J. P. Barlow — Internet Has Broken the Political System 773
MexiCali59 recommends an account up at Hillicon Valley on a speech by John Perry Barlow to the Personal Democracy Forum in New York. "The deluge of information available on the Web has made the country ungovernable, according to EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow. 'The political system is broken partly because of Internet,' Barlow said. 'It's made it impossible to govern anything the size of the nation-state. We're going back to the city-state. The nation-state is ungovernably information-rich.' ... Barlow said there is too much going on at every level in Washington, DC, for the government to effectively handle everything on its plate. Instead, he advocated citizens organizing around the issues most important to them. 'There is a circle of fat around the Beltway that is incredibly thick. We can no longer try to run this country from the center. We've got to run it, just like the Internet, from the edges.' Barlow also said that President Barack Obama's election, driven largely by small donations, has fundamentally changed American politics. He said a similar bottom-up structure is needed for governing as well. 'It's not the second coming, everything won't get better overnight, but that made it possible to see a future where it wasn't simply a matter of money to define who won these things. The government could finally start belonging to people eventually.'"
Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
The government of the United States was never supposed to be the top heavy behemoth it is today. At the time our nation was formed, the states of our federation were intended to be much more autonomous - for exactly the reasons outlined in the article.
Local issues and positions can't be handled fairly from a central authority. A country this big just can't be homogeneous enough for that to work.
Oh noes! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's too much information available to people! It makes them harder to govern! By golly, when people UNDERSTAND our Policies and can see ALL of our platform, it sure does make it hard to make them like us! When people can actually review what we've done without relying on the news centers, how do we keep up the lies? We're doing our best to keep them as uneducated as possible, by failing to properly support the school system, but they seem to be teaching themselves how politics work by discussing it with other people!
Oh the humanity! What ever will us political figures do if we can't keep the sheep acting like sheep!
I think what he means is... (Score:4, Insightful)
...politicians can no longer get away with the same bullshit they once did. Imagine if the Internet was around during Nixon's days, or World War II. Things would have been extremely different.
Politicians have always lied...the difference is that the common person can now find proof about it in a matter of seconds with a single Google search.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you took an internet poll vs a scientific poll, you'd probably find that in the internet poll people would be substantially more likely to believe that US astronauts never landed on the moon or that Barack Obama was born in Africa.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly! Anybody with modpoints mod this shit up. That's exactly what Jefferson and his crew were all about! They had seen what it meant to rule an empire from a central seat, and they knew it wouldn't work.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't too much information, it is too much disinformation. People, in general, are too quick to accept something they read as true, especially if it is repeated elsewhere. Repeating information (good, bad, and ugly) is what the Internet does best.
Re:I think what he means is... (Score:4, Insightful)
> the common person can now find proof ... with a single Google search.
True, true true.
If only the common person favored favored facts over beliefs.
More credible: governing by polls (Score:1, Insightful)
President Barack Obama's election, driven largely by small donations, has fundamentally changed American politics.
As long as he doesn't start governing according to what the polls want, he will be one of the most credible Presidents we've ever had because of his funding.
The Beltway has lost touch with the rest of the country. They have their own aristocracy of power and their goal is to stay in their cushy overpaid jobs and retire very rich. The internet will break up that political aristocracy and make them more accountable to the people.
"We can no longer try to run this country from the center. We've got to run it, just like the Internet, from the edges."
Up to a point. Exception - Arizona's new immigration law that gives way too much power to local police and tramples our Fourth Amendment rights - what's this BS about "proving" I'm a citizen and "proving" that I'm innocent? You're brown? Gotta be an illegal! Off to jail!
"Google’s capacity to control human thought makes the Catholic church jealous, I bet," Barlow said. "They wish they’d thought of it."
Huh? That makes no sense. Google controls human thought as much as the Encyclopedia Britannica did when I was a kid.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
How do we make sure the monolith is moral and fair to all? We need smart people making decisions. We need as much transparency as possible. The internet helps with transparency, but the plethora of info creates a burdensomely low signal to noise ratio. There are too many charlatans and agenda-driven salesmen telling us what the news is. What is the solution? Having smart, well-informed people make the important, big decisions. How do we make that happen?
election != fund-raising (Score:5, Insightful)
Barlow also said that President Barack Obama's election, driven largely by small donations
Obama's election wasn't driven by "small donations". It was driven by the fact that the country was sick of GWB and the GOP. Any Democrat not named Jane Fonda would have won in 2008. Obama's fund-raising achievements were very impressive but I wouldn't credit them with securing his victory.
Timing is everything in politics. If John McCain had beaten Bush in 2000 he would have gone on to be President (and the last eight years would have been very different, but that's another discussion). If Obama had run in 2004 he would have gotten creamed.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds exactly like "Small Government." It's not helping that this country is becoming more and more polar every day.
I had the opportunity to meet some Europeans while traveling and they asked me what I would fix, and I want to go back to states rights.
I explained it like this: Would you, in Sweden, approve of someone in Portugal being able to set laws that regulated what you did?
More or less we have extreme right and extreme left coming out and people starting to side with either of them. So instead of everyone being happy we end up with two parties that absolutely hate each other.
If hard core christian states in the south want to abolish abortion, have a 0 tolerance drug policy, etc. Let them. But there is no reason that they should be able to tell a Californian that they can't do that. Hell Colorado, Cali, and numerous other states are on the verge of all out legalizing marijuana, but it's the feds that are stepping in saying "Nope. Because we say so".
Every state has the right to set their own drinking age, but the feds are blackmailing them into making it 21. Even so, every state has its own liquor laws. Stores in SC close at 7 pm, with only beer available at gas stations after that. Illinois, no one cares. Indiana is closed on election day and Sundays.
The speaker is moronic (Score:3, Insightful)
"Google’s capacity to control human thought makes the Catholic church jealous, I bet," Barlow said. "They wish they’d thought of it."
I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how exactly Google is controlling my thoughts. Sure, I use google, and gmail, and I have a Droid... how does that equate to controlling my thoughts? Maybe they have unique access to my thoughts, as written down, but that is a far different thing than control.
File this one under Rant/Drug Induced/EFF Nonsense
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Protecting and enforcing the values upon which the nation was founded does not require massive micro management.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly! Anybody with modpoints mod this shit up. That's exactly what Jefferson and his crew were all about! They had seen what it meant to rule an empire from a central seat, and they knew it wouldn't work.
Exactly! This is the 10th Amendment exists. The Feds should only do what the Constitution says they can do. If we find that the Feds need to do more, amend the Constitution!
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:1, Insightful)
And what will you do when some of these localities start bringing back segregation, or other policies abhorrent to the nation as a whole?
I will move to a state that better fits my needs and beliefs. Or just go down the street and spend my money elsewhere.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I am a diehard libertarian and therefore opposed to the notions of large (or even medium) sized government. Needless to say, I am opposed to involuntary taxes.
Yet, when I move to a new town, I implicitly accept the taxing structure there, whether sales, property, utility, etc. These taxes support local services (fire, sewer, emergency response, police, etc.) and the argument that they "benefit all" is a strong one. At least those that disagree enough have the general freedom to leave. Local taxation, in effect, is voluntary, and grow out of initial community-driven consensus. Later arrivals either had to accept the tax structure, or find somewhere else to live. With enough choices, competition arises for the best governance model.
Further, small town government actually makes community participation and control possible: bad city councils get ousted fairly quickly, or people just plain leave.
The role of a federal government, representing the common interests of a federation of states is to provide scalability, efficiency, and consistency, of interactions these states require among themselves, and foreigners. It is not to be heavy handed against the citizens of those states. The police and military forces this federal government has it can direct, but ultimate control should rest with the member states. What are the feds going to do? Order Florida, Arizona, and New Mexico police to "invade" California to arrest a pot-smoking "terrorist"? When California police have a duty and obligation to defend their citizen?
Yes, this can degrade to a full-blown civil war between states. But, I suspect a federation of a modest number of states could do well to challenge any internally directed force against them from the federal government they created in the same way that the people of a small town can reasonably overthrow their city council, whether by ballot, or force.
The only way a federal government can subdue the individual states, therefore, is to pit them against one another. Historically, this has been done via re-distributive taxation: subsidizing federally "friendly" states with funds taxed from the "unfriendly" ones. But, if the federal government is funded voluntarily by the states, and not directly by individuals, it can be reigned in. The other downside of redistributive taxation at the state level is that it makes it harder for individuals to "vote with their feet" and move from one state to another: the "better" states will be taxed more to prop up the "worse" ones. This can't happen if support of the federation is voluntary. For an example of how this plays out study the history of provincial transfer payments in Canada.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
And what will you do when some of these localities start bringing back segregation, or other policies abhorrent to the nation as a whole? The federal government needs to be able to protect the rights of citizens across the country. That's how it got to be this way in the first place. Expecting people to uproot their lives and move to a different locality that respects them isn't a reasonable fix.
If you find that the federal government needs more power, amend the Constitution to grant those powers. Anything else violates the 10th Amendment.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like when I complain about federal income taxes and people reply with: "Taxes pay for your fire and police and schools."
Well, the funding for my local fire, police, and school district come from the local property taxes and sales taxes I pay. Both of which require a vote at a local election to increase. And I don't mind paying those taxes because at the local level I at least get the chance to vote on the issue. And usually I don't vote against reasonable increases, but at the same time when I see waste I can attend a local meeting and voice an opinion about it. (For instance, our local fire department is way over funded. There is no reason why the fire captains need a brand new $70k SUV every year while some of the breathing equipment "needs upgrading".)
But at the federal level I pay my taxes so the money can be used to bail out whatever group has their hand out this week? The other thing I can't get over is the belief that the government always has to get bigger at all levels and when we had all this great growth in the first half of the last decade, they expanded government at all levels spending everything they took in and more. Whatever happened to establishing an emergency fund for when lean times occur? I know tax revenues are down. Guess what our revenues are down and we had to buckle down and keep expenses down, and even float on reserve cash we had for a few months. If we have to do that as a private business, what makes government any different?
yes and no (Score:5, Insightful)
the problem with the "destroy government" crowd is that we need strong regulations for something like the economy to work. since 1994 when the republicans took over congress, we have systematically taken away governmental regulatory powers over the economy and wall street. the result is the financial meltdown in 2008
so obviously, we need a strong central authority to monitor and control the economy to keep it healthy. the libertarian myth of unicorns and leprechauns and a marketplace which regulates itself is factually and historically false, just study the banking panics of the 1800s and why we had the great depression in the 1930s: this what you get with a marketplace that is not regulated. the natural state of the marketplace is manipulation of the market by its largest players (corporatism) and constant bubbles and pops (greed, then fear and panic: all you need is simple human psychology for that). the libertarian myth of a level headed marketplace of equals is mythmaking, not reality
that being said, there are plenty of areas of bloat where the government can and should be downsized. its just that i see no intelligence in the "destroy government" crowd, just a lot of people with an almost religious fanaticism to the idea of small government, ready to hack away at everything. we need intelligence on the issue: WHERE do we cut, because obviously we don't cut everything, especially with the need for the strong regulation of the economy
to deny that is to simply stand in complete denial of what 14 years of deregulation of the economy wrought in 2008
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, no. Unacceptably to you. Please stay out of other's ppl's way of life. What makes you think you know best for the rest of the US, and by extension, the world?
That's an interesting opinion. Too bad it doesnt work without complete totalitarianism, even on a small scale.
In other words... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even in the most free of markets, there are not always multiple companies providing equivalent services. Read up on the history of the South during segregation. There were entire towns without a restroom for colored people.
This is where libertarian policies that work in theory crash into the mountains of reality.
Democratizing Effects of Information Dessemination (Score:1, Insightful)
Sounds like he's complaining that the Internet has made the central government more democratic. This doesn't require that we govern more at the local level (although we could). It just means the old regime that could control the central higher-level government won't function efficiently because the masses are now capable of being more involved.
The Internet has increased the democratic nature of government. This doesn't necessarily make the job harder, just different. The large central government now must function more like the smaller local governments for which he is advocating. Makes his "solution" seem unnecessary.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
The government of the United States was never supposed to be the top heavy behemoth it is today. At the time our nation was formed, the states of our federation were intended to be much more autonomous - for exactly the reasons outlined in the article.
The founders tried the setup where the central government had virtually no power at all (the Articles of Confederation). That central government was so powerless that it had no armed forces to speak of (it could politely ask the states for one), no power to tax (it could politely ask the states for cash), and not much of anything by way of administrative bureaucracy. This generally didn't work because the states regularly flouted the national government and didn't care about the strongly worded letter they might get in return.
After it became clear that the Articles of Confederation weren't working, they got together and drafted the Constitution. And precisely the arguments about strong-federal-government versus strong-states-and-localities created the beginnings of American political parties (the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists - later Democratic-Republicans). George Washington and John Adams had different views on this one than Thomas Jefferson. So no, it's not clear how "top-heavy" the US government was supposed to be, because no one ever really agreed on it.
Re:election != fund-raising (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama's election wasn't driven by "small donations". It was driven by the fact that the country was sick of GWB and the GOP.
He had to get passed Hillary first, no easy task. If it wasn't for the small donations he wouldn't have gotten to run against the GOP fueled by anti GWB angst.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly! I realize J.P. Barlow probably has a traditional liberal take on things (hence his belief that Obama's election somehow "fundamentally changed American politics"), but the Internet has done nothing but shed a little more light on the political situation. IMO, it hasn't "broken" it in any way, shape or form!
Legislation that was once FAR too difficult for the average person to peruse is now available for download on various governmental web sites. (It's still far too wordy and obtuse, but making it easily available is a good start!)
The problems and struggles we're seeing today with "information overload at the top" are simply because the federal govt. is trying to claim FAR more power and control than it was ever designed to have! (And people, at the core of things, THIS is exactly what Ron Paul was referring to when he made a few negative comments about President Lincoln during his campaign .... It was NOT some sort of racist suggestion on his part. He correctly pointed out that State's rights lost out to Federal govt. rights under his presidency, and ever since, the idea of centralization of governmental power has increasingly taken hold in the USA.) I don't think many people would entirely blame Lincoln for the mess we're in today ... but he did start the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill.
I completely disagree with Barlow's assertion that Obama was able to win, thanks to "lots of small political contributions". He was able to win because #1, he became a media darling. The press was so excited to see history made with the first black president in the United States, they couldn't stop heaping praise on the man and giving him the spotlight. The man had his own friggin' LOGO, for crying out loud! That "looks sort of like the Pepsi swirl" thing of his was unprecedented in political campaigning -- and shows his campaign was treated much more like product placement than anything else.
Plenty of small political donations have been made to 3rd. party candidates who get immediately shut out of the running anyway... We're nowhere NEAR a point in this country where that sort of thing makes any real dent in ability to get elected. You've got to be on one of the "big two teams" first (Democrat or Republican), and you've got to make friends with the right, influential people who help guide you through the process.
Somethings wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporate greed and the ease for them to "purchase" government officials, the total lack of oversight in spending and operation, ignoring the will of the people and doing whatever the f*ck the governments wants, the constant blaming the "other" party for any problems, trying to fix things and sway the people with marketing instead of any actual actions, the corruption (Sure BP is at fault for the oil spill, but wasn't our government supposed to make sure they were in compliance? Oh that's right, it's just cheaper to buy them off with hookers and cash. Gotta keep the share holders happy.), becoming so large that it's just utterly inefficient to run has made the country ungovernable...
There, fixed that for you.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't idiots every get tired of blah-blahing that response over and over again?
No, wanting the federal government to act as outlined in the constitution does not mean we want slavery. Wanting the 10th amendment enforced does not mean we want slavery. Wanting local jurisdiction to have more control of their localities does not me we want slavery.
Do you guys ever get tired of spouting that bullshit?
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, aristocracy is rule by a hereditary caste. The word you're looking for is "meritocracy".
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's always a good idea to restrict booze sales to be only to people who are driving!
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a huge window between letting each state change civil rights and letting each state make their own drug and education policies.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
And a "meritocracy" will last how many generations? I'm guessing just one. Just look at how politics has become the family business. i.e Kennedy's, Bush's, Clintons, Pauls, Carnahans, Blunts, Daly's, etc..
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, because slavery is expressly prohibited by the Constitution. That's what we're talking about. The Federal government should be restricted to what is actually written in the Constitution. You really, really need something that's not in the Constitution? Amend it. That's what we did about slavery.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's an Aristocracy regardless of whether the or not the next president is named "Bush" or "Clinton" or "Kennedy".
Feudal aristocracies were in theory heritable, but in practice were no more so than America's existing political dynasties.
The important lesson from history is that central planning committees work less well the larger the political entity. "Having smart, well-informed people make the important, big decisions" always sucks in the long term, because someone has to choose who the "smart" people are, and that process is far more vulnerable to corruption than our current system (yes, really).
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
If we really limited the feds to a strict reading of the constitution, then local governments would have to form a new national organization in parallel with the federal government to do things which they individually are not powerful enough to accomplish. Like smack down multinationals when they get out of line.
Not that redundancy in government wouldn't have its uses -- in emergency services especially -- but so much of the "shrink the feds" movement is really about promoting a divide and conquer agenda against the needs of the people. No sale.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
And what will you do when some of these localities start bringing back segregation, or other policies abhorrent to the nation as a whole?
I will move to a state that better fits my needs and beliefs. Or just go down the street and spend my money elsewhere.
That's not as simple as you make it sound. Friends, family, schools, kids, jobs, money, opportunity. These things all have to be in alignment in order to simply "up and move" to a more agreeable state. If <insert southern state here> were to reinstitute segregation, do you think all the people affected or offended by this would be able to, or should be expected to, uproot their lives like that and move?
It's absurd to expect people to move from state-to-state like they are simply not stopping at BP ever again.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
If we find that the Feds need to do more, amend the Constitution!
Now why would you go through that silly process when you can claim that it's a "living document" instead?
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. It's a shame Alexander Hamilton wasn't shot 20 years earlier.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:1, Insightful)
It's the same pile of dolts that believe the civil war was all about slavery.
They just cant get past their grade school history classes that were nothing more than happy fun storytime.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Who chooses who the "smart" people are? In practice, that always produces more corruption and waste than democracy.
Democracy does nothing at all to choose the person most fit to lead, but it does a great job of ejecting people who have become completely out of touch with reality (as percieved by the voters). You can arrogantly say "but the voter are stoooopid, don't you see, half of em disagree with me!", and you mey even be right, but still trying to choose "smart" people to make decisions fails far more often and more profoundly.
How do you choose what the right thing to do about global warming is? Think a bit about this - someone will get to choose which scientists are "smart". That selection will completely control policy. So in the end, the scientists' views don't really matter, they're chosen ahead of time to produce the views desired by the chooser - you just moved the corruption to somewhere less transparent, you havent fixed anything. This is exactly the current problem with the SCOTUS right now.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
yes i am familiar with this propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
the idea that the government created the greed in the hearts of bankers is obviously false, but it is more disturbing that so many people like yourself think that the banks needed government encouragements to act greedily
the community reinvestment farce is indeed a misstep by the government, and was wrong, and contributed to the 2008 meltdown, absolutely. but it is no more than propagandistic alternative reality mythmaking to believe this is the causative agent of the meltdown in 2008. do you do not see that it merely enabled simple human greed? it scares me about you and anyone else who believes this nonsense
"If the Federal government had stayed out of it, it wouldn't have happened."
you really believe that? you really believe a marketplace without regulation functions better?
at best, you can say government missteps hurt, and that the government needs better policy. but please don't tell me you actually and honestly believe that no government regulation somehow results in healthier marketplaces. if you honestly believe that, i really fear for this country, that somebody can be so deluded
please read up on economic history. please educate yourself about how the economy actually hurts. please admit to yourself that the marketplace's greatest enemies to stability and health are NATURAL enemies (manipulation by large players, simple human psychology of greed and then fear and panic). please wake up from the propaganda
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hmmm. You force me to work for you and take my money on threat of locking me up or shooting me.
And I have no legal recourse.
Doesn't matter why you take my money, just the fact that you do.
Close enough to slavery as to make no difference.
Re:yes i am familiar with this propaganda (Score:3, Insightful)
No, we simply don't believe that it was greedy bank behavior that cause the meltdown. It was government-provided immunity. Nobody had to care about the credit quality of mortgages--they were Fannie Mae insured!
I believe government regulations against fraud and mandating full disclosure are necessary. Attempting to choose what is good for us ranges from bad to disastrous, often because the regulators become pawns of the regulated.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:2, Insightful)
Libertarians rarely think their positions through in my experience. Or they just gloss over all the bad parts because what happens won't affect them in the least.
Hello? "United STATES of America?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
In what world does the activities of a multinational corporation NOT include "interstate commerce"?
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
If we have to do that as a private business, what makes government any different?
The fact that it's a government.
See the "Paradox of Thrift" [wikipedia.org] and here generally [pkarchive.org].
I don't agree with all the bailouts that have been done lately, but there are two points here. First, these bailouts are necessary because the markets were insufficiently regulated. They got out of control, and as a result burned not only the bad people, but the good ones too. The bailing-out of Wall Street was (at some level) necessary, even if it was horrifically poorly structured, because otherwise the further spread of the collapse would have crushed your business, just like everyone else's. Google "counterparty risk" sometime.
We can't run a government based exactly on the Constitution for the same reason we can't build all computers off the model of a 1965 IBM mainframe spec -- government, as a technology, has evolved way beyond where it was 250 years ago. And mostly for the better (though manifestly not for the perfect).
hilarious (Score:2, Insightful)
No, we simply don't believe that it was greedy bank behavior that cause the meltdown. It was government-provided immunity. Nobody had to care about the credit quality of mortgages--they were Fannie Mae insured!
yes, the feds forgot to lock the doors. which allowed the robbers to steal the loot. so you blame the feds, and give the robbers a pass! and then, you conclude that the real solution to the robbery is to take off the doors entirely!
Attempting to choose what is good for us ranges from bad to disastrous...
the regulations don't tell you how to live your life, fool. the regulations simply prevent you from committing crimes. duh. is it your assertion that if we had no laws against mugging and no police to stop muggers that no one would get mugged? then why the hell do you believe that an unregulated marketplace will have no crimes committed? why are you so daft? ...often because the regulators become pawns of the regulated.
on this part i agree with you 100%. so it is my assertion that we should get the graft and corruption out of the police department. meanwhile, you assert we should get rid of the police department!
what the hell is wrong with you?
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what Jefferson and his crew were about, but they lost and the other guys won. If it wasn't clear then, it certainly was after Lincoln
This is true, however, they've omitted a critical technicality: They forgot to rewrite history.
As the victors, they certainly had the opportunity to go back and spin everything so that their view was the new, one-true, way. They simply forgot to do this, for whatever reason. Centuries of primary education have been teaching the freedoms promised under the Constitution, and have been referring to the Civil War as merely the 'war to free the slaves'.
Well, the slaves are free, so can we please have our Constitution back now?
Re:I rated this article +funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need a fed to oversee any of this: the value of voluntary cooperation between the states regarding no interstate tarrifs and standardization would encourage them to voluntarily fund a federal government, or establish one with limited taxing authority.
There may be a semblance of a tax, but that tax would have initially been voluntarily accepted as fair price for the service provided.
The idea here is that government should be small in terms of the relationship between the number of governed. The cities govern individuals, the states govern cities, and the federation governs the states. At each layer, the "government" functions are necessarily different, relatively "small", and whatever rights not explicitly granted the government are reserved for the governed.
I think people accept big government because they (a) think it can offer them what they want and need because of its power (this being a double-edged sword), (b) reduce complexity in life by offering widespread standardization, and (c) think nothing of taxes to support it because they are used to paying what they think are taxes at the local level for common services, despite these really being dues to cover community membership.
Dues are voluntary. One can stop paying them and leave the organization to which one belongs. Of course, leaving a city would require either physical movement, or political succession. The former is generally easier than the latter, though the latter is not unheard of when cities agree to let certain regions unincorporate.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
But at the federal level I pay my taxes so the money can be used to bail out whatever group has their hand out this week?
Do you even know where your federal taxes go? What fraction goes to bail out whatever group has their hand out this week? Or do you consider Social Security a handout? Please tell me. I'm all for reducing the DOD by 2/3rds, but I doubt you counted them as a handout.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
George Washington and John Adams had different views on this one than Thomas Jefferson. So no, it's not clear how "top-heavy" the US government was supposed to be, because no one ever really agreed on it.
Thank you! Anybody who tells you that the founding fathers were of a like mind on anything shouldn't be listened to because they don't know what they're talking about.
Anonymous Coward (Score:1, Insightful)
The country is not "becoming more polar every day". Read a little history...it is and always has been polar. That is a strength, not a weakness. Diversity, right?
Also, the logic of the article is flawed. Study after study has shown Obama's primary funding was not some unprecedented tidal wave of small donors: Wall Street and large corporate donations made Obama's advantages. Wall Street because they knew they were going to need bailing out (in all sense of the word) and large corps because large corps love large government.
That said, I like the conclusion...less central government, more distributed decision-making. The change from a decentralized, Jeffersonian ideal to the current near-DC-opoly occured in fits and starts, it did not happen simply when the Federalists "won". And it really gained its momentum when the Democratic Party was founded - explicitly by the way - to use tax money to get elected (and pay off) politicans who would avoid bringing up issues that might lead to the defeat of slavery. The "spoils system" as centralized government was openly called at that time, was the primary tool the newly founded Democratic party used to reward politician to stay quiet on the slavery issue.
How the Democratic party manages to spin themselves as the friend of black people is amazing to me. First they fight against outlawing slavery, to the point of nearly destroying the country, then they re-enslave millions of blacks with government "benefits" programs that also destroy the family structure, and support abortions which overwhelmingly destroy black babies (20 million-ish so far?). No wonder liberals fought so hard to control the educational system: no honest reading of history could lead you to think Democrats want anything other than total control over the black population.
I have to hand it to Democrats and the liberal machine...they've pulled off a massive marketing coup.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:2, Insightful)
No, I'd have to say you're the one that's wrong.
What you hear about and read about are the extremely vocal (and completely stupid) minority. Yes, there are stupid people down here, there are also stupid people where you live too.
The difference is, the South is looked down upon by a lot of other people because it's "easy to do". If you dig a little deeper, you'll see it isn't any different anywhere else.
In fact, where do you live now? I'll go pull up a list of completely retarded laws that are on the books where you are now just to prove it.
Re:Somethings wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Voters are apathetic, because their vote does not matter. I would love to vote for a candidate that would restrain spending, hold corporation's feet to the fire, and restore our civil liberties. No such candidate exists. Why vote when there's no one worth voting for?
Only *my* kind of small/big government (Score:5, Insightful)
Protecting and enforcing the values upon which the nation was founded does not require massive micro management.
(emphasis mine)
That does mean bringing back slavery, as slavery was a core institution at the time the US were founded. Too often people say "but it's not in the constitution!" either as a knee-jerk reaction or as a weak attempt to say that something is not permissible. How about instead of talking about the constitution all the time we have a real debate?
What bugs me is that so much of the so-called "states rights" movement is nothing more than a series of pick-and-choose ideas. We don't want federal programs (except Medicare! And agricultural subsidies! And small-business loans!) We don't want the federal government involved in schools (but we want school prayers! And no evolution!) We don't want environmental regulations (but now the Louisiana governor wants the government involved in cleaning the oil spill!) And on and on and on... The constant whining for small government has little credibility anymore.
Re:yes and no (Score:1, Insightful)
It was several decades of deregulation, bank greed, and an unregulated casino system set up without enough assets to cover the risks being taken. Those were all changes requested over the years by the financial institutions.
I live in Arizona, we've been trashed more than most any other state by this. I had, I say "had" because they've been foreclosed on since, but I had neighbors who got half million dollar homes with nothing down, no proof of income, and even walked away with 10K in cash in some cases.
And I know what some of them do for a living, and they were not professions you equate with half million dollar homes.
The feds didn't force the banks to make those loans. The banks made 5 to 6 times as much on a subprime loan, and they went in all the way.
Corporate criminals paying off a corrupt government is how we got here. And it's BOTH parties at fault.
Re:yes and no (Score:3, Insightful)
- Fannie Mae didn't cause the housing bubble.
- Fannie Mae didn't cause banks to create credit default swaps
- Fannie Mae didn't cause AIG to lie or to fail
- Fannie Mae didn't cause bad-faith players to create packages which **they knew would fail**, and then knowingly sell these as good investments to clients, and then ***bet against these clients' interests***
Also, while it's technically that Fannie Mae received more bailout money than any *single* bank, that's a rather convenient comparison. Fannie Mae is a government program, dealing with a multitude of private banks. And the cost to keep Fannie Mae afloat is a fraction of what's been *separately* paid out to private banks, to save the world economy from their irresponsible and deregulated actions.
Fannie Mae could be the pebble that started the avalanche - but the avalanche is something else.
http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/bailouttracker/ [cnn.com]
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Make it easy for us. List exactly what the US government is now doing, that you think is a) against the Constitution b) bad for America For example, is Social Security bad for America? Or how about the Civil Rights bill, including the forced desegration of privately owned public services? Or how about NASA - that's definitely not in the Constitution. There's a lot of people who are pretty vague about what they mean, when they say "as the founders originally intended".
Is Social Security bad for America? I wouldn't say so, but whether or not it is Constitutional is debatable.
Here are a few examples of things the US government is doing that are unconstitutional and/or bad for America:
The War on Marijuana
The War on Terror (not fighting terrorism, but eroding our rights and trampling the Constitution
Selling out to big business
The military industrial complex
Just a few.
Re:Barlow's a Republican (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:yes i am familiar with this propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
the community reinvestment farce is indeed a misstep by the government, and was wrong, and contributed to the 2008 meltdown, absolutely.
Actually, the CRA had little-to-nothing to do with it. There are a lot of arguments for why it had little to do with it, too, the most important being:
1. The institutions engaged in most of the sub-prime lending weren't CRA-regulated banks, they were mortgage brokers (DiTech, Ameriquest Mtg, Countrywide, etc) who weren't subject to the CRA.
2. The default rates of CRA-qualified loans were comparable to the default rates of similar loans that weren't CRA-qualified.
But hey, don't trust me on this, trust the Cleveland Federal Reserve [clevelandfed.org] (that's just the easiest to read of the many economic studies on this)
The reason the CRA came up early had a lot to do with wanting to blame government rather than banks for the financial crisis, and a bit to do with wanting to blame poor black folks in the inner cities around the country rather than rich white folks in New York City. But the claim is basically hogwash.
Re:Only *my* kind of small/big government (Score:5, Insightful)
That does mean bringing back slavery, as slavery was a core institution at the time the US were founded.Too often people say "but it's not in the constitution!" either as a knee-jerk reaction or as a weak attempt to say that something is not permissible.
I don't know if you realize it but slavery is unconstitutional. I hope you do but it's not clear from what you said there.
We don't want federal programs (except Medicare! And agricultural subsidies! And small-business loans!)
Who is "we"? If you mean "we" the libertarian conservatives then let me clarify: No, we don't want Medicare, we don't want agricultural subsidies and we don't want small-business loans.
We don't want the federal government involved in schools (but we want school prayers! And no evolution!)
I don't think you know what you are saying there. Please think about it.
We don't want environmental regulations (but now the Louisiana governor wants the government involved in cleaning the oil spill!)
We do want environmental regulation because your rights don't involve the right to harm others, including polluting their environment. We don't want this to be used an excuse for the government to intrude in every aspect of our lives though. As for the emergency response to a disaster, of course that is one of the few things government should do. Small government does not mean no government.
Re:Barlow's a Republican (Score:5, Insightful)
Sen [Name] is an opportunist, who's got a real talent for [talent]. But he and his [party affiliation] buddies have broken the political system. Because they hate [something important]. They're [vitriolic adj/noun combo], hiding behind the brand name [political adjective].
FTFY
Wow. Somebody's been drinking a big helping of Ma Pelosi's Pot & Kettle Kool-Aid. In slightly modified form (name, party, adjectives), your remark can easily apply to 90% of the politicians in Washington. Take the blinders off.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
And what will you do when some of these localities start bringing back segregation, or other policies abhorrent to the nation as a whole?
I will move to a state that better fits my needs and beliefs. Or just go down the street and spend my money elsewhere.
Hey, sometimes, you don't even need to move. For example, when Nazi Germany was rounding up the jews. The Americans didn't need to move anywhere. They could just keep at their daily routine and periodically stop and think "Gosh, I sure have disdain for those mean Germans! I think I'll stop buying imported bratwurst.". On the other hand, some others could stand up and make the case that we must do something about it... something far less-passive than "voting with our feet/wallets"... that we must step in and interrupt inhumanity, even when it brings personal risk to ourselves.
Imagine it on a much smaller scale. Imagine that you're at a cocktail party and someone you know starts slapping his wife around. Do you just say to yourself "Wow.. sucks to be her. I think I'll protest his actions by not shopping at his store anymore" or do you step in and tell the guy that, if he's going to try to assault a fellow human, he's going to have to go through you first? Oh, wait... I guess we already know what you'd do.
For some folks, they just can't stand idly by while others are mistreated. They regard it as a prerequisite for calling ourselves "civilized".
there is corruption in the government (Score:1, Insightful)
we both agree on that
i believe the solution is to clean up the government
why do you believe that the solution is to get rid of the government?
bad regulation compounds an existing problem. you believe bad regulation is actually the source of the problem. this is like saying that if the police didn't have corrupt officers that no one would get robbed. hilarious!
you're daft, you're insane, you are hopelessly propagandized
please try to understand that having no regulations is far, far worse than whatever problems we have. really. take your kneejerk blinders off for once and examine the simple truth, please
Re:Only *my* kind of small/big government (Score:4, Insightful)
Values upon which the nation was founded is another way of saying the rule of law that was put down on paper and agreed to in the forming of the nation. Mainly the debate was over whether slaves were people (and thus created equal as per the Declaration), or property (and thus protected by property laws). Slavery had been a staple of civilization since ancient times, but was quickly being obviated by the industrial revolution. Just because change can potentially be affected more quickly by trampling the founding principles, doesn't mean it should be.
Governance from the Edge No Answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you misunderstood me. I have no problem with amending the Constitution. I have a problem with the people that claim it's a "living document" so they can interpret it differently without going through the amendment process.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
For someone like Lincoln to have stood idly by on something as important as slavery as well as secession, claiming that his hands were tied by something written 90 years earlier would have been cowardly and just plain wrong. There are times when sticking with precedent is right, and there are times for taking action to establish new precedent. That's why we have leaders.
Sometimes it goes horribly wrong, i.e. with our ridiculous war in Iraq and human rights violations in Gitmo, but when you've got someone intelligent and experienced in charge, doing the right thing will have more benefits than liabilities in the long run.
To even insinuate that Lincoln's exercise of federal force was a bad thing in any sense of the word is wrong in many, many ways. Maybe you didn't mean it that way, but throwing him in with "the other guys" indicates to me that you rue the change from pure Jeffersonian governance.
The truth is, one size does not fit all. That's what the people on the conservative side of the spectrum hate about central government. But to suggest that the same logic doesn't apply to the constitution itself--that it should never be re-interpreted when an out of context problem comes up--is simply idiocy.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? The living-document folks don't seem to like actually going through all that tedious and inconvenient amendment red tape when they want to change things to suit their whims.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:5, Insightful)
And thus Jefferson was the first to demonstrate that in practical matters limiting the government to just the constitution isn't as easy or as good as it sounds in theory.
Re:Only *my* kind of small/big government (Score:4, Insightful)
Gosh, one last thing: an internally consistent libertarian would have to reject environmental regulations in favor of torts. Your neighbor spilled oil on your beach? Sue them; the government has no right to be involved.
Obviously, I think that's absurd.
Re:Well, probably true (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do we need statesman to be held in high regard? They're human, just like the rest of us. Some may like to surf p0rn or diddle the occasional intern. I elect my representatives to handle my affairs in the capitol. Not because they are better people than I. But because I'm too busy doing other things. Same reason I pay someone to mow my lawn.
The whole idea that politicians' words are worth more than that of the average citizen was just an excuse for them to manipulate the system for their own gain. "Trust me. I know better than you." is just a line of bullshit employed by every confidence artist in the business.
Re:Broken? More like fixed. (Score:4, Insightful)
The states had the right to secede (whether they still do is an interesting but irrelevant argument), and the Confederate states did so legally. The primary reason was not slavery, but protectionist laws which benefited the industrial north but which made farming (especially of cotton, but also other products) far less profitable (incidentally harming European interests, especially the British cotton industry).
The slavery issue was mainly raised to make Anglo-French military involvement more politically difficult (and it succeeded), but slaves in the north were not freed until later (the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to secessionist states).
Now, you can argue that Lincoln could declare war on the CSA as with any other war, and even that the war was a good thing, but using military force to prevent a state seceding was definitely anti-Constitutional, as was arresting the Maryland state legislature so they could not secede.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)