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Ethics Alarms 
Is the problem we have with terrible political candidates because:
1) Too many people voting party line has made party leaders lazy in selecting qualified candidates, or
2) The problem affecting many industries — the lack of training, education, and work ethic among younger generations — is also affecting the political field, or
3) The people controlling the parties want weak candidates that will probably toe the line and not think for themselves, or
4) something else I haven’t considered?
Keep in mind, I am using a logical (not exclusive) “or”, so some of the above or all of the above should be taken for granted.
Everything becoming a national issue means that the most important political positions reside at the upper level – the House, the Senate and the Presidency. And those are, with each passing generation, a tinier and tinier percentage of the populace – even more decreasing when the rate of incumbency in our government makes banana republics look fair.
State level positions are often part time jobs for people. To reach the big boys – one must commit to making politics a full time career.
I think these issues would be alleviated with a not radical step of expanding the House of Representatives to the slightly radical number of 3,000-4,000. This makes each individual house of representative seat ALOT less expensive to win when in turn means running for such seats becomes available to a wider swathe of citizens. Which in turn means a MUCH wider diversity of “coalitions” will hit the campaign trail that, while addressing the main topics of the day that the two main parties address, won’t necessarily address those topics with the same preset loyalties of the two main parties. Imagine pro-gun pro-abortion, anti-gun anti-abortion, pro-union anti-abortion, pro-defense anti-school choice, etc etc types of candidates that don’t follow party alignments even while discussing the topics the parties discuss. The zone would be flooded and the parties would be forced to adjust their operating systems. I think it would also have the added effect of giving more moderate candidates winning chances.
I think the issues would also be alleviated with the not radical step of imposing term limits on Representatives and Senators. I used to hate the idea of term limits – if the people like a candidate enough to keep voting for them, then they should get to keep voting for them. But then I realized that the other thing I really love is the Constitutional idea that the American system is designed to protect the country from the worst tendencies of people – to protect Americans from themselves. The House is a voice of the people – the Senate and President moderate that. The President represents a place where decisive but necessary action can be taken with little hesitation – the Senate and House moderate that. The states and national level are supposed to moderate each other. Well – citizens are lazy. And this is one reason why incumbency rates are so high. We don’t hold sitting congressmen accountable for their self-aggrandizing behavior. With term limits, we will be forced to vote in new blood periodically which, even in our natural laziness will force us, even if in a small way, to consider the new candidate more than we’d consider an incumbent.
I think the issues would also be alleviates with the extremely radical step of breaking up the larger states so that the Senate can also expand. The states at the founding of the republic were relatively homogenous internally with their economic interests and cultural values – in this way, the states became types of represented interest groups. This allowed the early republic’s vastly divergent pursuits to not rely on the government to oppress different sectors of the culture as the Senate helped protect minority views and minority pursuits against the majority. Not perfectly of course, but the mechanism is there. Currently, our states are too big and no longer perform the function of discrete semi-homogenous “interest groups”. I would take the top 15 states and break them up into – I know it sounds stupid – into about 40-50 smaller entities. This would make a list of states, the populations of which hover around 1890 or 1900 levels (before the final ossification of the parties).
I’d additionally add one Senator per state. So there’s not that weird “protected” set of states that rotates every 12 years, during the passions of the presidential election. And to top it all off, I’d return election of Senators to the State legislatures again – even with all the associated problems of individual states sometimes unable to send a senator to Congress.
Here’s my problem though – I wouldn’t support the moderate proposal of expanding the house if we didn’t also include the radical proposal of breaking up the states – because of the Electoral College effects – which I firmly believe is a good component of our system.
My uncle has an interesting idea: Each politician must spend one month in prison for each year in an elected position. As nutty as it sounds, it kind of makes sense.
He also thinks first responders (police, firefighters, EMTs, etc.) should have one month per year as a “sabbatical” from the job – a firefighter would work in say, a soup kitchen or maintenance crew – as a way to alleviate PTSD associated with those jobs. It might break the cycle of burn out and/or cynicism that comes from always performing under intense pressure. That was a commonsensical idea to reforming the police.
jvb
My best friend often talks of this. I bet it would be incredibly helpful for police.
It is a combination of a lot of factors. Party line voting has always been a thing, but starting with Clinton party line voting started trumping all other factors, including truly psychopathic behavior. An ends justify the means mindset took hold in the Democrat voting base. It doesn’t take long for the impact of such a mindset to become contagious and spread to the rest of the voter bases.
Entrenched bureaucracies now control most of the government, rather than the elected officials, and elected officials make use of this to ignore the will of the voters. When the government ignores the voters, the voters start fighting back by electing increasingly bellicose candidates.
The current campaign finance laws make it easy to funnel dark money into the pockets of politicians, creating a government of the bribed instead of a government of the voters. Again, ignoring the will of the voters creates a doom loop of increasingly bellicose voters voting for increasingly bellicose candidates.
Centralization of the Federal government bypasses the power of the states. It lets California and New York tell everyone else what to do. Forcing Los Angeles values down the throats of everyone else also leads to the bellicose voter spiral. The United States is an enormous country and there is never going to be a universal culture that makes centralized morality mandates feasible. All those mandates accomplish is to make people very, very angry.
Congress has given up the power to write laws and handed that duty over to mega corporations and special interest groups. Non-elected groups now write gigantic “comprehensive reform” bills, which are rubber stamped by Congress without lawmakers ever even bothering to read the bills. These bills almost universally give control of minute aspects of people’s lives to federal bureaucrats and redistribute money from the working class to the government, mega corporations, and special interest groups. People don’t like this. It makes them angry. When voters are angry enough, for long enough, they get bellicose and belligerent.
Then you have the government spyware and cognitive control software masquerading as social media and big tech. Running constant psyops on people makes people crazy. Crazy people aren’t known for making particularly good decisions.
Finally, there is the propaganda spewing media which has abdicated its responsibility to inform the people of facts and taken up the mantle of activism. The media aims to make people angry and stir up trouble rather than keep people informed of what is actually going on in the country. When people are not informed, they lack the information needed to make good decisions.
Yep.
#2 You can’t blame the youth for our politics. They are old and holding onto their positions with grasping hands for no reason than because they want to. The youth and elderly have one thing in common. They both don’t bother to think ahead. The elderly because they know their time left is for certain limited and the consequences likely won’t bother them. It’s even worse because they know they need to “leave their mark” soon, if they haven’t already. There’s good kids out there. It’s not their fault they’re cynical and a little lazy. Life is easy right now. If you think there’s an issue with our youth then be a role model for them. They need it. We need an age limit on federal positions. They can dodder to become mayor if they want. This would hopefully help them not become so entrenched they get bribes via children and in-laws from international governments and corporations as well.
5) People who actually would make good candidates and leaders are too busy achieving worthwhile accomplishments in their own lives (because they can) and have no interest putting real life on hold to become a politician, even temporarily.
6) Smart, observant people who actually would make good candidates and leaders see how politicians are treated in the media (especially if you oppose the media’s favorite narratives) and have no interest in putting themselves through any of that bullshit. Even if they are willing to do it personally, they have no interest in putting their family and friends through any of that–particularly when the people around them wouldn’t really have a say in the matter.
I’ve considered running for local office in my town in the aftermath of a huge push to rename anything vaguely related to the Civil War , but Mrs. Zechman flatly put the kibosh on that, not wanting to make us into targets here in #0000FF northern Virginia.
–Dwayne
P.S. #0000FF is the computer code color value for “as pure blue as possible”.
This very evening I attended a talk by Darren Perry, former Chairman of the Shoshone Nation. He said he stepped down from that position to run for Congress. He said it was a terrible experience and he’ll never do it again.
Ryan, I suggest the following additional reasons for the lack of good-quality of candidates.
Politics is a dirty business that doesn’t appeal to some people of good character. It is not unusual for politicians to lie or deceitfully pars words to mislead. It is not uncommon for them to publicly demean and denigrate those that don’t agree with them or stand in their way. Backstabbing, dirty tricks, etc. can be a way of life for many politicians and consequently turns many people off from politics.
Another reason running for Congress or president is expensive. For a house member, you need to raise a lot of cash in a short amount of time. Partially for your own reelection and but you are also expected to contribute to the party. It has been reported you spend more time fundraising than legislating.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-are-members-of-congress-becoming-telemarketers/
I think number 3 has a lot to do it, but ultimately it’s number 1, sort of. I don’t think the issue is that people are voting part line, as much as that we’ve become so polarized and our common values have eroded (more like actively and deliberately been destroyed) so much that each side views the other side so negatively (and often as an existential threat) that they’ll vote for anyone from their side. When you know your voters will vote for anyone you put forth, you have less incentive to pick better and more moderate candidates
On the widening worldview dichotomy, objectivity and debate:
Can a progressive commenter ever last here anymore?
The complaints that this is a conservative echo chamber have some practical merit – in that most of the commenters here have a libertarian or conservative lean. The progressives all left, mostly of their own accord, many because their own assertions painted themselves into logic corners from which all they had left was the vitriol that eventually got them banned.
Therein lies the question – can a progressive commenter last here without admitting that their entire train of thought has gone off the rails? And once a progressive commenter does have that realization – can they honestly remain progressive anymore?
Jack runs a pretty objective / unbiased as much as possible debate forum – but if any particular worldview has gone so far outside the bounds of reason that even objective analysis of their opinions that leads to that conclusion renders even objective moderation to look very biased – what is that out-of-bounds worldview to do?
Storm off in a huff and complain that the blog is an echo chamber…
Again, the question, can a progressive commenter last here without at least surrendering the ground upon which much of their contemporary dialogue relies? I don’t think so. They are either likely to stop being progressive or they will leave anyway.
And all because they just can’t admit that Donald Trump was treated wildly unfairly from the get go and almost every single controversy that followed flowed directly from that unfair treatment.
“Can a progressive commenter ever last here anymore?”
Prior to his unfortunate (IMO) self-exile, I thought Charles Green navigated his way around here quite well, with aplomb, and without any of the slobbering hoopla of the more recent ideological guerilla trolls.
He left though because of the very effects I question in my post.
What was his final straw? It wasn’t Obamacare – that’s when Ampersand bailed isn’t it?
Was it Trayvon Martin? I don’t think so.
Had to be Trump related.
“Had to be Trump related.”
‘Twas ever, thus; perhaps Jack will flesh it out a tad.
[It was. Charles quit after writing that I “drank the Kool-Aid” regarding the Mueller investigation, because Trump was obviously guilty of colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election.]
I will note that I also had respect for Charles Green. I disagreed with him a lot, but he did a better-than-average job of backing up his position and was always reasonable. He even once apologized to me personally when I called him out on a comment that came off like an insult. Not many people would do that. I also got the impression from him that Ethics was something important to him, although he would often use the word “Trust” as his favorite label.
I’ll also add that I miss Ethics Bob. At his best, he’d provide pretty good ethical analysis from a left/liberal slant and interesting counter-points to Jack’s analysis–but at his worst he’d mouth Democrat talking points as gospel and condemn conservatives as unethical just for holding a conservative position, assuming malign motives without justification.
–Dwayne
Overall, I think our society has downplayed logic, rhetoric, and critical thinking for so long now, and emphasized how one feels so much that most people, regardless of view or party, are ill equipped to have their beliefs challenged. As far as attributing vitriol and storming off in a huff to progressives, I’ve seen conservatives act in similar fashion, though I would tentatively agree that the progressives tend to be a shade worse.
Guiding decisions with logic, rhetoric and critical thinking tends to produce conservatives. Guiding decisions with feelings tends to produce progressives.
There’s a reason public education has downplayed those classical skills.
I’ve had more productive conversations with an anarcho-communist than I’ve ever had with a progressive.
Something about progressive ideology makes its followers incapable of acknowledging the truth. I think maybe it is because thy base their sense of self-worth on their political ideology. It ramps cognitive bias up by multiple orders of magnitude. Admitting that any aspect of progressive ideology is flawed or leads to negative consequences is felt as the equivalent of admitting to a personal moral failing. Progressives think that they are good people because they are progressives and progressive ideology is the epitome of morality. If progressivism isn’t the epitome of morality, then the individual is not the epitome of morality, and that is unacceptable.
This is a response to you and Ryan Harkins – but there in lies the problem – what is Truth?
I think in the past when both sides of the aisle had some common conception of the truth – you didn’t see quite the wide gulf in political opinions. This makes sense of course – when both cling to generally common “truths” their interpretations of current events and solutions for current problems would all generally look the same – with party differences being more or less “matters of degree”.
The two parties swinging wildly away from each other OR more aptly – one party swinging wildly away, would imply that the wildly swinging party is trying to reinvent “truth”.
I certainly agree the whole idea of “truth” has been widely diverging. From my perspective, there has been an age-old question of how much we can conform the world to our needs, and how much we have to adapt to the world. It seems to me that the two groups that are radically diverging right now are diverging on that point. One group seems to believe we can completely shape reality into whatever we want, either through ScienceTM, or legislation, or flat-out wishful thinking. There’s a utopian dream they espouse that if we can just arrange everything just right, there will be no more suffering. I don’t think the other side has calcified completely into “that’s reality, so it is senseless to try to change anything,” but it is close.
Do you have a different take on where the fundamental divergence is, or different way to frame it?
When I mentioned truth I actually was talking about objective facts. For example, a recent progressive commenter has been running around denying that Biden admitted to ordering Ukraine to fire a prosecutor or lose a billion dollars in US aid. There is video of Biden bragging that he did this. I don’t understand how someone can just point blank refuse to acknowledge that this event occurred. That was the sort of thing I was referring to when I mentioned truth.
To your point, I agree that the gulf between worldviews is widening rapidly and making debate extremely difficult because people cannot agree on even the smallest points of reference from which to have a debate. I agree with Ryan that the main point of divergence is between beliefs in how much we have to adapt to the world versus how much we can force the world to conform to our needs.
Actually, Masked Avenger never denied Biden did that…they simply explained why he did it…that his actions had the backing of the Obama administration, Congress, and the international community, and the conspiracy theory that he did this to interfere with the Burisma investigation was wrong.
There was probable cause.
Jack addressed it here.
“Can a progressive commenter ever last here anymore?”
I seem to have lasted for over a decade, albeit with a few months’ hiatus a while back. And Jack has graciously offered me an ongoing if irregular guest column. I’m not dead yet.
I too haven’t found a *general* rule that doesn’t have exceptions. In your case, I haven’t detected an ounce of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Your insightful commentary, unless I’ve missed it, rarely seems to ever focus on him.
I’ve always assumed you gave him the kind of aloof treatment that Americans have always traditionally given newly elected Presidents.
Don’t get me wrong. I think Trump is a blight on society. I think that about most politicians of both parties, of course, but Trump is, in my opinion, worse than most. That doesn’t mean I think he’s guilty of all the allegations some of my more foam-flecked leftie friends have leveled against him… but I would give serious consideration to the Sauron/Voldemort ticket were they to run against him. (Well, I’d have to check their citizenship first. I guess that might make me a Republican, after all.)
I did not know you were a progressive. I thought you were a liberal. Interesting.
I’m not sure where the line of demarcation is, and, as I’ve suggested earlier, I’m radical about some things and conservative about others. But I’ll plead guilty to either “progressive” or “liberal.” I’ve been called Marxist; I don’t think that’s accurate, but I seldom worry about what other people label me.
Valky is still around, occasionally. She’s likeable and usually coherent, though.
Still Spartan and jan chapman drop by occasionally, and are welcome.
And Valky consistently avoids Trump-related topics other than the passing comment – which don’t strike me as being Trump-obsessed.
Another exception. But the simple truth is – a large majority of formerly established progressives are not here anymore because of their priors relating to Trump and I can’t think of the last new-to-the-blog progressive that hasn’t been banned ultimately because of their priors relating to Trump.
Valley has a sense of humor, too. Is that something of a rarity and/or a skewed left bright bell curve?
typo. “Left-right” not “left bright”
“She’s likeable and usually coherent, though.”
Agreed.
Recently, I received an reply from MSM Holdings, a company based in New York, about a fully remote job which I applied to, among many. The job is a remote purchasing agent; i would purchase items from local vendors and then ship them out to MSM’s clients.
I would be subject to a two-week trial period, in which I would perform these duties, and then I would receive a company laptop, and the company credit card.
I did ask how I am supposed to pay for the purchases on behalf of MSM without the company’s credit card. Here was the reply I got.
” You do not need to withdraw a cash. You receive our account # and use it
to clear a bill on your credit card. There will be 24 hours clearing
process and you get the money reflected on your card as available
credit. You can spent it after.
Here is the process one more time:
I give you the company’s bank account number by email
you should go to your credit card on-line banking and use the account
to pull the money from that account to your credit card as a Bill Payment
we wait 12-24 hours till the credit card company confirm the
available credit on your card
you start buying the goods from posted company’s amount
you ship the products out
receive the next transaction
We are talking about a situation when you will get our money to your
card first and only after you will be buying the goods
To get this process started you do NOT give us your card details. You
should simply have your card in your hands and understand the process.
We both will be waiting till your CC company confirms that the money is
clear and you can use them. Only after you are buying the merchandise.
We are in a situation when we trust you our money first and wait a job
from you.” – MSM Holdings
There is an obvious problem with the company’s account security procedures. I sent a reply e-mail.
“below, you write that you would send the company’s bank account number to my personal e-mail. I spent twelve years in the mortgage industry (as seen on my resume). This is completely insecure. No company I ever worked for would send their financial account information to an employee’s personal e-mail address or mailing address, not even if the employee in question was a vice president, not even if the employee in question actually had access to the bank account. Bank statements would likewise be maintained in a secure location, and any old enough bank statements would be shredded.
You need to have someone review your sensitive information security procedures.”- Me
In addition, the manner that probationary purchase agents would work during their 2-week trial period involves commingling of the company’s funds with their credit card or debit card bank account.
I reached out to three other people about this; two of them agreed this was strange.
MSM Holdings has been in business since 1986. I wonder why they would have such non-existent procedures in keeping their financial accounts secure.
I did receive a reply from them; they wrote that they would create a new bank account to which only I would have access.
You sure you aren’t working for a Nigerian prince?
MSM Holdings is a real company; I saw the registration information on a New York State government web site.
I wonder if its bank account information was stolen.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/04/white-house-purges-442-reporters-using-new-press-credential-rules/
Look! Something Trump would be excoriated for!
I did not realize this until last week, but as of August 1st, general use incandescent light bulbs are banned from being sold or manufactured in the United States. As far as I can tell, the ban is not specifically for incandescent bulbs, but is based off a minimum lumens per watt that is impossible for an incandescent bulb to meet without drastically shorting service life. The ban also does not affect specialty bulbs, such as grow lamps and Christmas lights.
There are arguments for and against this minimum lumen standard. LEDs do consume much less energy and modern choices can very nearly match natural light. LEDs can last much longer than an incandescent bulb. However, there are many LED bulbs that are poorly made and will die much earlier than expected. Many new houses are being built with LED fixtures. When an LED dies, the entire fixture has to be replaced instead of just swapping in a new bulb.
The DOE ban was implemented because it is claimed that Americans will save an average of $100 per year on energy bills and will help meet the Biden administration’s goal of reducing the country’s carbon footprint. Is this ban legal? Is it ethical? Is it proper for government to set a minimum standard on light bulb efficiency because of a claimed decrease in energy consumption and carbon emissions?
It is not proper at all.
On the baseball front, I was thrilled to hear that Eric Nadel — longtime voice of the Texas Rangers — returned to the broadcast booth this weekend. He’s been out all year working through some health issues, so it was great to tune in this weekend and hear him calling the game.
Nadel started with the Rangers in 1979 and when I first started listening to them in the mid-1990s he was just about to become the primary broadcaster for the Rangers. I have really enjoyed his style and mannerisms, and even aside from baseball itself he got me enchanted with the game all over again (Except for a few years in the 90s, when the Yankees crushed our hopes, the Rangers were not that great a team).
I also recall a few seasons when the Rangers broadcasters were Brad Sham and Eric Nadel. Sham, of course, is the legendary voice of the Dallas Cowboys — that combination was a dream broadcast team.
I recall how emotional and thrilled Nadel was in 2010 when the Rangers won their first pennant, after nearly 40 years (and 30 by Nadel). Perhaps this will be the year he will get to call a winning World Series team.
Those voices have a huge cultural impact, and for baseball fans, become the sounds associated with youth, innocence, excitement, drama, tragedy and disappointment. There are a lot of communities that haven’t been lucky with their broadcasters (DC comes to mind), but Nadel is a perfect example of a voice that will live in the heads and hearts of long-time fans forever. It’s wonderful that he’s back in time to be part of what should be a special season down the stretch and after.
“Nadel is a perfect example of a voice that will live in the heads and hearts of long-time fans forever.”
I don’t ALWAYS LISTEN to MLB on radio, but when I do, it’s the dulcet voice of the 89 year-old Voice Of The Brewers Bob Uecker.
IMO, he brings you right into the booth with him!