These papers offer an analysis of other governments which might be compared and contrasted with the system being outlined in the Constitution. I don’t consider myself expert enough to critique the analysis, but it is very interesting to see that advantages of this new system as perceived by Hamilton and Madison when compared to Greece (No. 18), Germany (No. 19), and the Netherlands (No. 20).
While trying to find out how Tiger Woods did in the playoff round of the U.S. Open today (he birdied the last hole to force sudden death and then won on the first sudden death playoff hole) I stumbled upon news of the launching of PerotCharts.com. This website is a project of Ross Perot which provides important information that every person in the U.S. needs to understand (and every member of Congress needs to accept). Helping Ross Perot is David Walker who was the Comptroller General of the United States until recently – he was the person responsible for creating government fiscal projections and he seems to be tired of having his numbers spun by politicians for their own gain at our national peril.
Using data from the government itself, Perot Charts shows the fiscal cliff that we are facing and on “chart” 34 of a 35 chart Fiscal Challenges presentation there are four suggestions for how to begin correcting our dire situation:
Of those four suggestions, we should be implementing at least 2 if not 3 of them (restructuring entitlement programs, cutting discretionary spending, and finding ways to raise revenue as well). What we don’t need is to borrow more – that only exacerbates the problem.
These last couple of days have been overwhelming. I can hardly keep up with everything I need to do – which is why I failed to post. I’m still trying to catch up so this is mostly a chance for me prove that I have not disappeared. It is also a chance for me to point to the Radio West show from yesterday, The Case for the Independent Farm.
I was very excited when I started listening to the show. It really makes you take a fresh look at agriculture as a business and also at how the production of our true necessities (such as food) affects our lives and our lifestyles so broadly. I am hoping to break the whole show down and share more of what I learned from it. Until then, here’s one nugget:
The encouragement {in agriculture} is to do more work with less people, hence the myth that modern farming is efficient – well it’s more efficient per man hour but it’s not more efficient per acre, if anything it’s much less efficient per acre but we tend to measure efficiency in man hours and capital rather than in land which is the one variable that we probably won’t ever have any more of. – George Pyle, author of Raising Less Corn, More Hell
Prior to Federalist No. 17 I had never completely disagreed with any of the federalist papers. Unfortunately, in discussing the possibility of a national government becoming stronger than would be desirable, Alexander Hamilton completely missed on his guess that:
It will always be far more easy for the State governments to encroach upon the national authorities than for the national government to encroach upon the State authorities.
Hamilton admits his lack of vision by saying:
I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons intrusted (sic.) with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the {authority which should belong to them.}
My own assessment of where Hamilton went wrong was that he imagined an electorate that was perpetually working to stay informed. Instead today we have an electorate that has been diluted from the original – adult males who own property – to include any citizen, male or female, over the age of 18. I don’t mean to suggest that we should raise the voting age again, or make property ownership a requirement again, but I think it is fair to note that anyone who happens to be 18 does not necessarily have the same interest or inclination to become informed in their vote as someone who has property ownership which is directly affected by the actions of their representatives. Maybe we should adopt some requirement of tax payment – thus excluding those who have reached the age of 18 but who are simply living with their parents and not taking any adult responsibilities.
In truth, I think the biggest culprit is not the change in voting requirements as the rise of a society that is constantly lulled into complacency by a media culture that is predominantly experienced through passive reception. That seems to create a feeling of disconnectedness where people don’t have any real connection to government except to hear whatever the media covers – and the media naturally focuses on the larger national government more than more local government.
This disconnection would explain why the following assertion by Hamilton does not hold true today:
. . . the people of each State would be apt to feel a stronger bias towards their local governments than towards the government of the Union; unless the force of that principle should be destroyed by a much better administration of the latter.
In Utah today we have a state government that is acclaimed to be among the most wisely managed and yet many of our citizens think of little beyond presidential elections and the elections of our state representatives at the federal level.
I should not be surprised that the Hatch re-election committee is among biggest donors to other Republican campaigns. The only consolation is that very little of that $200,000 he donated for candidates outside of Utah came from donors inside of Utah.
Hatch gets his money mostly from special interests outside the state. He casts his votes for whatever the national Republican party line dictates and he spends his time and energy doing whatever furthers his government backed interests. His only connection to Utah is that this is where he receives the votes to continue living in Washington D.C. without having to work on K Street.
What really irks me is that the people of Utah have considered this to be adequate representation for the last 3 decades so they keep sending him back. (Okay, I admit that I have not been paying attention to Senator Hatch for 3 decades so it’s possible that he was more representative of Utah when he started in the Senate.) It’s nice to see that more people are voicing their displeasure with our non-representative senator-for-life.
While I fully agree that the Electoral College was not an arbitrary decision and should not be abolished, I also think that we need to articulate the arguments in favor of the Electoral College better than simply stating:
Our Forefathers specifically wanted the STATES to elect the President and Vice President, not the general public.
That argument is about as compelling as the argument often used by those who want to abolish the Electoral College that we have the means to count every vote today (as if addition had not been invented back in 1789). Our Founding Fathers did want the states to elect the President and Vice President, but they also wanted the states to elect Senators. We passed the 17th Amendment to change that for Senators so reading history books may tell us that the Electoral College was a conscious choice by the founders, but those same history books also remind us that we have ignored the founders in the past and we could do so again in the 28th Amendment.
As I have been exploring the issues of an ideal living environment I have come to the conclusion that there is a factor which I had not noticed before which can probably exist in almost any of the categories of places (large city, suburban, rural, etc.) which seems to have more influence over desirability of the location than size or amenities. That factor is stability of the area. In a city there are likely to be areas which have it and areas which don’t which means that looking at a whole city might be virtually useless in this search for an illusive ideal.
When I talk about stability I do not equate a static community environment with a stable community environment. Static indicates a lack of change to me where stable indicates sustainability. The two are largely independent of each other. A stable community would be one where residents are invested in the whole community and not simply their own household. It is one where there is likely to be less turnover because of that investment. I believe that this is the reason that our government tends to promote homeownership – the assumption is that ownership would tend towards becoming invested in the community.
I recognize that stability is not nearly important at some stages of life (single college student for example) as it is at others (when you are trying to raise kids). I am basing my search for an ideal on the child-rearing situation partly because that is the stage I am at, but mostly because I believe that strong homes where children are being raised form the foundation of a strong society.
In a future post I will be exploring how to get into a stable community considering that they tend to have lower turnover. I’m sure that there are a variety of ways. I’ll be looking for insights both before and after I write that post.
So, critique me. Is stability as important as I have suggested? Have I defined it correctly? Are there factors that I have failed to notice? Besides resident buy-in to the community, what else contributes to stability in a community?
In the midst of my efforts to evaluate all the Federalist Papers, I realized that I had never read the Articles of Confederation which was the basis against which the Constitution was written and against which the Federalist Papers were generally basing their arguments.
The Articles of Confederation were the first attempt by the states at an independent and unified central government. As I have watched the rise of the European Union I have often thought that Europe was trying to recreate the structure of the United States government among their member states. As I read the Articles of Confederation I realize that what they have built looks much more like the Unites States from 1777 to 1788 under those articles than the United States after 1788 under the Constitution.
I will probably do more evaluation in a comparative fashion while reviewing the Federalist Papers and the Constitution, but a few points of interest that struck me as I read include:
With the official end of the primary season I can finally end my self-imposed ban on posting about the primaries. Of course Maureen Dowd has already said everything that needs to be said about the current situation. So there are three options for my vote in November (in order of my preference):
I did not start out in the Anyone But Clinton (ABC) camp but these last two months of the primary campaign have convinced me that ABC is the best course for this country.
I admit that it’s very easy for me to announce how I would vote my conscience far in advance because no matter what I do my vote in the Electoral College is 5 votes for McCain – like it or not.
