don't vote in a party or wide ranging policies. I vote for a representative to stand in parliament for me based on the beliefs and policies of that individual. In practice the two party system in Australia has seen voting be less about individual representative and all about which party you wish to see in power. I doubt most people could even name their federal representative, or actually know which party holds their seat. In the last ten years we even introduced the concept of "policy mandate" A combination of Opposition spin and willing media created this idea that a government can not introduce major policies that were not brought to the people during the election campaign. It obviously completely ignores that government must react to changing situations and new information, but it is a powerful tool when you want to whinge and complain.
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Many parties isn't always an improvement. Belgium, 529 days, 11 hours and 9 minutes without a government!
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you personally might... but in parliamentary democracies, regardless of party size, most electorate will vote for party. that they vote for a particular candidate is mostly incidental.. the weighty bit is that the candidate belongs to a party. obviously the candidate follows the party line (on most issues).
independent candidates do get elected, but it's rare. similarly, a candidate might flip party and still get elected, but usually that's because the candidate is following the wind of fortune, so to speak. there are obviously candidates who gets voted in because of who they are. but they are becoming a bit of a rare breed quite simply because candidates are not what they used to be.
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you personally might... but in parliamentary democracies, regardless of party size, most electorate will vote for party. that they vote for a particular candidate is mostly incidental.. the weighty bit is that the candidate belongs to a party. obviously the candidate follows the party line (on most issues).
independent candidates do get elected, but it's rare. similarly, a candidate might flip party and still get elected, but usually that's because the candidate is following the wind of fortune, so to speak. there are obviously candidates who gets voted in because of who they are. but they are becoming a bit of a rare breed quite simply because candidates are not what they used to be.
The minority government in Australia hinges on the support of 3 independent candidates, traditionally there will be several independents in our governments as well as members of the smaller parties, for instance the Green Party holds the balance of power in the upper house, by siding with either of the major parties they can determine if legislation is ultimately passed. The upper house has always had more successful independent and minor party candidates, but there is a trend forming that is seeing more win seats in the lower house as well, as people get tired of their electorate being ignore by larger parties, and tired of seeing their "representatives" vote against the interest of their electorate because of party politics.
But yes that is the problem I see with the voting system. It was devised before parties became such monolithic groups, what I am in theory supposed to base my vote upon has nothing to do with the practise.
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3 indy out of how many though?
what you are describing is not all that different from the hardcore eurosceptics under major's government.. when a government does not have a big majority, it's always hostage to the elements within the party/coalition that get themselves organised.
when you have a big majority, the opposition can do nothing... they have to oppose or they'll be irrelevant
yet when you have a small majority/hung parliament or even minority... the nutters come out to play - tail starts wagging the dog. they could be small / fringe parties or they could be fringe groupings of big parties.
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Just as the republicans are doing. Except that since they have the power to actually block the project, then it's all really a cunning plan of compromise by well-intended do-gooders who want to save people from their misguided selves? I have a hard time believing that.
It's not a secret or cunning compromise. Yes, it's sub-optimal.
Has nobody here ever looked at a prisoner's dilemma? My argument runs that, because neither side has a credible commitment mechanism from the other that they will "collude" in electoral mutually assured destruction, the only way for altruistic representatives to accomplish any goal is mutual harassment, brinksmanship, and apocalyptic measures. Even if a committee works out an agreement, there are enough radicals in both parties (especially in the Republicans; but if Occupy politicizes in any organized fashion, I expect the Democrats to do a similar thing in/after 2012) in the US to torpedo it. And if just a few representatives refuse to compromise, it creates a major political hazard for ALL representatives.
In sum, because no credible commitment mechanisms exist, mutual hostility resulting in policy-making by repeated crises is a second-best solution. Compromise is best for the nation, but if any politically meaningful element in either party refuses to compromise, it destroys the entire agenda, and, in the next election destroys the compromisers, creating a MORE radical group.
I would argue that the pre-Tea Party Republican Party was comparatively compromise-oriented. Yes, they were belligerent on some issues, but they compromised on many issues (like the debt ceiling) that are now issues of major debate. But, in 2010, moderates and compromisers were punished in Republican (and Blue-Dog) areas. This sent a signal to representatives that compromise will create intractable radicals. So the next best solution is to appear an intractable radical, and create crises that allow for some kind of policy formation, even a sub-optimal one.
Yes, compromise is more optimal, in a world where the electorate does not respond to the decisions of representatives. But in a world where the electorate does respond, and tends to respond by demanding increasing radicalism, compromise is not a long-run optimal solution. Until meaningful credit downgrades hit and borrowing costs rise significantly. At that point, the fallout of compromise is less than the fallout of second-best or sub-optimal policy formation.
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Not sure how it works for you, but in theory we don't vote in a party or wide ranging policies. I vote for a representative to stand in parliament for me based on the beliefs and policies of that individual. In practice the two party system in Australia has seen voting be less about individual representative and all about which party you wish to see in power. I doubt most people could even name their federal representative, or actually know which party holds their seat. In the last ten years we even introduced the concept of "policy mandate" A combination of Opposition spin and willing media created this idea that a government can not introduce major policies that were not brought to the people during the election campaign. It obviously completely ignores that government must react to changing situations and new information, but it is a powerful tool when you want to whinge and complain.
Theoretically, yea, we vote for the man.
In reality, no, as you say people vote for the party. That's why this last election, a lot of NDP candidates who had never even been in their riding got elected. The party's program, and especially his leader, are the main vote catchers. Individual candidates will influence the polls, of course, but in most cases, they aren't all that important. It's the same in Canada as in Australia, and I bet it's the same in the rest of the Commonwealth.
does it matter how many parties there are? by nature and definition, a party can be subdivided into smaller groupings.
even chairman mao thinks having cliques and groupings within a party is perfectly natural and conversely it's extraordinarily strange if there isn't.
the difference is obviously by having smaller parties, they mix and match their partners more fluidly.
then again, having smaller parties doesn't make politicians more accountable, because at the end of the day, a coalition's compromise policies basically isn't voted in by anyone.
thus you can think of big parties as coalitions that people vote upon and then buggers off to do something different... as opposed to coalitions formed after people have voted and then do something different..
"Party lines" are, in most cases, chains that dictate how the MPs will act. Most party leaders rule with great authority, though they usually consult their MPs first. The Parti Libéral du Québec is an extreme example, with it's flock of sheep MPs: the party is accused of great corruption, everyone's saying it's corrupt and wasting our money and resources, and it also goes making HUGE partisan spendings that leave a lot of the province pissed off, but NEVER did a liberal MP publicly stray. A few anonymously did, the useless youth wing did, but no MP on the public scene did anything.
If you have many smaller parties, then you have much more odds of coalition composition shifting during key issues, because, after all, the leader can't expel the dissident MPs, and they weren't elected under his party program.
I know in practice there has been a lot of troubles with many small parties, but despite being someone who believes we need a strong government, I'd rather a paralyzed government than one who can do whatever he wants and to hell with public opinion.
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It's not a secret or cunning compromise. Yes, it's sub-optimal.
Has nobody here ever looked at a prisoner's dilemma? My argument runs that, because neither side has a credible commitment mechanism from the other that they will "collude" in electoral mutually assured destruction, the only way for altruistic representatives to accomplish any goal is mutual harassment, brinksmanship, and apocalyptic measures. Even if a committee works out an agreement, there are enough radicals in both parties (especially in the Republicans; but if Occupy politicizes in any organized fashion, I expect the Democrats to do a similar thing in/after 2012) in the US to torpedo it. And if just a few representatives refuse to compromise, it creates a major political hazard for ALL representatives.
In sum, because no credible commitment mechanisms exist, mutual hostility resulting in policy-making by repeated crises is a second-best solution. Compromise is best for the nation, but if any politically meaningful element in either party refuses to compromise, it destroys the entire agenda, and, in the next election destroys the compromisers, creating a MORE radical group.
I would argue that the pre-Tea Party Republican Party was comparatively compromise-oriented. Yes, they were belligerent on some issues, but they compromised on many issues (like the debt ceiling) that are now issues of major debate. But, in 2010, moderates and compromisers were punished in Republican (and Blue-Dog) areas. This sent a signal to representatives that compromise will create intractable radicals. So the next best solution is to appear an intractable radical, and create crises that allow for some kind of policy formation, even a sub-optimal one.
Yes, compromise is more optimal, in a world where the electorate does not respond to the decisions of representatives. But in a world where the electorate does respond, and tends to respond by demanding increasing radicalism, compromise is not a long-run optimal solution. Until meaningful credit downgrades hit and borrowing costs rise significantly. At that point, the fallout of compromise is less than the fallout of second-best or sub-optimal policy formation.
You seem to suggest that man, or at least most politicians, are altruistic by nature.
I tend to view that man is taught altruism, and is rather greedy and egoistical by nature.
And in a political system ruled by money like the US's, I simply cannot buy that radicalism in the parties is an altruist stratagem. There's just too much money in play.
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I know in practice there has been a lot of troubles with many small parties, but despite being someone who believes we need a strong government, I'd rather a paralyzed government than one who can do whatever he wants and to hell with public opinion.
I'd rather a government that didn't worry about public opinion, because, frankly, worrying about public opinion is what got the US government in its current predicament. The sad truth is that the majority of the public is ill-equipped at best with the knowledge of what price and consequences any particular action will have.
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I'd rather a government that didn't worry about public opinion, because, frankly, worrying about public opinion is what got the US government in its current predicament. The sad truth is that the majority of the public is ill-equipped at best with the knowledge of what price and consequences any particular action will have.
Yea, and not worrying about public opinion brings you to a state like Greece's, where rampant corruption breaks your economy.
I'd rather the economy stall because the governments are trying to please too many people at once, than it stalls because they are systematically trying to favor the ones with the money to keep them in power.
In Montreal, prices for public infrastructure dropped by 30% the day the government announced it'd start taking collusion more seriously. That's billions of dollars that we are spending for nothing by paying 30% more than fair market price. But of course, it took 2 years to finally declare a public commission to investigate that !@#$, because everybody knows that the PLQ, the governing party, is being financed by the construction industry.
Between a government that doesn't care about the public opinion and that screws our economy over by making favors to the construction, mining, and energy industries and a government that cares too much and that screws our economy by being too generous with education and public health, I cannot think why anyone would rather the former. Unless, of course, you are part of that privileged group.
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*snorts* don't even get started with greece, neither side knows much of anything there.
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What we need introduced in our election laws are popular-initiative elections, so that if enough people sign a petition at the national assembly, elections will be called, saving us from another 3 years with this terrible liberal government.
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You seem to suggest that man, or at least most politicians, are altruistic by nature.
I tend to view that man is taught altruism, and is rather greedy and egoistical by nature.
And in a political system ruled by money like the US's, I simply cannot buy that radicalism in the parties is an altruist stratagem. There's just too much money in play.
Not by nature at all. And I use "altruistic" loosely: not directly and immediately and primarily concerned with personal material gains. I think most politicians have, whether by nature or otherwise I couldn't say, a real and pressing interest in national welfare, even aside from some degree of welfare being (hypothetically) a condition for their employment.
What we need introduced in our election laws are popular-initiative elections, so that if enough people sign a petition at the national assembly, elections will be called, saving us from another 3 years with this terrible liberal government.
That would create even more paralysis, as the instant that a government became unpopular, it could face massive consequences, thus the incentive to make any kind of bold policy maneuvers would be further removed. See California for details.
Staggered, long-term elections. 6-10 year terms, but staggered so that elections occur every year. Vastly reduces campaigning burdens, gives representatives years to formulate policy, political bases (even outside of their party), and relationships. But staggered elections mean that the electorate always has an opportunity to express their will and effect, at least marginally, the direction of national policy. The US Senate is actually a fair example of this, but habitual filibustering and coexistence with the House somewhat confounds the issue.
Such a body would constantly have a meaningful contingent actively beholden to public opinion (depending on term and staggering, between 1/10 and 1/3 of them would be campaigning or about to begin campaigning at any given time), yet every individual representative would have a term long enough to shield them from fickle public opinion, and secure enough to limit their need for special-interest support. Also, I'm generally in favor of a very large legislature, for similar reasons of limiting the influence of a few strong personalities, and for increasing the "cost" to special interests to lobby.
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Not by nature at all. And I use "altruistic" loosely: not directly and immediately and primarily concerned with personal material gains. I think most politicians have, whether by nature or otherwise I couldn't say, a real and pressing interest in national welfare, even aside from some degree of welfare being (hypothetically) a condition for their employment.
That would create even more paralysis, as the instant that a government became unpopular, it could face massive consequences, thus the incentive to make any kind of bold policy maneuvers would be further removed. See California for details.
Staggered, long-term elections. 6-10 year terms, but staggered so that elections occur every year. Vastly reduces campaigning burdens, gives representatives years to formulate policy, political bases (even outside of their party), and relationships. But staggered elections mean that the electorate always has an opportunity to express their will and effect, at least marginally, the direction of national policy. The US Senate is actually a fair example of this, but habitual filibustering and coexistence with the House somewhat confounds the issue.
Such a body would constantly have a meaningful contingent actively beholden to public opinion (depending on term and staggering, between 1/10 and 1/3 of them would be campaigning or about to begin campaigning at any given time), yet every individual representative would have a term long enough to shield them from fickle public opinion, and secure enough to limit their need for special-interest support. Also, I'm generally in favor of a very large legislature, for similar reasons of limiting the influence of a few strong personalities, and for increasing the "cost" to special interests to lobby.
I've never worked out why we have staggered terms for the Upper house in Australia, but they never thought to implement it in the lower house, very annoying. I'm completely agree though, the effect of 3 year terms leads to largely short term orientated policies as the winning party is instantly concerned with ensuring they win the next election.
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probably because the lower chamber is the primary chamber and you need the ability to completely boot out a party at one go, or at least in theory.
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Also, I'm generally in favor of a very large legislature, for similar reasons of limiting the influence of a few strong personalities, and for increasing the "cost" to special interests to lobby.
In a system where campaign spending isn't regulated by law, sure. But in Canada, only people can give money to political parties (not corporations or unions), and they can only give so much per year (1000$ in Québec), and the parties then have spending limits during election campaigns. This was done to counter lobby groups who could basically own some politicians. So say you theoretically double the number of MPs, you would need to half what each candidate can spend during elections (seriously limiting their budget and inciting illegality), or you'd end up with the MPs totaling twice the spending limit. Not to mention you pay twice as much in salary and various advantages. And when you consider that the parties hold basically absolute authority over their MPs, I think you could shrink or quadruple the number of MPs and see no difference in the national assembly.
You also then get stuck with the fact that there is more posts than people seriously interested in getting elected there. Of course all the major parties have candidates everywhere, but some barely, and this is often managed by having random nobodies sent in regions they don't expect to win anyways. More ridings = more nobodies = more sheople. You'd also get more !@#$%^&s like the independant André Arthur, who spoke a total of three sentences (or was it three words?) in a whole parliamentary session, and who missed 95 of the 311 votes 'cause he was too busy with his job as a bus rider to go to parliament...
When I was young and idealist, I used to think that I'd rather a strong government than a weak one, so that at least he could push an agenda completely and get something done without endless compromises which ruined the policies' effectiveness. Now, having seen what political parties do when they have absolute power (or pretty darn near), I'd rather they lack the power to do anything at all unless they find endless compromises with the opposition.
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You obviously don't have a country wracked by trillions of dollar in debt, Chenier.
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...which country is that? most countries have !@#$ loads of debt XD
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You obviously don't have a country wracked by trillions of dollar in debt, Chenier.
Yea, well, a lot of the US' big spendings were thanks to the government just acting as he pleased. All those wars, notably... Spending is the result of a decision, though some decisions result in spending many times after they were taken. No decisions = no spending. Or less, at least, as there is no new spending.
And if you put it per GDP, it's still pretty bad, but not the worst in the world.
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You do realize that the status quo would not cut spending at all, only increasing our debt problem until we are in a hole we cannot dig out of.
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You do realize that the status quo would not cut spending at all, only increasing our debt problem until we are in a hole we cannot dig out of.
Well, had the government stopped acting in 2000, and done like Belgium, you likely wouldn't have trillions in debt and no hope to free yourselves of it. :P
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Yes, isn't hindsight just a wonderful gift that does nothing to help our current problems? What you're saying we should do is bury our heads in the sand and hope the problem goes away. I'd say more, but it would only be a personal attack so I won't.
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Yes, isn't hindsight just a wonderful gift that does nothing to help our current problems? What you're saying we should do is bury our heads in the sand and hope the problem goes away. I'd say more, but it would only be a personal attack so I won't.
You misunderstand me. I'm not saying "take a ton of decisions until you screw over your economy, and then paralyze the government 'till it's healed". That won't work. What I'm saying is that "if everything is, in general, going fine, it's probably better if the government gets paralyzed and doesn't do anything than it be granted the power to make things worse".
I'm all for a government that spends for the public interest, but when they start giving out goodies to the mining industries and to the shale gas industry, or to arbitrarily displace one industry from one region to another, that's where I draw my line. And lately, that's all I've been seeing.
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Well, had the government stopped acting in 2000, and done like Belgium, you likely wouldn't have trillions in debt and no hope to free yourselves of it. :P
You've gotta be bull!@#$ting me. The paralyzed politics in Belgium are catastrophic. AA rating today, nearing 6% on state loans.
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You've gotta be bull!@#$ting me. The paralyzed politics in Belgium are catastrophic. AA rating today, nearing 6% on state loans.
Bah. 8)
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You do realize that the status quo would not cut spending at all, only increasing our debt problem until we are in a hole we cannot dig out of.
False. The status quo IS shrinking the debt. See "supercommitee failure." $1.2 trillion in debt reduction. Sure, when you translate that into actual budgetary numbers it's only a 2% cut in operational outlays. But it's a step. Yes, it's sub-optimal, but to act like we have a "do-nothing" government is preposterous: the means of their doing is non-traditional and sub-optimal, but hardly stalemated.
Crisis creates the political will, or the market necessity, to resolve it. Thus far, US politicians have proven to have the political will to cut budgets. They are "on the edge" right now, as both Moody's and Fitch have noted recently. But, thus far, the US has not shown the same crippling inability to manage its own debt as, say, Greece. We also have less debt compared to GDP, which is important.
In a system where campaign spending isn't regulated by law, sure. But in Canada, only people can give money to political parties (not corporations or unions), and they can only give so much per year (1000$ in Québec), and the parties then have spending limits during election campaigns. This was done to counter lobby groups who could basically own some politicians. So say you theoretically double the number of MPs, you would need to half what each candidate can spend during elections (seriously limiting their budget and inciting illegality), or you'd end up with the MPs totaling twice the spending limit. Not to mention you pay twice as much in salary and various advantages. And when you consider that the parties hold basically absolute authority over their MPs, I think you could shrink or quadruple the number of MPs and see no difference in the national assembly.
Here I reveal myself. I think campaign spending regulations are foolish, and am firmly on the side of corporate personality. Yes, in a system like Canada's, it could create incentives for criminality to have a large legislature. But in the US, our legislature is actually very small compared to the size of our nation. We have 535 directly elected representatives in our legislature compared to 300 million people. That's 585,000 people per rep. Canada has 113k per rep, France 71k, UK 95k, Spain 75k, Italy 64k, Ireland 27k, and Germany 132k.
In sum, the US does not have a deficit of persons interested and probably competent for the office. And congressional salaries are not that big of a cost compared to the size of the government. What we do have is a body of legislators with enormous power and sway, but comparatively small, so more easily influenced. Going from 535 reps to, say, 3000 reps would have huge new costs and make policy-making a process far less dominated by personalities and radicals, but rather by party machines, who tend to be more moderate and compromise-oriented. This would have some serious downsides, but would also make it more possible for representatives to be connected to their local constituencies.
The US system is of course not properly comparable to France, Ireland, and Italy, as the US has large state legislatures. But comparisons with other federal structures, like Germany, Canada, and the UK still has the US with an exceptionally small legislature.
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But in the US, our legislature is actually very small compared to the size of our nation. We have 535 directly elected representatives in our legislature compared to 300 million people. That's 585,000 people per rep. Canada has 113k per rep, France 71k, UK 95k, Spain 75k, Italy 64k, Ireland 27k, and Germany 132k.
You can't compare numbers like that. If Ireland had the same ratio as the US, it would only have ten MPs. That's just not enough to have a functioning legislature, that's a junta.
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But in the US, our legislature is actually very small compared to the size of our nation. We have 535 directly elected representatives in our legislature compared to 300 million people. That's 585,000 people per rep. Canada has 113k per rep, France 71k, UK 95k, Spain 75k, Italy 64k, Ireland 27k, and Germany 132k.
Lucky you. In India, counting *both* houses of parliament, we have one MP per 1509000 citizens.
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Considering the Republicans aren't even open to the slightest form of compromise, I think that if they actually debated such things, it'd actually be a better use of their time. ;)
Because the Democrats are? When did this happen? Ever?
Vote for Ron Paul!
Voting for crazy doesn't fix things either. >.>
Also: http://www.debtclock.ca/
While not as bad as ours, the fact that it's so high isn't a good sign either.
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Also: http://www.debtclock.ca/
While not as bad as ours, the fact that it's so high isn't a good sign either.
Psh, they haven't even hit their first billion. CA is doing just fine
Rick Perry is obviously our best bet considering he's the Governor of Texas, great political background, and.. uh.. err.. ah.. can't think of the third one. Oops!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uvmKnFY4uk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uvmKnFY4uk)
That's how great are our Republican candidates!
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anyone read newt's historical fictions? i've been meaning to read them (because forstchen is the co-writer)
vote newt.. he writes fiction XD
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Psh, they haven't even hit their first billion trillion. CA is doing just fine
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You can't compare numbers like that. If Ireland had the same ratio as the US, it would only have ten MPs. That's just not enough to have a functioning legislature, that's a junta.
I know. Naturally, it'd be something like an S-curve (though it would begin at the origin). So that any group over a thousand or so probably needs at least 5-10, and you reach the 50-100 range very quickly.
But there is no reason the number should decline again. Many nations smaller than the US have more national representation. The issue is significant, because it meaningfully increases the incentive for corporations to finance politicians, and meaningfully decreases the ability of politicians to connect to a constituency. The US is a bigger nation, so will naturally have a "higher" constituents/representatives ratio. But there's no reason for it to be SO much higher.
Lucky you. In India, counting *both* houses of parliament, we have one MP per 1509000 citizens.
I was counting both houses in most of those examples, if both houses were elected.
But yeah, that is pretty crazy. Though, of course, a larger nation is going to be less personally represented (hence the need for functional regional legislatures), but that still is a rather big leap.
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I know. Naturally, it'd be something like an S-curve (though it would begin at the origin). So that any group over a thousand or so probably needs at least 5-10, and you reach the 50-100 range very quickly.
But there is no reason the number should decline again. Many nations smaller than the US have more national representation. The issue is significant, because it meaningfully increases the incentive for corporations to finance politicians, and meaningfully decreases the ability of politicians to connect to a constituency. The US is a bigger nation, so will naturally have a "higher" constituents/representatives ratio. But there's no reason for it to be SO much higher.
In the canton of Geneva there are 100 MPs for a total population of 191'000 people. When I first arrived here I thought that was ridiculous, but then I realized they were part-time workers. At some point my old boss was elected and he didn't have to give up his day job, and all the councils were held on thursday nights.
I think it makes more sense to have 100 people working part time to have a real representation of the diversity of opinion, then 8 people working full time.
But I agree with you, it needs to be a S-curve. Somewhere above 200 people it probably doesn't make to increase it at all.
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Somewhere above 200 people it probably doesn't make to increase it at all.
Errr..... I disagree. I'd say somewhere above 1000-2000 it doesn't make sense to increase it at all.
I think it makes more sense to have 100 people working part time to have a real representation of the diversity of opinion, then 8 people working full time.
Generally agreed. The US has a mixed record on this. Nationally, our politicians are full-time but, at the state level, different legislatures do it different ways. Different studies have concluded different things about part-time legislators. On the one hand, they are more connected to their constituents, and so you would expect a more democratic and responsive system, and there seems to be some real confirmation that this is the case. On the other hand, a part-time legislator is financially dependent, and may be more susceptible to bribes and special interests.
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Errr..... I disagree. I'd say somewhere above 1000-2000 it doesn't make sense to increase it at all.
The way I see this, you need to have a reasonable number of people in a committee so that everybody knows each other and can hold a meaningful discussion, i.e. without necessarily working through the Robert's Rules of Order or its local equivalent. I've see research stating that the max number is seven, but we don't need every decision to be taken in a single day either. A dozen people seems right to me.
12 committees with 12 members each should be enough to address meaningfully the pertinent legislative questions, or ~150 people. This is not exact science, of course.
On the other hand, a part-time legislator is financially dependent, and may be more susceptible to bribes and special interests.
Yes, but it's harder to secretly bribe a large number of people with small sums of money than a few people with a large sum of money.
In other words, the more people there are, the more likely at least one of them will be honest, and even more so if the gravy is spread thin.
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The way I see this, you need to have a reasonable number of people in a committee so that everybody knows each other and can hold a meaningful discussion, i.e. without necessarily working through the Robert's Rules of Order or its local equivalent. I've see research stating that the max number is seven, but we don't need every decision to be taken in a single day either. A dozen people seems right to me.
12 committees with 12 members each should be enough to address meaningfully the pertinent legislative questions, or ~150 people. This is not exact science, of course.
Yes, but it's harder to secretly bribe a large number of people with small sums of money than a few people with a large sum of money.
In other words, the more people there are, the more likely at least one of them will be honest, and even more so if the gravy is spread thin.
In a country of, say, 300,000,000 people, it is easy to bribe 150 politicians. Having a total legislature of 150 people in a country of that size would be quite easy to manipulate, and constituencies would be huge, meaning politicians would have no real ability to connect to their constituents.
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In a country of, say, 300,000,000 people, it is easy to bribe 150 politicians. Having a total legislature of 150 people in a country of that size would be quite easy to manipulate, and constituencies would be huge, meaning politicians would have no real ability to connect to their constituents.
Large countries are usually federations for a good reason.
Whatever you do, the needs of a functioning legislature and the needs of connecting to your constituents are orthogonal. They may be made to fit each other in special cases, and it's great when it's the case, but if the size of the country makes such alignment impossible then it just is and you'll have to choose.
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Large countries are usually federations for a good reason.
A federal system in which final authority on most issues of significance rests in the central government does not resolve the issue; it makes many lower-level legislatures redundant. Federalism would only meaningfully reduce the number of "needed" representatives if many significant issues were reserved exclusively to subsidiary legislatures. I am not familiar with other federal systems but, in the US, this is not the case. Very few things are definably outside the authority of the federal government, but within the authority of a state government. The two that immediately come to mind are corporate charters and school curricula, but even those are not wholly independent.
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Here I reveal myself. I think campaign spending regulations are foolish, and am firmly on the side of corporate personality. Yes, in a system like Canada's, it could create incentives for criminality to have a large legislature. But in the US, our legislature is actually very small compared to the size of our nation. We have 535 directly elected representatives in our legislature compared to 300 million people. That's 585,000 people per rep. Canada has 113k per rep, France 71k, UK 95k, Spain 75k, Italy 64k, Ireland 27k, and Germany 132k.
Now why would you think it foolish? Companies finance these elections from their profits, which they make from their sales. Really, they are just using the consumers' money to buy out politicians that will work against the consumer.
The money per vote system also helps to correct a system that drastically skews everything in favor of the big and pro-rich parties.
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Now why would you think it foolish? Companies finance these elections from their profits, which they make from their sales. Really, they are just using the consumers' money to buy out politicians that will work against the consumer.
The money per vote system also helps to correct a system that drastically skews everything in favor of the big and pro-rich parties.
Because nobody has ever been able to demonstrate to me, in a developed country, the mechanism by which an election is bought. Ads don't force people to vote. Nor do get-out-the-vote efforts. And the problem with special interests is not primarily about money, but term length and extent of government authority.
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Because nobody has ever been able to demonstrate to me, in a developed country, the mechanism by which an election is bought. Ads don't force people to vote. Nor do get-out-the-vote efforts. And the problem with special interests is not primarily about money, but term length and extent of government authority.
Money buys visibility. Visibility earns credibility. Credibility grants confidence. Confidence produces votes.
It's simple psychology. The more visibility candidates have, the more "serious" they appear as contenders. Voters then tend to vote for their favorite candidates among those who appear to seriously have a chance to get elected.
In addition, greater visibility allows gives you an upper hand if you wish to discredit your competitors, because you can multiply your ads in much greater proportions than what they can retort to.
Obviously, visibility isn't *everything*, but it's pretty damn important.
As for "extent of government authority", sure, the more power the government has, the more interest there is in corrupting it. However, the less powerful it is, the less such corruption becomes necessary, because those who would do it can then easily do it other ways.
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Because nobody has ever been able to demonstrate to me, in a developed country, the mechanism by which an election is bought. Ads don't force people to vote. Nor do get-out-the-vote efforts. And the problem with special interests is not primarily about money, but term length and extent of government authority.
Ever hear of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_McCotter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_McCotter)? No? He was running to become the Republican Party candidate. The problem is, he didn't have the money to purchase national ads to increase his visibility.
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Visibility via advertising puts the candidate's name in people's minds. That way when people go to vote, assuming they're not the typical mindless drone that just goes down the ballot and checks all the democrat/republican boxes, they vote for names that sound familiar. Because they're more likely to pick a name they've heard of than one they haven't. That's how you buy votes.
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Visibility via advertising puts the candidate's name in people's minds. That way when people go to vote, assuming they're not the typical mindless drone that just goes down the ballot and checks all the democrat/republican boxes, they vote for names that sound familiar. Because they're more likely to pick a name they've heard of than one they haven't. That's how you buy votes.
Indeed.
Most people don't have the time or don't care enough to go look at all the options they have. As such, they stick to those they've heard about, and chose their favorite according to the information that was fed to them. This is in addition to the "not wanting to waste their vote on a candidate that doesn't have a chance to win" mechanics I spoke of earlier.
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... the "not wanting to waste their vote on a candidate that doesn't have a chance to win" mechanics ...
I've run into that before. I've had people tell me: "You voted for him?! This election was way too important for you to waste your vote like that!"
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bah. ban advert.
sorted
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I've run into that before. I've had people tell me: "You voted for him?! This election was way too important for you to waste your vote like that!"
Indeed, I hear that all the time up here. "We must vote for X, because they have the highest chance of defeating Y!" Never mind the fact that X sucks just as much as Y, or pretty darn near. At least the cash per vote system gives incentives to not think like this, but it ain't big enough. And Harper removed that at the federal level anyways.
I think this attitude is probably worse in winner-takes-all systems like we have, as opposed to systems like the one in France (as far as I know it).
bah. ban advert.
sorted
And how do you know who to vote for? This would just give elections to famous people on a silver plate.
Election ads are a necessary evil, which I think is best when regulated by spending caps.
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I think this attitude is probably worse in winner-takes-all systems like we have, as opposed to systems like the one in France (as far as I know it).
France has a winner-takes-all system with two rounds instead of one. Weren't you thinking of proportional systems?
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France has a winner-takes-all system with two rounds instead of one. Weren't you thinking of proportional systems?
Nah, I was thinking of multi-round systems, as you can try to vote for a marginal candidate without the net result being a seemingly pretty useless vote in the grand result, because you also have a word to say on other candidates. But then again, maybe not that much.
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Nah, I was thinking of multi-round systems, as you can try to vote for a marginal candidate without the net result being a seemingly pretty useless vote in the grand result, because you also have a word to say on other candidates. But then again, maybe not that much.
I prefer preferential voting to multi-round systems. I have yet to see an argument against preferential voting that does not boil down to "Voters are to dumb to understand it. Not me, of course, I understand it fine. Others are dumb."
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I prefer preferential voting to multi-round systems. I have yet to see an argument against preferential voting that does not boil down to "Voters are to dumb to understand it. Not me, of course, I understand it fine. Others are dumb."
Is that when you set the order of preference when you vote, and if the winner doesn't get 51%, you scrap the lowest results to give the 2nd choice instead, and so on until someone has 51%?
Yea, that was proposed by the Liberal Party of Canada a few days back. Obviously, it was tailored to their interests, and they didn't even try to hide it, saying that they didn't like proportional because it would help the other parties. And obviously, the PLC never proposed that in the decades of their rule. Even when in the official opposition. Only when they got whacked down to crappy status did they propose it...
I *really* hate it when parties propose different voting systems with the clear and blatant goal of simply increasing their own power, regardless of the proposed system's merits.
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Obviously, it was tailored to their interests, and they didn't even try to hide it, saying that they didn't like proportional because it would help the other parties.
I saw that too. I can think it's a good idea and still retain deep mistrust for their particular reasons for proposing it.
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I saw that too. I can think it's a good idea and still retain deep mistrust for their particular reasons for proposing it.
Indeed. That's like when Québec Solidaire, a leftist party that gets about 16% of the votes, said that they favored lowering the limit of cash you can give to political parties to 400$ (which is the limit of when you get most of your cash back as tax-deductible), because they don't get bigger donations than that. I like that party, but when one of the leaders said that, I double face palmed.
I mean, yea, I'm all for lowering the spending limit, and replacing our current one-round winner gets all system, but does it have to be so damn partisan?
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Visibility via advertising puts the candidate's name in people's minds. That way when people go to vote, assuming they're not the typical mindless drone that just goes down the ballot and checks all the democrat/republican boxes, they vote for names that sound familiar. Because they're more likely to pick a name they've heard of than one they haven't. That's how you buy votes.
I don't buy it.
First, because straight-line voting is so common.
Second, because, empirically, campaign funding (when both sides have any meaningful sum) has little to no correlation with victory in swing-states or areas with roughly equal party registration.
Third, voter turnout is very low in the US, especially among uneducated people. The average American is very politically uneducated. But the average American voter (not potential voter, but actual voter) is significantly better educated than the average American. Some, even many, may be greatly swayed by simple recognition, especially in low-level elections for county and state offices. But I think most, especially for national offices, make decisions based on bounded understandings of policy, largely gotten by word of mouth and ads. Racial allegiance, religious influence, family history... are all much bigger influences than campaign funding.
Fourth, campaign funding (or threats of funding the foe) DOES have an influence on post-election legislative choices by congressmen: which seems most easily limited, not by complex and easily circumventable campaign finance rules, but by longer, staggered terms and reducing incentives for rent-seeking.
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I don't buy it.
First, because straight-line voting is so common.
Second, because, empirically, campaign funding (when both sides have any meaningful sum) has little to no correlation with victory in swing-states or areas with roughly equal party registration.
Third, voter turnout is very low in the US, especially among uneducated people. The average American is very politically uneducated. But the average American voter (not potential voter, but actual voter) is significantly better educated than the average American. Some, even many, may be greatly swayed by simple recognition, especially in low-level elections for county and state offices. But I think most, especially for national offices, make decisions based on bounded understandings of policy, largely gotten by word of mouth and ads. Racial allegiance, religious influence, family history... are all much bigger influences than campaign funding.
Fourth, campaign funding (or threats of funding the foe) DOES have an influence on post-election legislative choices by congressmen: which seems most easily limited, not by complex and easily circumventable campaign finance rules, but by longer, staggered terms and reducing incentives for rent-seeking.
I'm too busy right now to go fetch the numbers, but if you can find them, I'd be more than happy to crunch some numbers and see what the correlation looks like. Obviously, though, a large sample is needed, taking just the last 2 or 3 won't count.
As for the average voter, sure, he's better educated than the average American. That doesn't make him very educated regardless. While I do observe greater radicalism among young and/or poorly educated voters, I have never (anectdotally) observed a significant difference among the educated people when it comes to political awareness. It's not because people have a master's that they care about politics, and even if they do, that doesn't mean they are ready to read the 60+ page programs the parties published at the last federal election.
You speak of things like "racial allegiance", but I'm sure other black people tried to run for leadership of their party before Obama did without anywhere near the support Obama got from their community. Religious influence... You mean, like those religious nuts that are *always* on TV? Whatever trait or agenda a politician has, it cannot influence people unless it is advertised, be it positively by the candidate himself or negatively by his opponents.
As for reducing incentives for rent-seeking, most of these measures I hear of are worse than the corruption their absence could generate.
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I've seen quite a few studies on money in elections. Most of them include non-competitive constituencies. Those that address ONLY competitive constituencies with competitive party registration numbers and two candidates that both receive reasonable amounts of money tend to fail to find any significant role of money in making a victor.
That doesn't mean campaign giving is useless: early fundraising can shut out primary challengers, or intimidate the other party into not competing in a meaningful fashion. And if you DON'T raise any money, then you don't fall into that category of "reasonable amounts of money." If the other guy raises $10 million and you raise $10,000, I don't see why you should expect to win: nobody apparently bothered to support your campaign. But if you raise, say, $1.8 million, and the other guy raises $4 million, it might make a big difference, but it also might not. Statistically, there's no clear indicator that such differences matter a great deal, in the one or two studies I've seen in my poli sci and econ classes. There may be others I haven't seen.
Racial allegiance actually wasn't a reference to Obama, but rather to some racial/ethnic groups tending to favor a specific party, such as African Americans with the Democratic Party (and possibly Hispanics). By religious influence, I meant election-day sermons and the like.
And making longer, staggered terms drastically reduces the returns on rent-seeking, because it means companies have constant election cycles to "buy," but politicians have comparatively much longer tenures and less need to worry about re-election. Possible methods that various peoples and governments have used to reduce rent seeking include geographic isolation (move the capital away from wherever all the lobbyists live), rigorous civil service examinations (which the US lacks), segmentation of interests (crush public sector unions, allow large firms to fail), constitutional limits or some other commitment mechanism (a credible claim to absolutely refuse to address a certain policy arena, meaning no firm has any incentive to lobby in regards to it), expansion of the powerful class (in the case of the US, this would men a larger congress), reinforcing the independence of institutions (changing the structure of political appointments, for example), and others.
Most of these options are not realistically on the table for most politicians. Which is sad, because those are the kinds of things that make real reform.
Ironically, the ECB is a fun example of how more completely independent institutions can curb rent-seeking. Is the ECB being lobbied? Yes, by many nations. But no Greek bank can really do much rent-seeking in a meaningful fashion, and the influence of any particular German bank is greatly limited. This inability to seek rents actually cripples many political systems that are built upon rent-seeking habits but, crucially, serves as a credible commitment mechanism. Supranational entities have a major democratic deficit, but sure are effective at being commitment mechanisms.