Both Left AND Right must stop clobbering constitutional rights
Intresting note about how it is BOTH sides of issues that keep crushing the constitutional and just expected rights of all of us. It cannot be either side wins, because no side will ever be the winner in the silliness today. The system was aways set up to be 2 pasrties in balance, and a government balanced three ways just to make sure no one party could hijack the lot.
We now also have been made aware of the 3rd iteration of a "3rd party" candidacy in the making with Ohio Republican Governor - John Kasich and his proposed running mate, the Democrat Governor from the state of Colorado. None of the three candidacies were ever really supposed to win, just drain off enough votes so that the oligarch's candidate would (I.e., Wilson, Clinton and now to get rid of Trump). CFR anyone?
DeVros is right, and Sessions is wrong on these two issues. Big time.
The problem is the prize for winning is control over a huge chunk of the economy and power reward some groups and make life hard for others.
I actually think they do, but it's not a good thing when serving their constituents means getting them a little more of a big gov't pie.
The people reasonably think if they're going to send all this money to DC, they want to keep getting as much back as possible. If they have a Congressman who's been in office long enough to get on important committees, they know he'll be able to keep the federal projects flowing. The congressman cares about his constituents and does his utmost to keep the money flowing. Nowhere in this process is there an option to turn off this whole system. It doesn't seem rational to vote for the candidate who says he'll reject spending projects in his district and if the other 434 Representatives do the same there could be a large tax cut. It's much more efficient to try to get a large piece of the pie.
I don't have the solution. My thought has always been the Constitution needs "teeth" to stop the spending, just as it is supposed to stop people for voting for law to limit unpopular speech, ban guns, etc. ewv says no gov't structure put into place by a Constitution can make people follow it if they don't agree with its philosophy. That makes sense, but it also makes it sounds like the Constitution is just a fig leaf over the mob: we're still dependent on the mob not acting like a mob. I don't know. My point is I do not believe politicians have the power to limit gov't beyond little symbolic things. Gov't is spending trillions a year, and I see no way to make it stop.
A few Congressmen may be primarily mafia types motivated by the power and money; most are there for some ideology at least to some degree -- and it often includes a sense of self importance for supporting altruism and collectivism (or religion). But all have to pay attention to the lobbyists and pressure groups to stay in office because of the insider manipulations and the costly election campaigns. They are influenced by the lobbyists, who are the sources of campaign funding, and by the political special interest pressure groups (including the slanted media) insistently telling them what is acceptable to ideological activists who dominate election campaign politics.
Most voters don't calculate or know how much money their representatives brings back to their district or to their state in comparison with total Federal taxes paid; they have no idea. They don't pay attention to or know what their representatives are doing at all -- if they even know their names -- unless something blows up in the media. They are concentrating on their own lives and personal problems. They vote every few years, if they vote at all, in accordance with campaign slogans and based on their philosophical outlook.
Most are motivated primarily by a vague impression of social policy, which in turn drives most of the government spending and mostly involving more restrictions, individual and government mandates, controls, government takeovers, and redistribution. Few vote out of principle for explicitly more freedom. The "necessity" of entrenched collectivist programs is increasingly taken for granted as "pragmatic", with increased openness to more, and any challenge to it is met with fear as the American individualist sense of life dissipates. Their assessment of social policy may or may not include the significance of the taxes they are paying or some particular kind of government restrictions as part of their own personal problems, or on the other side how much welfare they get and entitlements they want for themselves, but whatever the personal impact it is justified or rationalized in their own minds from their philosophical outlook, with diminishing individualist sense of life to counter the altruism and collectivism.
The essence isn't that the Constitution isn't self enforcing, but that the kind of government we get, including the nature of a constitution and how it is interpreted or taken seriously to some degree, depends on the dominant philosophy of the country. In the late 18th and early 19th century the Constitution was generally adhered to because Enlightenment values of individualism and freedom still dominated. Corruption by dishonest financial maneuvers influencing government policy and spending was only a small part of the nation's problems. The switch came with the influence from the importation of European counter Enlightenment ideas of statism and collectivism, which were fully embraced by the 20th century with the entrenchment of Pragmatism and Progressivism, and which continued to worsen with more explicit collectivism like communism regarded as a moral ideal. It included explicit rejection of constitutional limitations in principle.
Today, what is left of adherence to the Constitution is a fig leaf over a mob, not because constitutions are inherently worthless, but because the mob is, anf as it becomes more powerful with the spread and acceptance of collectivist ideology. That is why even a politician who wants to limit government power cannot do it beyond "little symbolic things". The spread of the philosophy of reason, individualism and freedom is critical. There is no other way and there are no shortcuts.
But regarding the government spending trillions a year, we do know what will stop that. Reality will take care of it, but not in the form of a solution.
Money is a medium of exchange. If I make a circuit board and want to trade it for something completely unrelated, like a flight to France, I will not have a problem finding a medium of exchange. If there were no money, I'd have to accept something that most people like, like coffee. Then I'd take the coffee to the airline. That's not the case. There's no problem finding media of exchange in the modern world.
It seems this way to me, but it also seems like political groups tell the candidates which vague social issues to get people fired up about. The candidates don't take marching orders from them, but they need to sell whatever's getting people fired up about in order to win. So to me all this "retail" politics (not sure if that's the right word) is tangential to people seeking gov't monies.
"justified or rationalized in their own minds from their philosophical outlook,"
I think you're smart about philosophy and interested in it. Most participants (donors, candidates, political orgs, voters) are not. When they are, it is often secondary to their little portion of the world. For example, they may think it's wrong for gov't to fund business, BUT in the world today getting an SBIR or STTR grant is a great way to get the attention of investors, so they'd like to win a grant or have more grants awarded in their area.
"depends on the dominant philosophy of the country."
This is unfortunate. I learned a fairy tale in grade school where the Constitution would stop people from acting as a mob, stop people from voting on whether a minority should have basic rights, stop people from over-reacting to some crime with laws that limit speech, gun ownership, rights to privacy, and so on.
"Reality will take care of it, but not in the form of a solution."
Right. We'll get histrionics, increased taxes, hopefully reduced spending. But the problem really won't be solved. I think you agree that just because current levels of borrowing are unsustainable it does not mean the spending will be taken care of.
Thanks again for the detailed reply.
Most people are not interested in or knowledgeable about explicit philosophical principles or their roots. But they have accepted philosophical premises nevertheless, if only by uncritically absorbing what is around them on all sides and accepting it in vague, emotional form. Reality does not spare them for it.
I remember when I lived in FL the St. Pete Times endorsed Bill Young partly because he was able to bring projects to the district.
Maybe it makes sense to divide people into three groups.
1. Lobbyists and people who work with them directly to get funding for projects they're involved with
2. People who go to fundraisers to make connections with other business people.
3. People responding to political ads and rhetoric.
In this case people in groups and 1 and 2 at least have some awareness of federal monies coming into the district.
How do you think they do it? Do you think they evaluate the ideology? I think you're saying they evaluate the ideology, but unfortunately they accept ideologies of big gov't.
I think the opposite: they're against "big gov't" if you ask, but they usually don't have a vehicle to vote for whether they want more or less gov't. All they can do is make sure the representatives know various programs that are important to them: cancer research, military, research grants, long prison sentences, Medicaid funding for nursing home care, anti-terrorism, education. You can make sure your favorite program gets funded. It's harder to promote across-the-board cuts.
In my theory, if you asked them how they'd like paying 50% less taxes, and it would cut all kinds of programs they don't care about, but unfortunately something they do care about and benefit from, people would say YES. We don't have a vehicle to ask the question though.
Thanks for the interesting comment BTW. I wonder if there's any surveys or something to find out which one of us (if either) is right.
They rarely think of explicit philosophical principles and don't evaluate them. They simply accept the slogans uncritically as part of their world-view. Much of it is implicit and not even consistent, especially to the extent that they still have some remnants of the American sense of life and want to pursue their own happiness and goals and are willing to work for them.
It's not just "big government". That is too vague, and an anti-conceptual conservative approach. We need a government big enough to do what it is supposed to do protecting a multi-trillion dollar advance economy and the rights of hundreds of millions of citizens. They don't consider what a proper government is supposed to do.
They have no philosophical basis from which to understand and answer that. By accepting what they have been taught and heard around them since early childhood they vaguely hold that sacrifice to others is the standard of morality itself, it is good to 'help people' (with no qualifications), we have to 'live for country' as a collective, reason can't answer important questions of human value, people would be 'dying in the streets' without the welfare state, we 'have to be practical' without regard to principles, etc. etc. They have no conception of 'favorite programs' not being funded and provided by government.
I don't think that today they would vote for a 50% cut in taxes that would cut their emotionally accepted notion of government. They think there is only inefficient "waste" and "corruption" that would take care of it if weeded out. They don't even realize that most of the budget is entitlement programs like Social Security.
You don't need a survey. Just talk to people about how they 'feel' about these things, and don't expect a philosophical discussion.
The "bridge to nowhere" was intended to benefit some isolate people; it wasn't literally to "nowhere". What they don't question is that most of the budget is based on the same redistributionist premise.
Thanks for the detailed response.
I do not think they are normally motivated by anything mafia-like or by ideology. I think they're people whose strength is being likable, making friends, and remembering names, faces, and details about people. They're people with the natural skills to win elections. They're surprisingly un-knowledgeable about nuts and bolts of gov't, history, philosophy. Their strength is charisma.
I do not know how to look up studies of what motivates politicians. My guess is you're wrong, but I have no real evidence. I'm just going on my impression of politicians I've met.
Most of them are the 'popularity' types, with shallow understanding; and despite 'charisma' for the gullible, they can be quite nasty personally while knowing how to fake being 'nice'. But they know what platitudes are generally accepted and take them for granted themselves as justification. Particularly on the left, especially the viro left, there are a lot of hard core ideologues, which is not to say that they have any serious intellectual understanding of history, let alone philosophy, either. They have latched onto an ideology in terms of slogans and feelings and push it without compromise, but that doesn't mean they are original thinkers or write treatises like a Lenin. They concentrate on being experts in the contemporary political realms they operate in.
Somewhat more intellectual have been their counterparts in Britain following the Fabians, which was an intellectual socialist movement (started in the late 19th century) specifically out to spread the ideas throughout the professions and society and impose them by force of government. The Fabians also had a big influence in America especially in the 1920s-40s (including through Keynes), and built the Labour Party in Britain. An earlier intellectual example from the US is the progressive statist Wilson, from Princeton.
Some politicians today are dummkopfs about even the nuts and bolts of government. But they have a 'sense of smell' of how to operate in Washington political wheeling and dealing. Others are very much experts at it, which is how they slither into leadership positions and otherwise become very powerful. Both types at least vaguely support the ideology of collectivism and pragmatist statism as their motive and justification. I don't accuse them of being the intellectuals. Those operate in the universities, training the next wave of both politicians and voters.
If there are few who are personally motivated by a mafia-like desire for personal power alone, there are plenty of Machiavellian power seekers steeped in ideology. They go together.
You find this repeated in political biographies and can see it yourself if you are unfortunate enough to wind up battling over something in Washington politics. It's a big mistake to think that the problem is just weak or evil personalities who happen to get power through their personalities like the high school class president and who operate just for pork.
A good case history is John Jacob's (sympathetic) biography of Rep Phil Burton (D-San Francisco): A Rage for Justice: The Passion and Politics of Philip Burton. Burton ruthlessly clawed his way up through California politics and was an infamous ideological power broker as a Congressman in Washington from 1964-83. Throughout his 'career' he did enormous damage both as an astute, cunning, knowledgeable Machiavellian and a dedicated leftist ideologue.
In 1959 he told an editor that in the CA legislature -- at a time when welfare was not popular there -- that he supported any bill that "gives something to someone who hasn't got it". He told another reporter in 1963, "I already bankrupted one budget, I need a bigger one to play with." And he was off to Washington.
Jacobs wrote that
"Burton was considered the most knowledgeable liberal in the House on social insurance programs" and was asked "to help draft welfare legislation... By mastering arcane subject matter, Burton converted his superior knowledge into power, ran over opponents, and served poor people all at the same time."
And (about Nixon's welfare bills):
"'I don't care if it's a dime' In establishing the principle of a federal entitlement, he knew he could always manipulate the figures upward as he had with so many other programs. "If we enact FAP [Family Assistance Plan], I'll bust the federal government within two years."
In another quote I can't find right now he said that it was his job to get spending approved and it was up to someone else to find a way to pay for it.
Nancy Pelosi was Burton's hand-picked successor.
It wasn't just welfare statism. The reason I looked him up is his history with Federal land acquisition. He was known for "Park Barrel Politics" in which he paid off lobbyists like the Sierra Club and appealed to emotional imagery of scenery while, mostly in the 1970s, ramming through some of the nastiest Wilderness and National Park Service forced acquisition legislation, employing mass condemnations, that the country had seen. His statism had no regard whatsoever for the rights of the individual. It was all collectivist entitlements. You should read the book to see how he understood and ruthlessly maneuvered the "nuts and bolts" for his ideology.
The professional lobbyists do expect 'something back' -- policies that will either impose and further their ideology (like the Sorros types) or financial policies they benefit from, either by being in on the racket or policies to leave them alone. Of course the system is corrupt, which is why some people have to pay them to be left alone. The statist ideology embedded in a fascistic government makes it corrupt.
I meant this to be an answer to ewv's comment, but sometimes the machines seem to go wrong.