Governments have always used their power to try to further special interests. Indeed, the only reason for political parties is to have places where various special interests can line up against each other.
In the past there has always been enough time to create a narrative so that the parties can "make sense" to the voters. One party doesn't say it's supporting trial lawyers: instead it's "looking out for the little people". Another party doesn't support the military-industrial complex, instead it's providing for the defense of the nation. In other words, its possible to spin these special interests in such a fashion as to appeal to the little guy. This makes people buy into what the government is doing -- the consent of the governed.
But the wheels seem to be coming off the trolley -- it's becoming apparent that technology is changing so fast that the political parties can't catch their narratives up with reality. When you had communists threatening to conquer the world for thirty years, there was plenty of time to make a strong case for a defense industry. When you had super-huge corporations threatening the citizenry with pollution and such, it was easy to make a case for environmental laws and enormous lawsuits.
But file-sharing? Photo-realistic-capable naked body scans? Imposing total data visibility into the world's financial systems? Declaring that Americans still owe taxes even if they leave the country for tax reasons?
There may be very valid and reasonable arguments to be made for each of these things, but in my opinion nobody has made them yet. Instead, we just have a fear of one thing trotted out -- terrorism, big corporations, whatever -- and then we're told that these things we have lost were for a good reason.
Making matters worse is that some special interests, such as the movie, music, and software guys, (and the security guys) have effectively bought off both parties. So it doesn't matter who you vote for, you're stuck with doing whatever these interests want. And its becoming more and more apparent that these interests will use the full force of law to go after anybody they see as an enemy to their cause.
Even though I'm emotional about this, I see no reason to rant and rave. It's not going to change anything, and getting emotional just gives other people something to make fun of. In my opinion this current trajectory cannot continue for many decades longer. That's just the way it is, no matter what each individual's opinion on each of these issues may be.
I'm reminded of Ronald Reagan, when asked why he left the Democrat party, said, "I didn't leave the party. The party left me."
I certainly hope the same thing doesn't happen to the consent of the governed in most of the world's major democracies.
EDIT: If you'd like a startup/technology angle to this, then my advice is not to go into business in any area that one of these interests might be involved -- unless you have strong political connections (or are willing to develop them). If you're able to develop those connections, however, it should be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Governments have always used their power to try to further special interests.
The US as a constitutional republic was designed to frustrate that tendency. Recent calls for the repeal of the 17th amendment (senators used to be selected by state legislatures; that amendment made it popular vote instead) are based on that argument.
Under the original arrangement, senators had strong
incentives to protect federalism. They recognized that
their reelection depended on pleasing state legislators
who preferred that power be kept close to home. Whereas
House members were considered representatives of the
people, senators were considered ambassadors of their
state governments to the federal government and, like
national ambassadors to foreign countries, were subject
to instruction by the parties they represented (although
not to recall if they refused to follow instructions).
And they tended to act accordingly, ceding to the
national government only the power necessary to perform
its enumerated functions, such as fighting wars and
building interstate infrastructure. Moreover, when the
federal government expanded to address a crisis (such as
war), it quickly retreated to its intended modest level
after the crisis had passed. Today, as historian Robert
Higgs has observed, federal expansion creates a “ratchet
effect.”
Just as important as its role in securing federalism, the
Senate as originally conceived was essential to the
system of separation of powers. Bicameralism — the
division of the legislature into two houses elected by
different constituencies — was designed to frustrate
special-interest factions. Madison noted in Federalist 62
that basing the House and Senate on different constituent
foundations would provide an “additional impediment . . .
against improper acts of legislation” by requiring the
concurrence of a majority of the people with a majority
of the state governments before a law could enacted. By
resting both houses of Congress on the same constituency
base — the people — the Seventeenth Amendment
substantially watered down bicameralism as a check on
interest-group rent-seeking, laying the foundation for
the modern special-interest state.
While this "repeal the 17th amendment" stuff is a pet cause among some on the right, there is very little evidence that it would have the effects its proponents claim. Here is one rebuttal: http://volokh.com/2010/06/11/would-repealing-the-seventeenth...
When people argue for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, they're really arguing for doing away with the direct election of senators. The only solid arguments in that article assert that the former wouldn't lead to the latter, which is beside the point.
Also, this is more about federalism than conservatism or libertarianism. There's a strong progressive case for allowing states to be "laboratories of democracy".
There's no clear argument for why direct-election became so popular. There were mostly vague arguments given such as direct-election would somehow fight against the cozy relationships between industry and the Senate, or end bribery in Senatorial politics.[1]
It seems that what was behind the movement to the popular vote was a strong populist sentiment without clear reason; or at least without a reason that made sense.[1]
Last I checked, bribery and cozy industry relationships in the Senate were not stopped by the 17th amendment. I doubt they will ever stop. Power and money tend to mingle, and that part of human nature will probably never go away.
There are some strong arguments that a senate operating behind closed doors would be more effective at ignoring special interests and working together than otherwise. The writers of the constitution did just this (they swore secrecy of anything they talked about in the convention to avoid voter backlash) [1] This is why they initially wanted health care debates behind closed doors - the lobbyists can make much more use of transparency than the uninterested voter can. Fareed Zakaria wrote a lot about this in The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.
[A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution by Carol Berkin]
This shouldn't be downvoted just because it's disagreed with: it's a cogent and well-sourced argument, which should be met with a rebuttal rather than silent disapproval.
In Canada, our upper house (also called the Senate), is not directly elected. The members are selected by the Prime Minister (formally the Governor General, but this is done on "advice" of the PM, meaning in practice the PM makes the call). These positions are usually filled with party cronies or other such favoured individuals.
The current government, when they were the opposition, had called for Senate reforms, including direct elections. Once they got into power, they continued the status quo once they saw how beneficial it would be to them to do so. Funny how that works.
I'm no expert on the history (or the topic), though I did find the article I linked persuasive. The author did get into an argument over the history, though. You can read what he had to say about it here:
If the Congress is corrupt, than the state legislatures are a corpulent sewer of corruption and graft. Anything that takes power from them is generally a good thing.
The upside of direct election is that at least there's a chance that good Senators, not subject to the petty whims of the state houses might make better policy. State legislatures were/are generally the products of political machines and tended to appoint Senators who would advance their aims.
In the 21st century, the power of the corporations, unions and trade associations to manipulate the electorate via mass media is at least as powerful as the political machinery that the 17th amendment attempted to fight.
Even though I'm emotional about this, I see no reason to rant and rave.
There actually is some value to showing one's emotion's here. It seems clear that a lot of this does involve ICE 'testing the waters' to see much people will push back. It's good indicate an "irrational" need to fight this, it will give them pause (I'd imagine evolutionary game theory would say that this is a kind of situation where anger serves an important strategic purpose - premature commitment is an important strategy for making an opponent back down).
If you'd like a startup/technology angle to this, then my advice is not to go into business in any area that one of these interests might be involved -- unless you have strong political connections (or are willing to develop them). If you're able to develop those connections, however, it should be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Investment advice simply becomes mute, really. There is no limit to what could conceivably fall under the rubric "intellectual property".
Totally agreed. A couple more things that complicate it are that most of the people in power don't have a good understanding of the technology and its implications -- and that the media is one of the special interests here, and so is very selective in its coverage.
And as somebody who's thinking of doing social network startup, this kind of discussion is very very relevant to my technology and entrepreneurial worlds. Do I need to plan from the beginning to host outside the US -- and if so what countries make sense? what level of business risk are investors willing to tolerate, and is that changing? and so on.
That's true for the short tail of big issues, but for the vast majority of smaller issues it's completely false. There are many issues where the government is willing to listen to grassroots activists, but there just aren't enough of them. A good example of this is drug law reform. State politicians have been generally willing to implement well written medical marijuana laws from grass roots organizations, but the problem is that there are probably less than 100 competent people working on this full time. Over 60% of Americans support legalizing medical marijuana, but all of the drug law reform organizations combined get only 10k or so donations per year, and the vast majority of these donations are for only five dollars. (Despite the fact that roughly 85% of Americans under age 55 have smoked weed.) And this is an issue that's harder than most because of all the interference from the federal government. Anyway my point is that for most issues you actually can get the law rewritten in your state if you're actually willing to go out and put in the effort.
Governments have always used their power to try to further special interests.
One might as easily argue special interests have always used their power to try to corrupt governments. After all, government is not in the content-production-for-profit business, and legislation like the DMCA is designed to benefit established publishers and manufacturers whose business model is threatened by unlicensed distribution.
So we might as well ask what is the fundamental problem with business, that makes it preferable to enlist law enforcement in defense of its interests than to do well by offering consumers a value they can't get from content piracy? I think there is some merit to the argument that leaders in the content industry have bought off political interests, but if they were somehow restricted from doing so, wouldn't that be a violation of free speech too? That whole Citizens United case in front of the Supreme Court last year was based on the idea that spending $$$ to influence an election is just as much free speech as any other kind of political activity.
Even though I'm emotional about this, I see no reason to rant and rave.
No offense meant here Daniel, but that's exactly what you do. On almost any thread involving regulation or government intervention, it's become very predictable to see a mini-essay from you at the top of the thread, and it's almost always general in nature rather than addressing any specific of the story itself. You always aim to be non-partisan by mentioning both aprties, but in practice it's very obvious you're conservative: in the blog post you mentioned elsewhere (http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2010/11/im-done-here....) you spent 5 paragraphs castigating the left for their dislike of big corporations, before going on to say: 'Of course, the same can be said of the right and the "long war". Both sides -- in fact all sides -- have plans that are not working.[...]'
Now, I have no problem with your holding and expressing conservative views - indeed, I quite enjoy reading your posts. But this pretense of being above the fray and speaking from a position of neutrality just insults my intelligence.
In the past there has always been enough time to create a narrative so that the parties can "make sense" to the voters. One party doesn't say it's supporting trial lawyers: instead it's "looking out for the little people". Another party doesn't support the military-industrial complex, instead it's providing for the defense of the nation. In other words, its possible to spin these special interests in such a fashion as to appeal to the little guy. This makes people buy into what the government is doing -- the consent of the governed.
But the wheels seem to be coming off the trolley -- it's becoming apparent that technology is changing so fast that the political parties can't catch their narratives up with reality. When you had communists threatening to conquer the world for thirty years, there was plenty of time to make a strong case for a defense industry. When you had super-huge corporations threatening the citizenry with pollution and such, it was easy to make a case for environmental laws and enormous lawsuits.
But file-sharing? Photo-realistic-capable naked body scans? Imposing total data visibility into the world's financial systems? Declaring that Americans still owe taxes even if they leave the country for tax reasons?
There may be very valid and reasonable arguments to be made for each of these things, but in my opinion nobody has made them yet. Instead, we just have a fear of one thing trotted out -- terrorism, big corporations, whatever -- and then we're told that these things we have lost were for a good reason.
Making matters worse is that some special interests, such as the movie, music, and software guys, (and the security guys) have effectively bought off both parties. So it doesn't matter who you vote for, you're stuck with doing whatever these interests want. And its becoming more and more apparent that these interests will use the full force of law to go after anybody they see as an enemy to their cause.
Even though I'm emotional about this, I see no reason to rant and rave. It's not going to change anything, and getting emotional just gives other people something to make fun of. In my opinion this current trajectory cannot continue for many decades longer. That's just the way it is, no matter what each individual's opinion on each of these issues may be.
I'm reminded of Ronald Reagan, when asked why he left the Democrat party, said, "I didn't leave the party. The party left me."
I certainly hope the same thing doesn't happen to the consent of the governed in most of the world's major democracies.
EDIT: If you'd like a startup/technology angle to this, then my advice is not to go into business in any area that one of these interests might be involved -- unless you have strong political connections (or are willing to develop them). If you're able to develop those connections, however, it should be like shooting fish in a barrel.