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Date Posted: Wed 2003-08-27 16:44:35
Author: arendt
Subject: Responses to your points
In reply to: arendt (posting for redeye) 's message, "Re: RE: updated version of NK-govt - PART 2" on Tue 2003-08-19 20:02:46

Hi, Redeye-

I agree that this back and forth is beginning to be all over the map. Still, it has served
a useful purpose in introducing our ideas to each other. Perhaps we should break out the
points still in discussion into separate threads? In any case, here are replies to your points.

(THE @#$$%ing post tool removed all my formatting! How do
I post colors, quote bars, etc?)

1. You're wrong about people feeling pain when even one cell gets killed. The whole body works like an ant colony, more or less; cells are born and die and we don't even notice, and if fact those cells that don't die are cancerous cells that eventually kill us. Treating a state like an organism yields us tyrannical governments such as Plato's aristocracy and Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat.


The fact I was trying to emphasize is that *in the parts of the body where there are nocioceptors (pain sensors)* those sensors begin to signal pain if even a single cell
is killed. Of course, if there are no sensors, like in the viscera or in the brain, then there
is no sensation. I do not disagree with the fact that my statement was incomplete.

But, just as I have a thing about homunculi, you seem to have a thing about ant colonies.
Could you please take some time to unpack it for me?

The whole point of a government is that it must be an abstraction because the reality
of controlling a nation of > 10^^8 humans is bigger than any one human mind. My
sense is that any functioning abstraction is, de facto, some kind of living thing with
goals and internal state, as opposed to a piece of machinery. If you are saying that any
analogy to organisms is verboten, then I submit that you should be perfectly happy to stick with the 17th century machine analogies that have been overtaken by events.


2. a) The number 200 comes from Finland's constitution; Finland is so sparsely populated that even with 50 legislators it'd have a reasonable v/r ratio of about 50,000.

b) If you look at the British Parliament, you'll see that it's far more functional than the US House. Size is definitely an important part of the equation whose result is functionality, but so are procedures and culture. So it's very possible to get 200 members and still have a functional legislature.


I will see what I can find out about legislatures of size 200. I'm not going to be too
dogmatic, yet.


c) I'm not inverting the pyramid, because there are still many SLs subordiante to each DL. In many firms the board of directors is larger than the average work team; however, since there's only one board but numerous work teams, there are many more ordinary workers than directors. If there are 5 SLs to each DL, then the ratio of Specialized Legislators to Departmental Legislators will be 2.5:1.


I understand your point. But you advocate bulky, more difficult legislatures at the top,
where discussion has to be fluid, wide ranging, and abstract. Making the most important
level almost as bulky as the current HR doesn't sound like much of an overhaul to me.
400 is too big of a "community" for people to really get to understand each other at
the level needed to thrash out abstract policy.


d) If the lower-level stuff is more rote, then computers can do it, can't they?


Let me get this straight. You are against treating people as organisms, but you are
perfectly happy to replace them with computers. Is that correct? :-)



3. The part about secretaries and emergencies sounds reasonable, to a degree. I know that in Weimar Germany, the procedure for emergency decrees was such that the Chancellor requested and the president signed - the same can be done here, so the Minister of the Environment might ask the president to agree to a decree outlawing any oil drilling in ANWR if the situation there turns into a crisis, etc. The main difference between you and me here, I guess, is that I support a more active president, who needs to actually confirm the ministers' decisions in an emergency and doesn't just veto what he doesn't like.


But, if the ministers have to ask permission, what is the point of electing them?

It is fascinating that we have immediately fallen to debating the merits of strong
executive vs strong legislature.


4. Detour: the question here is what delay there really is in politics. If it's, say, 24 hours, then Congress will really be in control; when response times need to be lower, it will likely because of an emergency situation, so the executive will partly take over.


But, we do agree that delay exists, right? I mean it takes time to process new info.
Only if there are pre-existing plans available to be executed can there be an
instantaneous response.


5. Digression: that makes sense... However, this begs for a lot of leeway depending on the type of legislation. I support minimum debate times for laws, which get higher and higher as we move to higher levels that need to decide on more important affairs. For example, an L0's minimum debate time might be 3 hours, an SL's might be 6 hours, a DL's might be 12, and Congress' might be 24. Now, maximum debate times are problematic because not always all issues will've been resolved by the deadline. As for poison pills, all that's needed is a procedure rule that states that just before the final vote, each amendment or section of a bill is voted on independently. Thus, representatives will be able to vote the poison pill down and let the rest of the bill pass.


That's called a "line item veto", and it was just given to the US president in 1998, although
it has been common in Parliamentary democracies for some time. I'm not a parliamentary
procedure guy, so I do not know if what you propose would work in a legislature. For
example, how could guys make any kind of compromise deal if the compromise could
be undone by double-crossing whichever of the bundled proposals is brought to the
floor last.


6. I didn't really understand you on the budget.


Its complicated. I am still researching it.


7. Oops, sorry about the excutive/legislative conundrum. So basically every person can vote in all executive elections and then in some legislative elections in each level?


Well, certainly in more executive elections than legislative elections. If there are less than
ten executives, then I would say yes; more than ten, no. Also, remember that voters get
to vote for regional (i.e., city-state) government officials also.


8. The problem with prior experience qualifications is that some people just suck at doing routine stuff and are much better at setting policy guidelines. It's like with Peter's Laws: you end up promoting those who're good at a certain office out of that office.


Its like the argument about care in capital cases. You would rather let guilty go free than
hang an innocent man. I would rather force qualified honest people to do more work than
allow some mediagenic conman, like Arnold, buy his way into power. The whole point
is that money has found it perfectly easy to buy the current government, and anything
resembling it. If you want no qualifications, then there has to be mandatory government
campaign financing, on an equal footing to all. But, as i said, this just moves the money
back to making their proto-candidates well-enough known to get that financing.

My biggest fear is the power of money to destroy democracy.



9. I see the question of age qualifications as one of adulthood and self-goevrning. Are 18-year-olds able to govern themselves? Yep. Are 16-year-olds able? Yep, again. Why then should we be restricted from having real power? Besides, people are going to vote anyway, regardless of whether they're schizos, so the schizophrenia argument really shouldn't affect anything. And moreover, by the same token we can disenfranchise everyone who doesn't have a graduate degree because he "lacks the intellectual abilities to vote rationally." That's pure BS. Finally, I think in today's terms, in the sense that I am shaped by current events and thus my ideas are not cast in stone. Many 30+ people don't, so under your suggestion the government will deal with today's problems only in 10 years, with 2013's problems in 2023, etc. I'd rather let those who let current facts confuse them vote.


Are 16 year olds old enough to drive? Yes. But, they do have the highest accident
rates around, and the insurance companies charge heavily for that fact.

Are 18 year olds old enough to join the army? Yes. But, how many of them get
made general by age 20?

I'm not denying them the right to join the political process. In the process I am
striving towards, it makes sense for people to learn the ropes first because government requires brains AND EXPERIENCE.
For an example
from business, every new employee of UPS begins by sorting boxes at the sorting
centers. They learn the business from the bottom, even if they are going to be
executives. It makes sense to force newcomers (of whatever age) to spend some
time learning the basics. Otherwise, the basics will be neglected for the glamour
of the big positions. God knows, no one is teaching civics and government in
today's schools. They have to learn it somehow if democracy is to survive.


10. The legislature that does all the procedure stuff should actually be Congress - it should be the one that establishes new SLs, creates new departments, etc., rather than a legislature that's inside a department. My logic tells me that new SLs and DLs are an issue that everybody should be able to decide on, not just those who vote in a certain SL.


I like the idea of a procedural legislature, but remind me again what are its powers vis-a-vis
the other legislatures.


11. By "accountable," I mean that the president needs to regualrly report to Congress, which may remove him with large enough a majority.


But you are begging the question. What constitutes an acceptable report? What can be
held secret from the legislature? We have to do better than Cheney stonewalling the GAO.


12. The civil rights department is a regular department, like defense or the treasury. It's concerned with issues of setting guidelines for the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and so on, beyond what the Supreme Court rules, as well as dealing with race and gender issues.


No immediate problems with this grouping, but I haven't really thought about how to
break it. (That's how I decide - I try to break it, and if I can't, then I accept it.)


13. The unelected level of specialized committee is there because it's so detailed that it doesn't make sense for it to be voted on. Besides, when there are only four or five sub-issues per SL, none can really trample the others like unemployment, inflation, and national security do in Congress nowadays. A proportionally-elected legislature can easily give the voters choices on 3-5 issues.


My experience is that most pork and sneaky end-runs are stuck into the details by some
faceless aide at 3 AM. If you give the corporations any darkness, they will hide in it.



14. I don't really like the presidential veto over legislative issues; it makes him too much of an elected king. There's a perfectly good check on bad laws, namely the Supreme Court; and hostilities between the executive and the legislature should not create a deadlock on any legislation.


I'm sorry if this is too organic. I'm trying to work out a correspondence between:

Legislation <=> Genome
Executive <=> Proteome (the set of proteins produced under genetic control)
Judiciary <=> Immune system

What is missing in the current system is the kind of constant fine-tuning between
executive and legislation that you see between Proteome and Genome. The rest
of the cell, and even other cells or the extra-cellular matrix of collagen, are
constantly sending chemical signals to the nuclues telling it to upregulate this
or downregulate that to maintain homestasis.

I agree that the veto is a blunt instrument, but I would argue for finer levels of
control as opposed to the abolition of control altogether.


15. I'd prefer the discussion to continue on LWD, but first you'll need to post your first PM, then I'll need to post my reply, etc. Otherwise the exchange will be pretty unreadable, and the whole idea of posting it on a forum methinks is to let others have some input.


I posted all that a week ago. No response at all yet. Just gave a plug to LWD in
a thread on DU.


Anyway, please respond about how to proceed from here with the discussion.

Thanks,

arendt

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