Politics for the Twenty-first Century

Voter ID Laws: Scam or Accountability? If these laws weren’t aimed solely at stealing elections, the states in question would have accompanies the new regulations with measures aimed at helping their citizens to comply with the new regulations…

One side of our national character hungers for change and tomorrow. To treat the future - the range of possible futures -- as ambition-attracting terra incognita, across which our children will explore and stride, better than we are in every way, even if that means repudiating many of our now-unclear assumptions and errors! Preparing those much-better generations for a boundless future is our dedicated proposition. Our mission.
But there is an opposing passion -- the temptation to wallow in nostalgia, romanticism, sanctimony, authority and the comforting rigidity-of-caste that dominated nearly every other civilization, across 6000 years. It was called feudalism and humanity's greatest heroes fought to liberate us from that beastly, limiting and dismal way of life.

Free the Inspectors General: Establish a new and important post, the office of Inspector General of the United States... or IGUS. 

Far from creating another vast new bureaucracy, this proposal would mostly utilize payroll slots that already exist, today. Every major department or agency has an internal Inspector General (IG) charged with examining operations and issuing warnings -- when it comes to minor infractions -- or else stepping in more vigorously when things get out of hand.

A collection of articles from David Brin on the issues, elections, economics and politics of our day. Here you'll find essays about:
*Can a small transaction fee save Wall Street?
* How to simplify our tax system non-politically using a computer program and a simple boundary condition.
* Is there a difference between a global warming "skeptic" who has questions about the science and a "denialist" who spouts the same delaying tactics used by Big Tobacco, in the 1980s?
* In 1947 Democrats purged themselves of fanatical fringe loonies and saved their party. Are Republicans capable of similar courage and will? There is a precedent!
Let us strive for a return to the pragmatic, scientific, can-do-eager nation that was so admired. That deserved to lead the world.

The widely-circulated nostrum called the "Tytler Calumny" is the great example of what has gone wrong with the mental processes of our friends on the right, who used to be represented in sage debate by great minds like Barry Goldwater and Friedrich Hayek and William F. Buckley... but who are now reduced to slinging around aphorisms and fact-free fox-assertions.

The whole issue of "freedom" boils down much deeper than the surface levels where it is usually discussed. Let me try to explain. 

For 2,000 years the enemies of democracy, led by that infamous so-called “philosopher” Plato, have tried to undermine the Periclean experiment by couching the debate in terms that work to the detriment of freedom. In order to do this, they pulled many tricks. Foremost, they emphasized and concentrated on the LEAST important and least honorable aspect of democracy -- majority rule -- while downgrading the most important aspect (the one emphasized by Pericles) which is open and knowing reciprocal accountability.

The election will be determined by clumps of electors that are awarded by winner-takes-all. Those on the victorious side will gather all the marbles, leaving the losers bitterly muttering about getting even next time. Might there be some way to acknowledge the losing minority in a presidential election, without grinding their face in humiliation, making them determined to do the same thing, when their turn comes around? 

Imagine a candidate or new President Elect making the following pledge: "If I become president, I promise to ask my honorable opponent to pick a panel of Americans who will have control over my appointment calendar one afternoon per month. And I expect my opponent to serve on that panel. On that afternoon, I shall meet with -- and listen to -- any individuals or delegations that panel may choose. Millions of Americans will then know that I do not live in a tower of ideological isolation. I will answer questions and hear dissenting points of view."

I hope to shed some badly-needed perspective on the most important foreign policy matter of all... when and how we, as a country, choose to fight. Do the two U.S. political parties differ in how they wage war? What are their distinctions in doctrine, policy, professionalism, style and effectiveness?

It turns out that the Electoral College, per se, is not what distorts the system so badly. It is the winner-takes-all method of allocating each state's electors. Can we break the winner-takes-all habit?

There is precedent. Decades ago, both parties allocated delegates to their national nominating conventions by winner-takes-all, until this blatant unfairness was challenged, then eliminated. So why not take the next step by dropping it from the process of choosing electors? Again, this would require no tinkering with the Constitution, though changing applicable state laws might entail a fight. 

What's wrong with two leaders finding patches of consensus amid a sea of discord? It has a name - stipulation... as when attorneys in a case agree to agree about a set of points, so the trial can focus on areas where they disagree.

In observing -- with some approval -- the departure of the corrupt, incompetent and astonishingly lazy 109th Congress, it is not without some worry that we greet the young and hopeful 110th. Will cynics prove right? While negotiating the ethical and political minefield that is Washington, always remain wary of a particular worst-case scenario... one that can systematically undermine even the most well-meaning politicians.

That worst-case scenario is BLACKMAIL.

Republicans began their own long journey of re-appraisal in the wake of Barry Goldwater's crushing defeat in 1964, then intensified their efforts after the debacle of Watergate. William F. Buckley, during the 1964 campaign, recognized the dominance of liberalism at that time. He urged that conservatives see themselves as 'well-planted seeds of hope, which will flower on a great November day in the future, if there is a future.' Soon, concentrated efforts began, at places like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, to forge networks of expertise in theory, policy and political operations, filling in every component for a vigorous new age of conservatism.