The Radical Centrist™

Think for Yourself!

compromise

Fixing Elections

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Have you ever held an opinion for pretty much your entire life then one day you read something that makes you stop and immediately re-evaluate said opinion… and even change your mind?  I had such an epiphany about a month ago.  It has to do with the Electoral College.

Now, let’s be clear, most people like or dislike the Electoral College (EC) depending on whether they benefit or suffer from it.  Reps generally tend to like it because they benefit from it.  Dems, on the other hand, are sometimes thwarted by it, and thus hate it and want it eliminated.  Dems claim they want ‘fairness’ and ‘one vote one person’, but I call BS.  Dems want power no less than Reps do, and I flat-out guarantee you if the next Dem president were to lose the popular vote yet win the EC, 98% of Dems would cease to call for the elimination of the EC.

The right says the EC helps balance rural and urban, spreads the balance of power over the entire country instead of just a few select urban areas, and so on.  Dems poo-poo those notions.  Well, the Dems are simply wrong.  All of those reasons are legit.  Dems are throwing shit against the wall to see if any of it will stick.  So what changed my mind?

Anyone who knows me knows that I abhor extremism, so when I read that eliminating the EC would drastically dial-back extremism because all candidates would have to try to appeal to all voters… not just their bases… I stopped in my tracks.  I blinked my eyes a couple times, and… gulp!… changed my mind.  Now, would it be paradise?  Phfft, no.  But it would be a hell of a lot closer to where most people are and what would serve most people the best than what we have now.  The candidates and parties would be forced to come closer to the middle instead of their respective whack-job extremes.  More moderate presidents would also eliminate cult-like infection of Congress and the parties, maybe allowing Congresspeople to vote more their conscience rather than fear whack-job retribution.  That alone outweighs the other concerns, in my mind.

But wait… there’s more!

The EC affects only one election, the presidential general election held once every four years.  What about all the other elections?  Congress, states, even local.  The problems are the same, but the road there is different, and this should be considered if you honestly want meaningful reform.

High-profile aspects such as campaign finance, gerrymandering, and ballot access limits need to be addressed but I was watching an episode of “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj” this morning entitled “We’re Doing Elections Wrong” (s6, e7), where he describes how our current system of ‘winner take all voting’ is setting us up with bad choices, so of course we’re going to get bad representation.  Basically, the biggest vote getter, even if they’re less than a majority, wins it all.  It creates a perverse incentive in campaigning not unlike the EC.

Mr Minhaj proposed “rated (or ranked) voting”, where you rank all your preferences in order of your preference.  If no one gets a majority in the base voting then the last candidate is dropped and the votes/rankings retabulated, rinse and repeat until somebody gets a majority.

Conclusion

I think the ranked voting idea has merit, an if combined with elimination of the EC, could be real meaningful election reform.  Problem is, you’d have to convince the people who benefit from the current system to go along with it, which means they’d be out, which means keep dreaming.  *sigh*

Just One Thing…

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A copy of the spending bill, approved by Congress, is seen on a desk before US President Donald Trump speaks about the bill in the Diplomatic Room at the White House on March 23, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / Nicholas Kamm (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

“Just one more thing…” was Peter Falk’s tag line on Columbo.  Not a perfect tie-in to this post, but it works.  Kinda.  Really, that’s all we should want in a bill, one thing, one topic, one subject.

Have you ever thought about what a single simple change to how we make and/or enforce laws might make the biggest impact?  In other words, think of it as a question:  If you could make one small change to how we legislate, what would that change be?

Personally, I’d ban the omnibus bill.  I’d make it so that ALL bills must address a single subject. It was really tough to choose between Baseline Budgeting, which is insidious in its own way, and allowing non-elected people to make rules and laws, and this, but this won out.  (Methinks a post about baseline budgeting is on the way, though.)  Omnibus bills aren’t streamlining anything, they hide and confuse, intentionally.  How does the average citizen keep up?

For those who aren’t sure, an omnibus bill is…

Omnibus Bill is draft legislation before a legislature which contains more than one substantive matter, or several minor matters combined together as one bill. Such bill is introduced supposedly for the sake of convenience. A government can slip in a substantial change in legislation and present it as an omnibus bill. An “all or nothing” tactic is involved in presenting an omnibus bill in the legislature.

https://definitions.uslegal.com/o/omnibus-bill/

And it’s precisely the “all or nothing” aspect that makes an omnibus bill so insidious.  The way I see it, the reasons for banning omnibus bills are numerous…

  1. First off, budget resolutions would have to be exempt.  Budget resolutions actually do need to be comprehensive and the process streamlined.  I hate the idea of exemptions in pretty much an anathema to me, but sometimes you have to suck it up and concede.  (A budget resolution is not necessarily the same thing as a spending or appropriations bill.  Here’s a good explanation of the difference.)
  2. Omnibus bills hide questionable items.    Senator Bedfellow slips in a fire station for Montana while Senator Graft gets his research of the effects of long toe nails on Australian Aborigines (it did happen once), and so on… but the bill is named The Thwart Child Driving Under the Age of 13 Omnibus Bill.  It is my contention that if many of these items were worthy, they’d stand on their own.  Basically, omnibus bills lie to the people.
  3. Omnibus bills hide a legislators true track record regarding their votes, and thus where they actually stand on the issues.  For example, Representative Dishonest might be a staunch guns rights advocate, but is also be strong on anti-immigration.  If a bill has a portion to restrict guns, and also to stop immigration.  What is Rep Dishonest to do?  They have to pick one, I guess.  Let’s say Rep Dishonest chooses to vote yes for the anti-immigration part.  Then comes re-election time his opponent makes a big deal about that time Rep Dishonest voted for gun restrictions.  Problem is, that’s deceiving.  Rep Dishonest, strictly speaking, didn’t vote for gun restrictions, it was just caught up in a one-size-fits-all bill.  This really isn’t fair to the citizens, either.  Make legislators take a stand!
  4. Sometimes the legislation and spending process needs a speed bump, not stop, just slow down.  Eliminating omnibus bills would be that speed bump.  Again, if it’s truly worthy, it will stand on it’s own.  Legislators would probably scream they don’t have time to address everything individually.  Good.  That’s the point.  Maybe you should be picking and choosing what’s really important rather than trying to placate everybody.  Have a backbone, tell some people ‘no’.  I believe this is a piece of the puzzle when it comes to increasing deficits.  It’s too easy to spend gobs of money without much effort.
  5. Omnibus bills aren’t fair to the citizens.  They’re difficult to track.  Items that are (purposely?) hidden most often don’t even get noticed by anyone, they just slide right in, as quiet as can be.  The people need to have reasonable access to what is happening in their names.

I believe the reasons are solid.  If government is supposed to be for the people, then the people should have easy and reasonable access.  Is that really too much to ask.

The Pitfalls of Being a Centrist

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As a Centrist what gets under your skin the most?  Or, as Peter Griffin might say, “As a Centrist, you know what grinds my gears?”

For me, being labeled one side or the other by far left/right people trying to bait me.  Especially when I’ve been dealing with them long enough that I know they know better.  I’m sorry, but that’s not an intellectually honest way to discuss.  It’s shady, downright duplicitous.  Dishonest.  There’s nothing worse than a dishonest debater.

If you defend something liberal a conservative will come along and accuse you of being a liberal.  If you then turn around and defend something conservative, yep, you guessed it, some liberal will trot in and accuse you of being a conservative.

They’re so deeply consumed with their own side they utterly fail to notice the nuances in your arguments and that you actually defend both sides from time to time.  Or, maybe they do, but are concerned more with winning the argument and less concerned with the actual topic.  I mean, call me crazy, but each side almost always has points where they’re correct. Inconceivable to some, apparently.  Then again, I guess if they were able to recognize nuance they’d be Centrists and not whack-job partisans.

That’s what I do.  If a particular point is valid, I will say so.  And sometimes I might even have a run of one side over the other, but not to worry, if you pay attention I’ll be back.  That doesn’t mean I’ve gone to that side. It just means I looked at the issue more objectively and judged the issue, I didn’t knee-jerk to some pre-approved conclusion.

So… what to do?  Well, about the only thing you can do is rise above it.  Correct where practical, but understand that some people aren’t going to hear a word you say, so simply disengage and walk away.  Especially if it’s someone you don’t know anyway.

Can we talk?

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No, really, serious talk?  Can we talk, reasonably and rationally, about serious topics?

No, we can’t.

Abortion used to be the big topic that was always devoid of rationality.  You could pop in and out of abortion forums over several years and it was always the same few people screaming the same points at each other.  I know, because I did that on Usenet (remember Usenet?) roughly 15 to 20 years ago off and on over several years.  Nothing ever changed, not the people, not the arguments, and especially not the results.  The same people still held the same opinions.  No one ever really heard a single word that people on the opposing side ever said.  Abortion has always been the great wasteland of intelligent discourse.

But that was a long time ago, oh, say, 15 to 20 years ago.  Today, it seems everything has become so hyper-partisan that we can’t discuss anything anymore.  Immigration, taxes, race, gun control, and now gender issues and sexual assault.  Hell, even “taking a knee” has people virtually screaming at each other.  It’s never ending anymore.  It’s understandable when people say they’ve had enough of politics, even though the issues are vitally important.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I characterize the current atmosphere.  People are literally starting Facebook threads by telling people in no uncertain terms to unfriend them if they don’t agree.  I get that the issue(s) are important, both to you and in fact, but this isn’t helping.  All you’re doing is widening the divide.  You’re not shaming people who disagree with you, as I believe you think you are, you’re ensuring that we will not be making any progress anytime soon because conversation has been cut off.

Not that we’d be making any progress with everybody blindly and stubbornly digging in their heels, anyway.

We’d all do well to keep the following rules in mind, if we truly and honestly want to make progress on the serious issues of the day…

I’ll admit this can be tough.  We’ve all been conditioned to do this as a matter of course.  If you follow all of these ten commandments, then how do you debate?  Well, one thing is to argue the issues and not the other person.  If your position is righteous, it will stand on it’s own.  No need for debate parlor tricks.

And please, stop with the name calling.  That’s pretty much a concession of defeat.  You have nowhere else to go.

Whataboutism: Is it really so hard to stay on topic???

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“But but but… OBAMA!!!” “But but but… TRUMP!!!” “But but but… HILLARY!!!”. And a blast from our not-too-distant past, “But but but… BUSH!!!”

It’s called “whataboutism“, or what I coined as “relativism” before I learned the proper term, and it’s the trendy thing in political debate currently. It’s really nothing more than cheap deflection when arguing your side is difficult because you know deep down the truthful answers are inconvenient.

Huffington Post did a good write up on whataboutism, What Is ‘Whataboutism,’ And Why Is It Suddenly Everywhere?

What it means

Whataboutism refers to the practice of deflecting criticism by pointing to the misdeeds of others. Oxford Dictionaries defines it as “the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue.”

Essentially, it’s an appeal to hypocrisy ― a logical fallacy also known as “tu quoque.” Instead of proving that your opponent’s claim is wrong on its face, whataboutism argues that it’s hypocritical of the opponent to make that claim at all. (Oh, you think I shouldn’t cheat on a test? What about that time you took a crib sheet into your calculus exam last year?!)

Is it really so hard to stay on topic??? God forbid we might have to actually… oh, I don’t know… adult-up and acknowledge the other side has a legitimate point. We might meet somewhere in the middle and accomplish something and move on with our lives, and we can’t have that, can we?

The Washington Post, in Why is whataboutism having a moment?, says…

Whataboutism is a cheap rhetorical tactic that relies on drawing false or sketchy comparisons between two things which may not actually be all that comparable.

Now, to be reasonable, there are times that it is legitimate to draw out a comparison. But like most anything else, in moderation, when used sparingly, and when used with intellectual honesty. And there’s the rub, our political debate has become so partisan and brain dead extreme that far too many people have taken this concept and abused it to the point of absurdity. It’s become a non-thinking argument…

Look! A squirrel!!!

There may be an issue with something Donald Trump did, or what Nancy Pelosi said, or Paul Ryan, or Chuck Schumer, and instead of discussing what was done or said, the common response is, “What about what <insert demon spawn from the other side here> did/said?”

Whataboutism, to be done with integrity and honesty, requires that one be very clear where they stand on the issue of the moment. Don’t just throw it out as a defense, because it’s most certainly not a defense. If you’re saying that ‘X’ is wrong (or right), then specifically say ‘X’ is wrong/right, then make your comparison and point out the hypocrisy of the consequences, or whatever.

Let’s take a recent example: Hillary Clinton’s email scandal where she used a private server for official business. There was great question as to whether this was ethical, let alone legal. People on the far right blasted her for it and called for her prosecution. Many people on the far left responded with, “But what about Colin Powell? He did it, too.”

😐

Ok, so what? Seriously, so what? Are you saying it’s bad or wrong that Powell did it? If so, then you’re also admitting it was bad/wrong when Hillary did it, too, and she should indeed be prosecuted or suffer some other negative consequence. What, exactly, are you arguing here? Essentially, you don’t have the intellectual integrity to say so. You’re defecting because the truthful answer is inconvenient.

Or, were you saying that using a personal server is just fine, ethically as well as legally? Ok, fair enough, but say so. Defend it. And if that’s your position, why did you even bring up Powell to begin with? What purpose did that serve? This is why I see whataboutism deflection as people expressing former, rather than the latter. Without specifics to bolster your point, employing whataboutism is intellectually dishonest.

I suppose one could claim they’re just pointing out the disparity in consequences for doing the same thing, but that just brings us back to the action being bad/wrong. If the action were fine, you’d say so.

(Disclaimer: There are plenty of examples from the other side, too. Don’t get all indignant. I just picked one that was ready in my mind.)

Political debate in current society is no longer about being correct or accomplishing something, it’s about winning. Winning the argument. Making the other side look foolish. We don’t really care of anything gets done at all. And that’s really sad if you slow down and think about it.

Of course, I’m probably preaching to deaf ears. The people who need to hear this, who need to take it to heart, are the same people who will dismiss it and defend their cheap deflections as somehow being legitimate, the people who do it and abuse it the most, in other words. They’ll read this with a perplexed look on their face, maybe a raised eyebrow, then dismiss it in a huff. “That’s not me!”, they’ll tell themselves.

To paraphrase the comic strip Pogo… We have met the enemy, and he is us.