PRay TeLL, Dr. Hash

<p>The idea that a single private individual could walk into the office of a public official, talk to them for a short time, maybe buy lunch, and that official will then vote in a manner beneficial to the lunch-buyer should be more astounding to all of us than it is. What explains the success of lobbyists? How is everyone so susceptible to bribes and flattery?</p> <p style="mar...

<p>We started as a country of part-time politicians who wouldn't risk their precious personal and business reputations by lying or taking bribes in politics. They were incorruptible because they were already secure in their lives. Today's career politicians are so pathetic because they are without principles, totally creatures of the people who pay for them. The vast majority of these graspi...

<p>Should politics be a popularity contest? When someone "represents the people," do they really need to be liked? Should their fashion sense, age, and speaking powers be a determination of whether they're qualified? Reading about Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and many of the other Founding Fathers; few of the early pioneers of pluralistic politics could be elected t...

<p>Let me give you an idea of what being a candidate is like: first, it's not about you, it's about the Party. The Party has a big payroll, and you are their customer because The Party gets its money from your campaign. You don't know that at first, you think they're happy to get you because you are a good candidate and they think you have something to contribute. Wrong; they're happy to get...

<p>Since all ideologies have to fit into only 2 Parties, determining which one most closely matches you is difficult, especially when you don't know your ideology yourself. Mostly people default to the Party of their parents but for those seeking their own place, how would they know? Supposedly, a Party is defined by its platform though few people read it. The platform is created every 2 yea...

<p>Many big “C” Conservatives express a No Compromise attitude. They imagine the other side doesn't compromise, and all the ground they've lost in the Cultural War is because they have been weak in their resistance, bending to accommodate the needs and desires of other people rather than insisting things stay the same. Libertarian thought similarly does not recognize that other people in soc...

<p>There are only 2 Parties so everyone has to squeeze their political values into one or the other no matter how awkward the fit, but how do they know which is the closest? Usually, a person joins the Party their parents belonged to then fumble around trying to describe what values they believe in. The Party Platforms also provide some guidance for determining values but almost no one reads...

<p>Liberalism, as pertains to the nation’s founding, was the idea of democratic representation, no Class system, debt forgiveness, Rule of Law, and personal autonomy, but over the decades it has come to mean less adherence to the status quo, often explained as “new ideas,” but mostly old ideas presented to a young audience who hasn't encountered them before. However, there are some traits th...

<p>The confusion with calling someone conservative is that you don't know if it's a little “c” or big “C” because everyone is conservative. We all want our lives to mostly stay the same with some minor changes here and there, it’s just that the part of the political spectrum that is called big “C” Conservatives are more married to to the status quo, usually because their comfort level has al...

<p>Democracy has lots of concepts; let's review those we've covered:</p> <ol> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Collectivists consider the will of the electorate to be the national majority rather than the local Representative's constituency.</p> </li> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;&quo...

<p>Perhaps the worst form of government is by committee. The problem is that councils and board appointments have vague accountability, especially if they're tenured. Also, often there's some kind of commission that must vote on an action, or worse, a group with legislative authority but no ability to decide anything, like Freeholders. It's unclear where responsibility lies behind the semi-a...

<p>Oligarchies are an organized minority exploiting the unorganized majority. They maintain their power through their relationships with each other, and have the power to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. They gain control of a nation, usually through aristocracy, but corporations and other Special Interests can create a democratically elected oligarchy, like in the U.S. A...

<p>In the U.S., there are only 2 Parties yet there are dozens of identifiable ideologies. To have any impact at all, voters have to fit their ideology into one of the 2 Parties then fight for a place at a crowded table. The new Top 2 Primaries, where the top 2 vote-getters advance to the General election regardless of Party, first begun in Washington State then California, are an opportunity...

<p>America was the first liberal democracy with its primitive 2-Party system where winner-takes-all. In more modern, parliamentary democracies, fractional vote-getters have fractional representation, so a Third party that got 10% of the vote would have 10% of the representatives. Not so here; all that a Third Party could be here is a spoiler: just ask Bush Sr. what he thinks of Ross Perot. P...

<p>If a liberty-based society is going to use democracy for governing, only representative democracy, a republic, will work to get anything close to objective leadership because pure democracy, at its best, is a crude tool wielded by the uninformed & hapless. Luckily, statistically, more often than not someone who is informed and competent gets elected, and this representative percolates...

<p>The argument that only select people can vote has always been percolating, usually with regards to military service, but with the advent of so many Illegal Aliens who vote primarily for the Party that caters to them, the idea of universal enfranchisement is again under attack. There is even a senseless discussion about whether democracy is even a good idea, and that at least we should dis...

<p>In early America, voting was limited to an elite cadre of property-owning men. It was thought that others need not vote because, using a Libertarian economic metaphor, a rising tide lifts all boats. Democracy was new then and when these men got together to form Liberty Nation America, they voluntarily surrendered to The State the one thing all men have, their Right to Violence. This worke...

<p>There are certainly enough voters in any election to be an accurate statistical representation of the population's desires, even if for only that instant in time. Statistically speaking, adding 10 or 10,000 people to the roles of voters will not change the election's outcome; that is, unless the new voters are not selected randomly. That's where Party-driven GOTV campaigns come in: it's i...

<p>Democracy is the selection method most suited to liberty because you make your own decisions and your vote is worth the same as anyone else's. This seems obvious but what's controversial is that democracy shouldn't require citizenship; everyone who's affected by a decision must be in on it to get a quorum. For example, a bunch of people in an auditorium deciding on whether to turn the hea...

<p>Voters don't know anything: they don't know what district they're in; they don't know who's running; they don't know what the issues are or even which side they're really on. Even the Voter's pamphlet has no impact; what it really comes down to is which candidate can attract the most Special Interest groups. A candidate can ride a single issue to election, like abortion, it doesn't matter...

<p>Many small States joined the Union only reluctantly because they didn't want to become the coattails of more powerful voting blocks. People vote instead of revolting, but mathematically votes mean nothing, which leaves the psychological effect of voting, the tribal aspect, millions of years of evolutionary my-team-versus-your-team rivalry that binds groups together. Democracy for large gr...

<p>Democracy definitely has its downside; mob rule is a real problem. As an antidote, we're told we have a Republic, one person representing many, rather than a democracy, but the pro-democracy people have an alternative story that the original choice as a republic was on purely practical grounds because it was too difficult to get a large number of people to vote over long distances, which...

<p>What are Rights? What aren't? Let's review:</p> <ol> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">In the hierarchy of Rights, liberty comes first.</p> </li> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">The only Natural right is the Right of Violence.</p&gt...

<p>Many religious people think the Constitution is in the same mystical pantheon as the Bible; that every word is unblemished truth, not to be interpreted by mere mortals; and a lot of Conservatives get close to that reverence. In reality, the Constitution is unoriginal material written by deeply flawed men; the time, place, and ingredients were simply right for it to happen. Most folks get...

<p>The word “homeless” is a modern construction: it means people living in such a way that it makes other people uncomfortable. Peoples all over the world once lived in animal-hide tents, giant dormitories, and rough log construction with dirt floors where everyplace was a toilet. Obviously, anyplace can be a home; it doesn't even take much getting used to because routine itself provides the...