Here in the United States we have citizen government. As much as it has become a tool of the wealthy to impose their priorities on the rest of us, it does reflect the values of Americans. United we stand, in squabbling disunity.
Ordinary citizens could take control if we could agree on common values and insist that they be promoted. Unfortunately, the majority values its freedom not to pay attention, and to dislike each other factionally more than it wants to overthrow the influence of concentrated wealth. The problem is not the government. It is us.
I hate the government. I hate how the need to keep an eye on it intrudes on my pleasures. I hate how it has evolved to be hostile to oversight as much as I hate having to be that oversight. I'm terrible at paying attention to what elected representatives and government agencies are doing. But we do have access -- for now -- to those who govern.
The yellow vest protests in France are presented as an example of what committed, bold citizen action can accomplish. True, they pressed the Macron government for concessions, but two questions arise. How did it get that bad in the first place? And will there be meaningful change after the two sides stand down and the news cycle needs to move on to other things?
We have representative government to free up the majority of citizens to do other necessary work. It also provides a filter between the whims of a sometimes volatile majority and the actual implementation of long-term policy. But representatives have power as well as responsibility, which makes them susceptible to corruption. Some are truly incorruptible. Others arrive pre-corrupted. Voters have to decide who is worth keeping. Detailed information can be hard to get. The information itself can be tainted by an underlying agenda.
I hate it. But it's human nature. Even government by a computer system would only be as good as its programmed parameters. And it might be very hard to overthrow. You can pull the plug, but only if you can get to the plug.
The show ponies who run for office are well suited to their roles in show biz. Some of them are as stupid as a box of rocks, but they've all managed to win the reality show contests we call elections. The best ideas in the world do no good if they can't find a champion who can actually get elected. The process is most visible at levels high enough to attract mass media coverage. But it's happening all the way down to little dinky towns scraping together a budget to keep a handful of roads paved, and send their kids to school. Down where most of us actually live, decisions are made at public meetings by people we know, if we happen to be able to take the time to attend.
Time. Citizen government demands your time. As an ordinary voter, you have to dig out the information you need to make what seems like a good choice. As an actual official, you have to perform the duties of your office. In some places, you're expected to do it for free, so you still have to grub for money in the outside world while paying proper attention to the people's business in your governmental capacity. In a country that glorifies wealth for its own sake, that means a constant battle against inflation, and against competitors who would be all too happy to sink you.
Many hands make light work. If a really solid majority of citizens wanted to get involved and take turns doing the mundane, tedious bullshit of governing, it would become a communal activity instead of turning "the government" into this alien overlord run by idiots and scoundrels. How likely is that? No one wants to be in the handful of suckers who get stuck having to sacrifice their time for an ungrateful populace that automatically assumes they're up to no good. And we're all either too busy working or too busy looking for work to devote our best attention to the needs of government. That's how you end up with independently wealthy people and energetic profiteers holding office. No one else can afford to. So back we come to oversight.
Take a short time as soon as possible to jot down a list of what you would like from your government. Brainstorm it. Write down everything that your ideal society would have. If the list is "no government," write down what you're going to have to get from other sources: roads, energy, health care, defense... Then figure out who is going to provide it and how you all are going to pay for it.
Deep inside all of us in the modern world lives a hunter gatherer wondering what the hell happened. What happened was evolution. As much as we still get the desire to roam as happy nomads across a relatively pristine environment, the only way to get back to that is to destroy all that came after it. And it was other parts of our own nature that made us evolve into our current condition, simultaneously pampered and stressed out. We can't go back. We can only go forward, trying to improve.
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Sunday, December 02, 2018
In appreciation of those who govern
Everyone complains about the government, but how many of you really want to do that job?
Especially at the local level, willing talent can be hard to find. While the corrupt local boss is a stock character, the benevolent wise village elder is as much so. Both of them provide security by perennial consistency. They free up the other citizens to do other work.
In more than one social media comment thread, contributors have said that they believe elected officials should receive little or no compensation, "to keep them from becoming professional politicians." Who among you is willing to run for office and take that deal? How good a job would you do when you have to spend most of your time earning your actual living at something else?
If your actual living is related to the needs of government, you can blend your efforts, but you will frequently cross the line into conflicts of interest. This is true of developers on zoning and planning boards, lawyers in legislatures, and business people in any elected position. You may think that you are bringing your informed perspective to the discussion, but how often does that informed perspective willingly accept a disadvantage in a proposed policy?
There's no way to sift out all of the personal interests from everyone -- or anyone -- who stands for public office. The synergy of those personal interests is supposed to yield the best result. It fails when the personal interests do not include things we call intangible because they can't be valued monetarily, but the fault lies with the participants, not the process.
A guy showed up on our zoning board several years ago and immediately irritated one of our longest-serving members. The new guy was outgoing and inquisitive. He went to training sessions offered at the state level, and researched town matters. The older board member had also taken training courses, and was familiar with town issues from long residence here. The enmity got pretty thick for a while, but both of them are still involved in town government. The new guy has gone on to the board of selectmen. That's a tippy throne in this town. For a small place, we have some strong political divides. Elections really do come down to one or two votes. For now, he seems to be trying to modernize our standards for maintaining infrastructure, which is the town's biggest expense. The other guy has returned to the zoning board after recovering from a stroke. He continues to provide a reliable conservative pillar around which to build our decisions, whether we agree with him or not.
I have never wanted to be in charge of anything. I don't even want the positions I hold in town government. But I have never been opposed in an election for the zoning board, and the conservation commission is appointed gratefully from among whoever shows up to volunteer. I do not have the broad vision and deep curiosity that makes a good leader. I have no urge to schmooze. I do not socialize. So I am really grateful for the people who do. I recognize their value in keeping us connected.
If everyone was an introvert, we would never have had a war, because no one would want to get together to form an army. But we would never have gotten together to form anything else, either. While that might be better for the environment, we passed that exit a long time ago. Our species has these divergent personality traits, for better or for worse. Our challenge is to try to maximize the better and eliminate the worse. "Accentuate the positive..."
When I see the eager beavers of government, I wonder if they were like that in school. Are these the kids who were on the student council? Class president? The new selectman admitted that he was. But his working career was not in law or government. He was middle management in a manufacturing corporation. He's more of a working guy than a boardroom guy. But he did have that interest in how things work. Me, I never did. I'm much more likely to bushwhack up a stream to find out where it came from than to dig into rules and regulations and shake a lot of hands and talk to a lot of people to find out how all that works. So I really appreciate the people who like that stuff and do it well. Do their decisions always please me? Hardly. But I'm glad that they're willing and able to engage in the personal and public interaction necessary to govern at all.
Positions of responsibility are also positions of power, so they attract applicants whose motives are not helpful. Money and power are usually conjoined. Because it's always more comfortable to be rich than poor, especially in a failing society, corrupt leaders whose focus is money will do little to keep a government from degenerating, as long as their own wealth, and that of their benefactors, remains secure. We're in the advanced stages of this at the national level. Because any set of characteristics can be used for good or ill, the same energy and social ability that makes a good government entity works just as well to facilitate the connections and operations of a bad one. The major difference would probably be the dark side's willingness to double cross anyone they have to, if it brings them more money or power.
Treachery is the dark side's strength and weakness. The ruthless ability to destroy things without remorse gives evil a short term edge that can last a long time. Evil forces good to play the game on evil's terms when the violence and destruction get so far advanced that they can only be met with countervailing destructive force. But you don't want to stop a strip mine by dropping bombs on it. You can't protect the environment while you are blowing it up. A minefield and razor wire would protect a wetland, but they're hardly the best methods for it. A lot of things can't be settled by a contest of force.
At the local level, in tiny rural towns like the one I live in, things are seldom that dramatic. But because we are working from a smaller bag of money, issues like a six-figure bridge and road contract, or standards for environmental protection have much more visible personal consequences. If anyone ever figures out how to get outright rich off of government corruption in this town, we will all be simultaneously outraged and impressed. But we're not immune to cronyism. Human nature resides in the individual human. People play favorites. It may not be right, but it's common. That's why we have to make a point to critique -- not just bash and disparage -- decisions our representatives claim to be making on our behalf. It can be hard, especially when some blockhead proposes -- or the elected body of blockheads enacts -- what we see as a stupid decision.
It's enough to make you give up on government entirely. But some form of government would reassert itself because the personalities that created it in the first place would still exist. The only way to get rid of government would be for a relentless corps of introverted assassins to hunt down those chirpy extroverts and kill them off until the genes were eliminated forever. First of all, that's impossible. Secondly, we would no doubt discover what we missed about them. Third, would a species entirely of introverts even be able to sustain itself? No one would ever ask for a date, let alone take it any further.
We're stuck with government until artificial intelligence takes over and turns us into a herd of domesticated animals kept in line by robot guards. So we have that to look forward to as we muddle along, trying to find good people to run things while most of us do our best to avoid being one of them.
Especially at the local level, willing talent can be hard to find. While the corrupt local boss is a stock character, the benevolent wise village elder is as much so. Both of them provide security by perennial consistency. They free up the other citizens to do other work.
In more than one social media comment thread, contributors have said that they believe elected officials should receive little or no compensation, "to keep them from becoming professional politicians." Who among you is willing to run for office and take that deal? How good a job would you do when you have to spend most of your time earning your actual living at something else?
If your actual living is related to the needs of government, you can blend your efforts, but you will frequently cross the line into conflicts of interest. This is true of developers on zoning and planning boards, lawyers in legislatures, and business people in any elected position. You may think that you are bringing your informed perspective to the discussion, but how often does that informed perspective willingly accept a disadvantage in a proposed policy?
There's no way to sift out all of the personal interests from everyone -- or anyone -- who stands for public office. The synergy of those personal interests is supposed to yield the best result. It fails when the personal interests do not include things we call intangible because they can't be valued monetarily, but the fault lies with the participants, not the process.
A guy showed up on our zoning board several years ago and immediately irritated one of our longest-serving members. The new guy was outgoing and inquisitive. He went to training sessions offered at the state level, and researched town matters. The older board member had also taken training courses, and was familiar with town issues from long residence here. The enmity got pretty thick for a while, but both of them are still involved in town government. The new guy has gone on to the board of selectmen. That's a tippy throne in this town. For a small place, we have some strong political divides. Elections really do come down to one or two votes. For now, he seems to be trying to modernize our standards for maintaining infrastructure, which is the town's biggest expense. The other guy has returned to the zoning board after recovering from a stroke. He continues to provide a reliable conservative pillar around which to build our decisions, whether we agree with him or not.
I have never wanted to be in charge of anything. I don't even want the positions I hold in town government. But I have never been opposed in an election for the zoning board, and the conservation commission is appointed gratefully from among whoever shows up to volunteer. I do not have the broad vision and deep curiosity that makes a good leader. I have no urge to schmooze. I do not socialize. So I am really grateful for the people who do. I recognize their value in keeping us connected.
If everyone was an introvert, we would never have had a war, because no one would want to get together to form an army. But we would never have gotten together to form anything else, either. While that might be better for the environment, we passed that exit a long time ago. Our species has these divergent personality traits, for better or for worse. Our challenge is to try to maximize the better and eliminate the worse. "Accentuate the positive..."
When I see the eager beavers of government, I wonder if they were like that in school. Are these the kids who were on the student council? Class president? The new selectman admitted that he was. But his working career was not in law or government. He was middle management in a manufacturing corporation. He's more of a working guy than a boardroom guy. But he did have that interest in how things work. Me, I never did. I'm much more likely to bushwhack up a stream to find out where it came from than to dig into rules and regulations and shake a lot of hands and talk to a lot of people to find out how all that works. So I really appreciate the people who like that stuff and do it well. Do their decisions always please me? Hardly. But I'm glad that they're willing and able to engage in the personal and public interaction necessary to govern at all.
Positions of responsibility are also positions of power, so they attract applicants whose motives are not helpful. Money and power are usually conjoined. Because it's always more comfortable to be rich than poor, especially in a failing society, corrupt leaders whose focus is money will do little to keep a government from degenerating, as long as their own wealth, and that of their benefactors, remains secure. We're in the advanced stages of this at the national level. Because any set of characteristics can be used for good or ill, the same energy and social ability that makes a good government entity works just as well to facilitate the connections and operations of a bad one. The major difference would probably be the dark side's willingness to double cross anyone they have to, if it brings them more money or power.
Treachery is the dark side's strength and weakness. The ruthless ability to destroy things without remorse gives evil a short term edge that can last a long time. Evil forces good to play the game on evil's terms when the violence and destruction get so far advanced that they can only be met with countervailing destructive force. But you don't want to stop a strip mine by dropping bombs on it. You can't protect the environment while you are blowing it up. A minefield and razor wire would protect a wetland, but they're hardly the best methods for it. A lot of things can't be settled by a contest of force.
At the local level, in tiny rural towns like the one I live in, things are seldom that dramatic. But because we are working from a smaller bag of money, issues like a six-figure bridge and road contract, or standards for environmental protection have much more visible personal consequences. If anyone ever figures out how to get outright rich off of government corruption in this town, we will all be simultaneously outraged and impressed. But we're not immune to cronyism. Human nature resides in the individual human. People play favorites. It may not be right, but it's common. That's why we have to make a point to critique -- not just bash and disparage -- decisions our representatives claim to be making on our behalf. It can be hard, especially when some blockhead proposes -- or the elected body of blockheads enacts -- what we see as a stupid decision.
It's enough to make you give up on government entirely. But some form of government would reassert itself because the personalities that created it in the first place would still exist. The only way to get rid of government would be for a relentless corps of introverted assassins to hunt down those chirpy extroverts and kill them off until the genes were eliminated forever. First of all, that's impossible. Secondly, we would no doubt discover what we missed about them. Third, would a species entirely of introverts even be able to sustain itself? No one would ever ask for a date, let alone take it any further.
We're stuck with government until artificial intelligence takes over and turns us into a herd of domesticated animals kept in line by robot guards. So we have that to look forward to as we muddle along, trying to find good people to run things while most of us do our best to avoid being one of them.
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