poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (11/21/84)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Wed 20 Nov 84 Volume 4 Number 105
[Sorry for the delay, I've been out sick --JoSH]
Contents: Electronic Democracy
Russia etc
Rent control
Pollution
Censorship
Larouche
?
Contest
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 84 00:08:59 PST
From: David Booth <booth@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
Subject: Electronic Democracy -- misc. answers
Re: Assigning different proxies to different issues.
Even better than being able to choose a single proxy would be the
ability to assign different proxies to different issues. But how
would the issues be classified? Who would do the classification? I
propose that, like choosing proxies, we each choose our own
classifier: a designated individual who will classify issues that come
up for vote. And of course, anyone could do the classification
himself/herself, or change classifiers at any time.
Re: "How will we prevent 15 year old crackers (criminals) from
disrupting the whole system? What computer system could
possibly support such a grand national operation with
reasonable reliability, response time, and security?"
[Mike <ZALESKI@RU-BLUE.ARPA>]
The proposed proxy system, even with a hierarchical discussion system
and the ability to assign different proxies to different issues, is
probably several orders of magnitude simpler than the defense computer
systems to which we now entrust our lives each day. For a nationwide
system to be secure and reliable, it is essential that it be simple.
Re: "Many people don't bother voting now. Why should
[Electronic Democracy] inspire any more interest?"
[Mike <ZALESKI@RU-BLUE.ARPA>]
Because an electronic proxy system would make it easier to be more
continuously and accurately represented. One big reason many people
don't vote in our current system of elected representatives is that
there are only two viable candidates to choose from, and they don't
like either of them! With a proxy system, you can choose anyone to
represent you -- not just between the lesser of two evils.
Re: "Given the amount of trash that flows every day in
Washington . . ., how can people keep up with all of it?"
[Mike <ZALESKI@RU-BLUE.ARPA>]
With a tiered or hierarchical electronic discussion system the trash
would be filtered out and the relevant proposals would be quickly
propagated to everyone.
Re: Most people don't have computer terminals.
No, but it won't be long before they do. Furthermore, most people *do*
have televisions and telephones right now.
Re: "How many check to see how [their elected] officials have
voted? Would people be more likely to do this sort of checking
on their proxies?" [Mike <ZALESKI@RU-BLUE.ARPA>]
Yes. Most likely the elected official is someone we didn't want
anyway, but chose as the lesser of two evils, so we know from the start
that they won't vote the way we want. Furthermore, once elected, all
we can do is try to kick them out next time they're up for re-election
several years later.
By comparison, with a proxy system we could choose a proxy we actually
*like*, and since our choice can be revoked at any time, the proxy will
have to be more sensitive to representing us. Because we're better
represented, we will become more interested and involved.
Re: ". . . Direct democracy would make it much harder to take
actions which benefit society while appearing to harm
individuals (e.g. require pollution controls on cars)."
[Richard Treitel <TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>]
This might be true *if* elected representatives always acted in the
people's best interest. Unfortunately, elected representatives too
often take actions which benefit special interests, while *harming*
society.
Re: "I'd like to clarify my proxy tax proposal. . . . Proxies
would . . . be assigned some or all of the individual's tax
amount for voting purposes." [WYLAND@SRI-KL.ARPA]
This would give the rich more representation than the poor. Rather than
one vote per person, they would effectively have one vote per dollar.
Re: "5) 'Proxies' as discussed might not be such a good idea. . . .
If we don't study and understand an issue, we shouldn't vote."
[Bob Kubala (c/o DMM@MIT-MC)]
We shouldn't vote on that issue, but we *should* be represented on it.
And we *would* be represented if we could assign our vote to a proxy
who held our views on those *kinds* of issues.
Re: "In New York state (in the 1930's?), a system was tried in
which the number of representatives each party had in the
legislature was proportional to the number of votes each party
had received state-wide. But, the idea had to be discarded
because it caused the legislature to be so splintered that they
weren't able to form the majorities necessary to get
legislation formulated and passed." [Liz Allen <liz@tove>]
Again, a tiered or hierarchical discussion system based on coalitions
could solve this problem. At the lowest level, discussion groups
would consist of like-minded people who are thus apt to agree with
each other, work well together, and formulate coherent plans of action.
Agreeable proposals would propagate up the hierarchy until everyone,
at the national level, would view and consider them.
Re: Free electronic (or Snail) mail to your representatives.
Sounds nice. To prevent abuse, the number of free letters to your
representative would have to be limited. It's easy to generate 1,000
copies of the same physical letter, and by computer it's easy to generate
1,000 different variations on a theme. Representatives have the limelight
to prevent them from doing this; individuals don't. Another problem:
how to keep track of who has used their quota of free letters and who
hasn't.
From: David Booth <booth@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
"Proxies should be paid based on how many people they
represented, but not necessarily proportionately. There should
probably be a ceiling, or the pay should taper off at the top."
From: Robert Maas REM@SU-AI.ARPA
[Hypothetical argument] ". . . If it tapers off then somebody with
lots of proxy-constituents won't want any more because they aren't
cost-effective, so might get sloppy and not do a good job because
if a few constituents are lost it doesn't mean a big deal."
I can't believe this would be a problem, because a popular proxy who
really does get "sloppy" risks losing the bulk of his/her
proxy-constituency.
-- David Booth
{sdcrdcf,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!booth booth@ucla-locus.ARPA
[I have a different kind of question to ask: Given an electronic system
capable of implementing any kind of sophisticated decision procedure,
why must we stick to the simple majority-rules winner-takes-all setup
we have now (which is, I believe, one of historical practicality and
not passed down on graven tablets from Heaven)? Can you (I mean anybody
on the list) think of a better way of doing things? --JoSH]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 84 10:05:10 pst
From: Rick McGeer (on an sun) <mcgeer%ucbrob@Berkeley>
Subject: Re: The greatest of them all ...
Apology accepted...I, too, have given unintended offense recently,
and I know how easy it is to do over this pesky e-mail...
I see your point, but I remain unconvinced; unfortunately, I'm
pretty much reduced to making the point I made earlier: viz, that there's a
vast gulf between "Russia is evil" and "Russia delenda est", which I for one
have not crossed. I'm afraid that many of my correspondents feel that the
immediate consequence of acknowledging Russia as an evil empire is nuclear
Jihad. I view the consequences somewhat differently: we must ensure the
Russians no opportunities for expansion, for these opportunities will surely
be exploited; we must not trust the Russians on arms control, for they are
assuredly untrustworthy; and we must not withdraw our guards anywhere in the
world *unless and until* the Russians withdraw their offensive forces in the
region.
Note that this does *not* mean that we can't seek dialogue or
agreements with them. It merely means that we can't count on their goodwill
-- they haven't any -- to keep the agreements or keep peace in the world.
Rather, we have to rely on what verification agreements we can get, and only
seek those treaties that can be entirely verified. Finally, we can never
again unilaterally disarm, as we did in the 1970's.
-- Rick.
------------------------------
Date: 13 Nov 1984 11:04:03-EST
From: sde@Mitre-Bedford
Subject: Rent Control
Doesn't the Constitution say something about "taking property" w/o due process?
Rent control, by lowering the price of a property, in effect takes a piece of
that property and transfers it to someone else, like the new tenant-owner of
your comments. You may approve of that, but to so approve is to approve of
the confiscation of one person's property in order to transfer it to another.
In many people's book, and in The Book, that is a violation of both,
"Lo Tahhmod" (You shall not covet) and "Lo Tignov" (You shall not steal).
In fact, the commandment against covetousness specifically lists others'
houses.
David sde@mitre-bedford
[As written, ie as intended by the framers, the Constitution prohibits
a whole slew of things commonly accepted today as government prerogatives
--including the printing of paper money--but in practice, "it says what
the Supreme Court says it says", and that's it. --JoSH]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 84 09:29:25 pst
From: Rick McGeer (on an sun) <mcgeer%ucbrob@Berkeley>
Subject: pollution, etc.
The penalty for an organization polluting the enviroment should be
that the government will clean up the mess (and maybe make it a
little better than it was in the process), and then BILL that
organization for what it cost the feds to clean it up. This should
be more than adequate incentive for the polluters to clean up their
act themselves (we all know how, shall we say, well the government
spends its monies.
Congratulations. You've just invented Superfund.
------------------------------
Date: 13 Nov 1984 20:59-EST
Subject: Pollution
From: WDOHERTY@BBNG.ARPA
For most types of pollution, it is very difficult to assign
the blame after the fact. Unless someone monitors the polluters
as they pollute, it will be impossible to distinguish their
pollution from everyone else's.
I like Jeff's comparison of the planet with a human life.
It's reminiscent of Lewis Thomas' "Lives of a Cell" and
Lovelock's "Gaia."
Will Doherty
[The life of a cell, indeed. I presonally don't want to be a cell;
with this model of the world you have thrown out any concept of individual
rights, individual feelings, aspirations, or anything else that makes
us human. I will not be a cog in a social machine. --JoSH]
------------------------------
Date: 13 Nov 1984 11:59:45-EST
From: sde@Mitre-Bedford
Subject: U.S. gov't imposing censorship...
Surely you jest! To compare the is preposterous. Those who freely
enter gov't service freely take upon themselves the obligation to
preserve secrets. But even had they not, even you can't honestly
suggest that the U.S. gov't has banned whole classes of people from
freely leaving this country either to visit or to emigrate (with the
exception of criminals and those under active legal process (or
whatever the term is). If you've done anything of consequence in
either the commercial or DoD world, surely you must be under
obligation not to divulge certain things, but whenever you choose to
do so, you can go to the border and cross to Canada w/o even a
passport, thence to Switzerland, thence to any other country; even
though you might thereby end up doing terrible harm to the U.S. &/or
some honest commercial interest, you will not be stopped. On the other
hand, in those labor camps called communist countries, you would be
effectively held as a serf to the gov't even if you were an illiterate
peasant whose emigration meant no loss or risk at all to anybody
(except that it would show that the "people's gov't" was not favored
even by the people it purports to help).
My apologies to the net for stating the obvious, but Jim's comment
seemed too self-righteously foolish to let pass.
David sde@mitre-bedford
------------------------------
Date: Tue 13 Nov 84 22:48:17-EST
From: Larry Kolodney <UC.LKK%MIT-EECS@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: LaRouche ties to Reagan administration
This is an excerpt of an article documenting ties between Lyndon
LaRouche, the right wing conspiricy theorist and would-be
presidential candidate, and our own Ronnie.
From THE GUARDIAN November 14, p. 8:
...
In the past three presidential elections, LaRouche has
denounced Democrats as conspirators of one sort or another.
LaRouche's hostility to the Democratic Party contrasts
sharply with his attraction to the GOP and Ronald Reagan, whose
election he greeted with enthusiasm. James Watt came close to
hiring LaRouche as a consultant until wiser heads put a stop to
it, according to former members of LaRouche's organization.
Neverthe less, two senior NDPC [National Democratic Policy
Committee, LaRouche's front organization -lkk] members were breakfast
guests of Watt in July 1981.
Other Reagan administration officials have treated
LaRouche's rantings as rational. During his tenure as deputy
director of the CIA under Reagan, Bobby Inman met with LaRouche
about half a dozen times. Approximately a dozen meetings between
members of the National Security Council (NSC) and LaRouche and
his aids have taken place. Norman Baily, a former NSC member and
now a Reagan campaign adviser, admitted to "First Camera" [NBC's
60 minutes clone -lkk] that he and others had meetings with the
NDPC, and said that he felt LaRouche followers had some influence
on Reagan policymakers. After the "First Camera" expose of
LaRouche assassination plots, KKK connections and cult
fanaticism, LaRouche stated in a court deposition that he and
Bailey continue a cordial relationship.
LaRouche publications such as New Solidarity praise
cabinet secretaries Caspar Weinberger, Ray Donovan and William
Clark as well as CIA Director William Casey and other Reign
officials. When Labor Secretary Ray Donovan, now under
indictment, was being investigated for alleged links to organized
crime and other wrongdoing in New Jersey, LaRouche people
attempted to defend Donovan and discredit the investigators by
seeking damaging information on them.
An article in the current New Republic magazine by Dennis
King and Ron Radosh further documents ties between LaRouche
operatives and Reagan administration officials. Despite the NBC
and New Republic exposes, and Democratic chair Charles Manatt's
call for an investigation, the media has by and large played down
the connection between NDPC and the administration. The Chicago
Tribune is the only paper that carried more than a mention of the
charges in the original NBC report; it also confirmed the White
House links. Coverage of the testimony in the slander trial
[LaRouche sued NBC for slander, the jury awarded NBC $3 million
in punitive damages -lkk] was virtually nonexistent.
Nor does the Internal Revenue Service seem to be very
interested in the fact that LaRouche has not paid taxes in years
, has mixed non-profit and for-profit funds and has paid members
of his business fronts in cash so that many of them pay little or
no taxes either.
------------------------------
17-Nov-84 08:46:18-EST,624;000000000001
Return-Path: <@MIT-MC:ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!mmm!boone@Berkeley>
Received: from MIT-MC by RUTGERS.ARPA with TCP; 17 Nov 84 08:46:13 EST
Received: by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/4.39)
id AA19193; Sat, 17 Nov 84 05:47:25 pst
Received: by ihnp4.ATT.UUCP; id AA20951; 12 Nov 84 12:12:59 CST (Mon)
Received: by mmm.ARPA (4.12/4.7)
id AA06791; Wed, 7 Nov 84 08:10:40 cst
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 84 08:10:40 cst
From: ihnp4!stolaf!mmm!boone@Berkeley (David Boone)
Message-Id: <8411071410.AA06791@mmm.ARPA>
To: umn-cs!stolaf!ihnp4!cbosgd!ucbvax!poli-sci@Berkeley
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V4 #98
References: <3012@ucbvax.ARPA>
---
[Could you please elaborate? --JoSH]
------------------------------
Date: 20 November 1984 01:58-EST
From: Howard D. Trachtman <HDT @ MIT-MC>
Subject: contest
Can you name the month and year that this quote
first appeared in a national publication:
"..despite strong objections from MIT's Paul Samuelson, [the President]
called upon raising taxes only as a last resort".
The winner gets something good of his/her choice.
------------------------------
End of POLI-SCI Digest
- 30 -
-------