Diegetics

http://www.politicususa.com/en/american-socialists

So I figured I'd post random statistics and find meaning in them like Mr. Perfect does! So here's a study saying that most Americans prefer the wealth distribution of Sweden to the wealth distribution of America.

One half of Americans are above average.

I know ST, I was making a joke related to Mr. Perfect's oft-quoted 'people are trending more Conservative' poll.

It's because of lying scum like these authors that Harvard and the other Ivy schools acquired their "left-leaning" and "not entirely unbiased academics" reputation. It's funny, because most of Harvard's econ faculty are actually conservatives.

my choice for next potus says:


The structure of representative government maintains citizens in civic adolescence by denying them the opportunity to take responsibility for their actions. Citizens are unable to take responsibility for the results of their actions by being denied the right to vote directly on public policy issues.

Civic adolescence can be overcome the same way we overcome adolescence in our children by carefully giving them more and more responsibility as they grow and gain experience thereby preparing them to become mature adults. Because policy decisions in government are only made by our representatives, the present structure of representative government denies citizens the opportunity to take responsibility for public policies that affect their lives, gain experience and mature to civic adulthood. Over time civic adolescence erodes the faith people must have in their own sovereignty if democracy is to remain vibrant and strong.

The greatest damage to the polity by representative government is the civic adolescence it engenders in its constituents. The greatest good that can come from direct democracy is the civic maturity it will engender in people. The civic maturity citizens acquire in taking responsibility for their own self-governance, not only inures to the benefit of the polity, it also adds maturity to individual citizens in their personal, family, institutional and spiritual lives.

The Phenomena of Continuous Failure

Look around the world! No objective observer can judge that our system of representative government, designed two hundred fifty years ago and essentially unaltered since, is a match for our 21st Century scientific and technological demands. Representative government, even where it is fairly implemented, is an archaic system of an era long gone. Nevertheless, it continues to benefit the existing elites and in their myopic greed, they use their power to maintain it, even though ultimately it is not in their best long-term interests, being significant members of society.

The obvious failure of representative government is all around us. The real phenomena is that people fail to do anything about it.


remember US senator Mike Gravel?

http://www.mikegravel.us/

Excellent post Skyhook....

What to do about adults that never got past childhood, continue to believe in free lunches and square circles, and that have merely substituted Uncle Sugar for Mommy & Daddy as perrenial benefactors?

The Death of the Adult - Diana West

Then how to lessen the disportional influence of those with money & power, whether in the coporate, political, and media sphere of influence? As we have seen in years past, what good are regulators that have been purchased by the regulatees?

Not too sure I buy into the part about 21st century technology making representative government obsolete. Human nature remains the same. Only individuals can think. Groups often beome herds of lemmings, stampeding cattle, or sheep.

Perhaps the point is that Information Age technology, Twitter, Facebook, Utube, etc. promotes herding by increasing the psychological influence of the other herd members? Don't have to think, just run with the group?

Or that those who can control/influence the communications technology become more powerful as the technology becomes more powerful?

Seems contrary to the influence of Inforamtion Age technology in industry.....

Skyhook,

Your post reminds me somewhat of The Sovereign Individual by Davidson & Rees-Mogg.

They discussed the idea of the nation-state as anachronisms, to be replaced by "corporate zones."

I believe it was published around 1992-1994.

all the folks working for corporates or government dont want anything to change, except for "more so" and those of us who prefer startups and small business free market are all just dodgy tax dodgers and unqualified cowboys who dont count - not supported by the big business right or the union and government left.

the counter culture types are the ones connecting hard on the internet and forming the anonymous groups but i suspect they are just a backburn of anti socialness that does little more than justify a more controlled, more authoritarian world, with the support of the coporate and government types.

yeh, we will see if my cynical viewpoint rings true for the next decade or not - as mentioned previously i believe it will depend on how many jobs their are.

I do like "recreational outrage idealists", might steal that .. this is exactly who i was thinking of...

Sometimes I wonder if the nations with the most accurate representation of America's near future is neither Late Republican/Late Imperial Rome, nor Venezuela/Colombia or Zimbabwe/South Africa, but China and India.