If Democracy, Republic, Electoral College, Popular Vote, are the answers, WTH was the Question? Representative Government pt. 1

I find that when it comes to New Year's Eve, rather than making new resolutions, I prefer pursuing older and more satisfying questions. And going into this new year, with all the post election controversy, the maligning of the Electoral College, and the bi-partisan angst over the new President-Elect, I hereby resolve to pursue a whole line of old questions, into the new year, beginning with one that has been going loudly unasked for so long, and that is:

What do we mean by 'Representative Government'?

Unfortunately, if anyone does attempt to have that conversation, it typically takes an immediate turn, Left or Right, into one of a number of polarizing false dilemmas, such as 'Electoral College vs. Popular Vote', or 'He Is/Isn't my President!' or everyone's favorite fever-fest of replies that follow from that long dead little old lady's question of 'what type of government did you give us, Mr. Franklin?'. Old Ben had answered: "A Republic, if you can keep it.", which should provide a fine crop of follow up questions to anyone who is actually interested in what his answer meant, but instead, we turn down the road of:

We're not a Democracy! We're not a Republic!
We are America!

• 'We're Republic!'
• 'We're a Democracy!'
• 'Wrong, we're a Republic!'
• 'You can't have a Republic without a democracy!!!'
• 'Democracy means two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner!

(and then of course the one point they all agree on:)

• 'Why do you hate America?!'

Unfortunately, the only thing that we seem able to keep, is fighting over those same dead end answers, over, and over, and over again. I know that I've often been diverted into that dead-end cycle, and good lord how I'd like to punch my fellow man in the nose after just a few rounds of it! But the truth is that those answers might as well have been designed to shield us from considering the question that they are supposedly given in answer to. And as the true answer is that we are an intricate formulation and development of both, rather than either one answer or the other, we never get past the false either/or answer, in order to ask them.

That is the nature of these coin-toss dilemmas, which is a clue for us, if we care to pay attention. Such answers prevent any real consideration of the questions that prompts them, and maybe, the fact is that when what you're looking for is a cheap fight, then an answer which encourages more questions and requires respectful conversation - well that just won't do, will it( self, I'm looking at you...)?

I think you'll see what I mean if you imagine that same coin toss played out on a different field - like this: Picture walking up to someone on the street and calling out to them: "Hey, you're an animal!", it's unlikely that such a comment would be taken well.

Right? Right. But would it be technically wrong? No, it wouldn't. Human beings are, in the biological sense, Animals. But... how much better of a reaction do you think that'd get, if someone else ran up and yelled out "No! That person isn't an animal, they're a Mammal!'?

Sure, yes, technically... that is also correct... but....

Right?

The nature of such coin tossed false dilemmas (which are kissing cousins to "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"), is that they ensure our failure to acknowledge that we are a more developed form of that subject - whatever it is - that either answer alone provides for - and that should catch our attention like an mid-day siren, that an important context has been dropped from our awareness. The nature of that 'Heads or tails?!' answer which they expect you to give, is to manoeuvre our discussion away from recognizing that that particular 'more' which you are being diverted away from, which in this case, is that you are, in fact, Human - and that's the part it doesn't want you to take notice of.

The coin toss dilemma of 'Democracy!' or 'Republic!, is doing the political equivalent of demanding that you answer to being either an Animal, or a Mammal, in regards to our form of government. Both answers are technically correct, within a given context, but without defining that context, and in fact wiping the need for context from your context, they instead restrict the discussion from noticing or questioning the full hierarchical nature of the issue, and in that sense both answers are wrong. Wrong, because when taken, or given, on their own, they effectively drop the context of the critical question which America is the most revolutionary answer in history, to:

• How best to provide Representative Government' to an entire nation?

Plato asked a similar question to this too, though in a very different context, in his Republic, but his Republic, is nothing like our Republic, and no coin toss level answer can ever supply the reasons for explaining why our republic is so different, let alone answering what those differences are, or why. Today it's perhaps even more important to realize that the discussion you're being prevented from having, is the discussion we so desperately need to be having... but which we can't have, while the answers we've become so accustomed to giving and arguing over, are keeping us from really considering the question that we thought we were answering.

One result of not allowing the full context to be dropped, is that, we'd waste little or no time on the arguments we've been so bogged down in having! If the context were clear, no one would even assume that anyone was advocating for 'Democracy!' in the sense of unlimited majority rule, as it'd be obvious that they were only advocating for a political system of self governance. And by that same token, if the full context were taken into account, no one would ever assume that those who answer 'a Republic!', would intend that to mean some sort of rule, where laws were issued by an unelected platonic elite, but would instead understand that they meant only that very particular form of a Republic, which our nation was designed to be, something along the lines of:

A constitutional, representative government of laws which stand in opposition to the fickle rulings of men's passions

, and the fact that we are that form of a republic, of course requires some degree of democratic participation from the electorate.

IOW, the arguments we've been having, are little better than diversions from those conversations that would have been extremely valuable, to have been having these last many years. As it is, I know that in the past when I've let that context be punted away with my answer that we're a 'Republic!', the next thing I knew was that I'd been practically prevented from going a syllable beyond that coin toss of an answer, and no matter how ardently I might have tried to explain that what I meant was less a case of my calling out heads or tails, but the act of planting my flag on the peak of that mountain which America is the pinnacle of... instead it became apparent that the nature of the coin-toss, is that its answers are expected to not only evade that full context, but to seek (as if it had a will of its own) to prevent our gaining an understanding of the principles and purposes which that full context would have self-evidently demanded of us.

So for this coming new year, please, resolve to stop giving answers that answer nothing, instead start asking questions that lead away from easy answers. 'Why is a democratic means of self determination, worthwhile?' is a question worth asking, but realize that the easy answer that's dying to be given, is not the answer that's worth being accepted. Pursue it! Yes, it is necessary, it is the foundational layer of our political structure, but why is it so important? We need to begin asking that, because without asking that question, the answers of Democracy or Republic become the means of losing our understanding of what we are so very fortunate to have. To accept the 'Democracy!/Republic!' answer, is to ignore the vitally important features which our system of government has developed, features which could not have been built without that foundation, and which resulted in our Republic - and realize that answering only 'Democracy!/Republic!', is the means of dropping the necessary context, and is willfully dismissive of, and insulting to, all that has been built upon that foundation, and all of that which make us so much more than simply either a 'Democracy!', or a 'Republic!'.

Seeing that our answers have become the means to ignoring the questions that gave rise to them, it's worth asking why... isn't it?

America is, and can only be, an answer, to that full context of questions being asked. If they are no longer asked, or even known, then either answer will become truly meaningless, and the historic exceptionalism that America is, will cease to exist, drowned out, no doubt, in a war of competing answers shouted after coins tossed into the air, answers that are doomed to be shouted down, as the coin falls to the ground.

In order to determine how to provide Representative Government, we need to understand what Representative is, and why it's needed so that when those representatives are elected to positions of power in our government, they will govern in that particular manner, that makes our government so very different from any other in the history of the world. Those are the conversations that we need to engage in, even more so now, than four or eight or sixteen years ago, but before we can, we've got to ask, and pursue, those questions which alone can spawn answers that are worth understanding the meaning of.

Those are the questions I'll be pursuing over the next few posts, into the new year of 2017.

Happy New Year!

Leftists - so many questions, so little time

I've got some questions for my leftie & moderate friends about this:

"The U.S. Health and Human Services Department reported this week that 364,682 people had signed up for private coverage through the new health insurance marketplaces as of Nov. 30 and an additional 803,077 had been determined eligible for Medicaid."

Less than a million of you have signed up for govt care? Where the hell have you been hiding, and why? Seriously, I want an explanation, because even if we grant the fig leaf of these 'in the shopping cart' sales numbers as actual enrollees, these numbers raise a few questions for me. You see, looking at the numbers of those who voted for Obama and his anti-free choice regulatory state, which was somewhere in the area of a popular vote of 69 million in 2008 and 61,173,739 in 2012, not to mention the enthusiastic supporters who didn't bother to vote, there's a huge number of supporters of 'spreading the wealth around', who don't seem to want anything to do with the ObamaCare flagship for 'spreading the wealth around'.

How do you explain this? Because this explanation, from the AP, doesn't cut it:

"The discrepancy may trace back to the political leanings of their elected leaders.

Newly released federal figures show more people are picking private insurance plans or being routed to Medicaid programs in states with Democratic leaders who have fully embraced the federal health care law than in states where Republican elected officials have derisively rejected what they call "Obamacare.""

Leaving aside the subversive insinuation that it may have more to do with 'elected leaders' than those who elected them, I suspect there are other numbers that play a more significant role in the paltry few who have braved the new world of the ObamaCare website, and placed their 'like' on hold in the govt shopping cart.

Like these numbers:

1. #1 ‘Lie of the Year’ award given by Politifact to Obama for his oft repeated lie of: "If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it."
2. Average Deductible for O-Care Bronze Plan is Over $5,000 a Year
3. The millions of people nationwide who personally discovered the nature of that lie as their own healthcare plans were terminated because of ObamaCare
4. Washington enrollee's "are dealing with billing issues. Some of them say the website is mistakenly debiting their accounts."
5. The $400 million dollars spent on the ObamaCare website that doesn't work

So I guess my big question of the moment, to those sixty million people who actually voted for Obama and his regulatory take over of your ability to make your own choices in your own life, aka:ObamaCare, as well as millions more who supported him in spirit... why aren't you signing up for ObamaCare?

Did you really think that 'spreading the wealth around' wouldn't apply to your wealth?

Did you really think that giving govt the power to eliminate the choices of 'the wealthiest 1% of Americans', could be done without eliminating your ability to choose too?

Did you really think that when you cheered for the Obama administration using the power of its regulatory agencies to go around congress, that they wouldn't also use their power to do what they wanted whenever YOU stood in the way of what they wanted to do?

Did the mindless celebrity Obama cheerleaders think that their copyright royalties stood a chance against the admin's desires for more power worldwide? Insider friendly Trade Agreements? Corporate GMO Foods? Too friendly with FatCats?

Here's a truth you aren't going to get around: You can't get something for 'free' without paying for it... but you sure can catch a lot of suckers by promising it.

Some questions worth asking yourself
Here's another question to ask yourselves: If the wealthiest and most powerful 1% of Americans can't count upon The Law defending their property, rights and choices against govt abusing them... what in the hell chance have you got?!

Ok, one other question. If you give people who do not know you, the power to make or overrule every significant decision you make in your life, what are the odds that they are going to make, or rule out, decisions which make the life that your decisions would have made, non-existent?

Or put this way, of all of your closest friends, those who know you best and care about you most, what are the odds you'd like your life, if they made every decision in your life, for your own good, for you?

And you want to give people who don't know you, who don't care about you, power over you, while they are in a struggle for political power?

One question you really ought to be asking, is why your schools don't teach you about the U.S.Constitution and why the Bill of Rights were written to restrict govt power, or if they mentioned it, why they tried to make it appear a tool of oppression, rather than the means to freedom?

Frederick Douglass had a similar question back in 1860, "The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery?" that is just as applicable today:

"...Thus, for instance, the American Government and the American Constitution are spoken of in a manner which would naturally lead the hearer to believe that one is identical with the other; when the truth is, they are distinct in character as is a ship and a compass. The one may point right and the other steer wrong. A chart is one thing, the course of the vessel is another. The Constitution may be right, the Government is wrong. If the Government has been governed by mean, sordid, and wicked passions, it does not follow that the Constitution is mean, sordid, and wicked. What, then, is the question? I will state it. But first let me state what is not the question. It is not whether slavery existed in the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution; it is not whether slaveholders took part in the framing of the Constitution; it is not whether those slaveholders, in their hearts, intended to secure certain advantages in that instrument for slavery; it is not whether the American Government has been wielded during seventy-two years in favour of the propagation and permanence of slavery; it is not whether a pro-slavery interpretation has been put upon the Constitution by the American Courts — all these points may be true or they may be false, they may be accepted or they may be rejected, without in any wise affecting the real question in debate. The real and exact question between myself and the class of persons represented by the speech at the City Hall may be fairly stated thus: — 1st, Does the United States Constitution guarantee to any class or description of people in that country the right to enslave, or hold as property, any other class or description of people in that country?..."

Am I trying to say that we face the same conditions that Douglass faced in his day? The barbaric brutality he lived through forbids our equating the two.

But is slavery defined only by the severity of the conditions a slave faces? Or by the choices and decisions about their own lives, that are forbidden to them? Does it matter if they are enslaved for their own good?

Leftists; you have so many questions to ask, and so little time.

'Educational Choice' - the cost of the Question never asked

I went to a presentation at a valuable local think-tank “The Show-Me Institute”, this Tuesday, marking the 100th anniversary of Milton Friedman's birthday, geared towards his ideas of choice in education, via vouchers, tax credits, etc, to open our educational system to market forces.

The speaker, James Shuls, made a very able presentation for "Friedman Legacy for Freedom Day 2012", with his speech, his first for the institute, about "School Choice and Individual Freedom: Advancing the Ideas of Milton Friedman."; he was very engaging, had a number of examples that well illustrated the problems and frustrations that he himself had had with his local public school system, and which he believes, as do I, a privatized system would largely eliminate. The idea being that doing so will eventually produce a better quality of education, by serving the market what it wants.

But. While the principle is sound, the offers made to practice it, are not, on at least two different levels.

Level One
I don't mean to speak ill of either the Show-Me Institute, or Mr. Shuls, but there is one issue which I've yet to see addressed during any of these discussions of 'Educational Choice' - namely: 'What an Education is'.

Wouldn't that seem to be an elementary question to resolve first, in a discussion of 'Educational Choice'? Everyone just AssUme's they know the answer? Assuming the answer that 'everyone knows' couldn't possibly make an Ass of you and me, now could it? No? And why is that? Because assuming something to be true has such a good historical track record, that we all feel safe and protected by doing so?

What happens, is that by neglecting that question, all the available answers to choose from, are simply those remaining variations on one preselected answer to that unasked question, that being:

• To provide skills to earn a living.

Unaddressed in that answer, and unaddressable, is what sort of life would be worthwhile living? And how do you choose it?

Instead, we are told that earning money is good. Earning more money is better. Personally, I am a big fan of earning more money, but I have long suspected that a person should take some care in how they go about it. Seems to me, those cares should be addressed in any worthwhile Education... but what do I know, if 'everyone else' says 'more is better', then everyone else must be right, right? So 'Mo money, mo money, mo money!'

That is lesson #1 that's taught in school. That, and that having money is bad. Quite the lesson, that, 'Having lots of money is bad, and pay attention in school so you can earn more of it', what could possible go wrong there.

And is that not the meaning of "Get an Education so you can earn a good living!"? It is not saying "Get an Education so you can live a life worth living!", but simply go out and earn a good living, meaning more money, nicer things, cleaner fingernails.

What is not given the slightest consideration in this 'choice' is the possibility that a person, just might find getting their fingernails dirty the most worthwhile profession for them. Also unaddressed, and assumed to be wrong, is the possibility that not making more money with clean fingernails, might be a perfectly worthy choice. On the contrary, the 'get better skills!' theory of education, tells such a person, that they are a failure, nothing more. The theory of Education that doesn't follow that party line, might be one that could also teach a person that having made just such a professional choice, it would be wise to also be followed with acquiring some knowledgeable skills in investment, so that, in the long run, you would not be lacking in money. But that would require consideration of the long run, and what was best for it, most worthwhile - which we assume to be answers to question that are not worth asking, after all, we assume that we need answers that are effective now, pragmatically 'true is what works', forget about thinking beyond the moment, in the long run we're all dead. Right?.

The Skills based educational system does something more, it locks you into a particular set of skills, and should the market change, your value to it does as well.

The 'life worth living' based education, on the other hand, opens you up to any skill you might find a need in acquiring, by providing the knowledge and understanding which makes learning, and even seeking, new skills, a snap.

But such 'choice' is not offered up in any of the debates over 'Educational Choice', those extending the offer of 'choice' to you, have already chosen, and what they offer you to choose from, is not designed to satisfy your choices, but theirs - those who made it for you, those who expect to profit from it, one way or another.

Never fear my friends, the word 'AssUme' always lives up to its greatest potential, for all concerned. Moving on....

Level Two
Not that I think that Mr. Shuls was advocating any of this, or attempting to conceal this, it is more likely that he has never considered any of this - his choice having long ago been made for him as well - he does have a Masters Degree in Education, after all.

While there was little to object to in his presentation, putting it into practice today is... problematic. For one thing, there is a problem with what is being advocated as Educational Choice, the least of which is, that it is not advocating for a free market in Educational Choice.

Huh?

Charter Schools are the current rage, especially in Missouri ... but despite what they are assumed to mean (and what people are led to think they still mean), they are not privately funded and operated schools - not by a long shot. I asked James something along the lines of

"If the state is determining the standards, curriculum requirements and testing criteria that charters schools must use, as well as a say in who the teachers are that are teaching in them, then are those charter schools actually representing a free market, or undermining the very possibility of one?"

He acknowledged that it was a problem that the state had such a strong hand in the charter schools, and said that while it was not the choice he'd like, it is what they have to work with and he was hopeful that schools such as "Construction Careers Center" (a vocational charter school ) were available as an option.".

While I get the first part, 'make do with what you have, baby steps' & so forth, the second part leaves me in despair of those baby steps ever leading to anything other than taking us the rest of the way over the cliff.

An alternative 'strategy' for addition

Even his best examples of complacent public schools unconcerned with parents concerns, such as math strategies are less effective than 'traditional' math, do not fill me with hope. Even in the areas he expressed frustration in, regarding 'math strategies', the standardized tests already in place, let alone those that will follow with 'Common Core Curriculum' will ask about, and score based upon, such oddities as students awareness of differing 'strategies' in solving math problems (a result of teaching math as a skill only)... and so the kids will need to be taught them, even if not emphasized as much, they will need to waste their time on knowing ‘what color math is', and attempt to not let that clutter interfere with how to solve an equation... or, excuse me, a 'math sentence'.

Again, skills over purpose; What, How and How Many, over Why... the unasked question.

When he was asked about Home Schooling, he admitted that he didn't know much about the movement; he was aware that home school students tended to score above average, but felt that their numbers were not large enough to be a factor in the marketplace. That his estimation of actual numbers may be off, isn't the issue, that the aims of homeschoolers, which are largely very different from the skills based 'traditional schools' (traditional being those that were imposed upon us on a large scale, beginning around 1900), are not considered a part of the market, IS.

What is going under the name of “Educational Choice” , is more reflective of the lack of choice that public, private & charter schools are even capable of offering - they offer us even less of a choice in education than Democrat-Republican parties offer us to choose from in our elections.

The market is being managed by forces and powers outside of the market, and immune from market forces of value, satisfaction, supply & demand, and are in no way representative of a Free Market.

The Free Market IS the answer(or at least the path towards it), but it has one teensy-weensy requirement – that it be Free! Offering up an adulterated fraud as being part of, or representative of, the Free Market and Educational Choice, will not only be unable to deliver the goods that the Free Market might otherwise have excelled in, it is destructive to the market and to Education itself.

Distinctions without a difference
There isn't any worthwhile difference in the Educational choices being offered by public, (most) private or Charter schools. Mr. Shuls has a Masters Degree in Education, which means that, though perhaps he has his own ideas, his optimism for the vocational-tech school as a bright light in Education tells me that the aims of Modern Educational theory that he has been taught, are largely his own as well, that the purpose of an education is to inculcate skills, which students can use to get 'meaningful' employment from.

Some skills are of course needed in order to acquire an Education, but teaching that acquiring useful skills is the same as getting an Education, is more than anything else, a handy dandy method for eliminating the Educated. An Educated person, is someone who has learned the essential knowledge necessary to developing the internal means and ability to govern themselves in pursuit of a life worth living. That is not what is being taught, and it is not a choice that is being offered in the educational market place at all.

Do you really need to look any further for proof of this, than the Obamao/G.M. Chevy Volt?! Really?

When answers are imposed, questions are not asked, and results are not improved upon. Worse, such a forcibly static system is unsuited for a dynamic world, and decline can be the only result. Were none of you watching what happened with East Berlin and the USSR? Have you not seen that our 'investment' in our educational system has increased year after year, and the results and quality have continued to decline, year after year.

For choice to matter, you need to have at least one choice worth choosing, a distinction with a difference, and the freedom to choose it - and to fail. Without that, there is no possibility of either success or improvement.. Being offered a choice, by the state, to choose between one style of teaching students skills, over another, is no choice worth being distinguished as an Educational Choice.

Instead, what is being offered up to us as "Choice", is not one of making choices between actual Educational aims, methods & content, but rather a choice between operational efficiencies in facilities management and Human Resources practices for efficiently handling faculty and student. Such choices may produce better cleaner lunchrooms and safer hallways, perhaps even a sharper sharper set of skills… but what you are not now getting, or are ever going to get, is an actual choice, or change, in Educational aims and methods & content.

The answers to declining results is always more time in class, more testing, more strategies, more useful skills and always, always, mo' money, mo' money, mo' money!

The only assurance you have, is that more money will be spent, and with no better results - that is the cost of the Question that is never asked - What IS an Education? We simply AssUme we know.

Worse still, of course, what you will not have produced from such an educational system, are Educated people.

Worst of all, America cannot exist without an adequate number of Educated people. See the news for reference. If people do not value a life worth living, and have the internal means and ability to pursue it... they will not; they will instead pursue what catches and stimulates their interests, and Individual Rights and the Rule of Law have little place in such a system - they were the product of an approach towards Education that asked Why, before How. Again, see the news for reference. With every new crop of graduates, we come that much closer to emptying America of Americans.

It reminds me of a quip by King Edward II "Longshanks" in Braveheart:

"The problem with Scotland is that there are too many Scots!... if we can't beat them, we'll breed them out!"

What such faux choice offers, is little more than a means of strengthening the goals of centralized planning and dis-empowering the individual and their hopes of affecting it. What such a program truly proposes, as I said in a previous post, as 'If you are given a choice between hot-dogs, beef franks & turkey franks - you are being given a choice between which hot dogs to eat, but you are not being given a free market in dining.

Or do you assume that something different is happening here?