Government is not a Business

Be wary of the statement “Government needs to be run like a business.” It should not. It's meant to sound unobjectionable, but is a radical shift away from anything familiar.

Centralized Control

The Constitution is designed around the notion of decentralizing control. It's inefficient, as people often notice, but that's by design. Inefficiency is protection from tyrants. It makes things happen slowly, allowing time for deliberation. Every time you make something efficient, you enable change to happen faster than government can respond, as is happening now with DOGE.

Tyrants want central control. Be wary of the statement “The President is the CEO of the US.” They want you to think a President is a King, a central voice to tell us everything. That neglects the checks & balances of three co-equal branches of government, intended to distribute control, to have the various branches fighting with one another, to make sure there's lots of consensus before anything happens.

Checks on Power

When a Congressperson salutes POTUS and says “yes, sir, you're in charge,” they breach their oath of office. The whole point of distributed power is distributed thought, which isn't happening.

It's pointless and dangerous, to have all the thought be centralized in one person and then to have everyone just say “yes” because then you just have a zillion photocopies of one person's thought. If that person is even thinking. Democracy at all levels intends many people thinking in different ways and making sure many paths of thought lead to convergent policy. That's how consensus is built.

In Service of All

But even beyond that, government differs from business in another very important way. Business is founded centrally on the notion of profit made by determining who not to serve. It's rarely profitable to serve everyone, so the assumption is that it's fine to leave some unserved. Maybe someone else will serve them. Maybe not.

Business figures out its profitable customer base and just focuses on them. That's not what democratic government promises. Democracy, even beyond all the voting stuff, is about believing each person matters just because they exist, that dignity arises not from wealth but from being alive, that we are all equals. Government must serve each of us in a way that does not prioritize rich over poor.

Oh, You Poor Unheard Rich People!

Money already speaks. It needs no representation in government. There are people, usually rich people, who sometimes say that Big Business needs special attention in government. It does not. Business is not going to be forgotten, no matter what government does, so stop feeling sorry for it. Big Business has the shameless means to be regularly petulant, but in spite of its many pity parties, it is not suffering.

Undo the Citizens United ruling. Corporations are not people. Profit-making entities don't need to be voting. Their stakeholders can already vote in public elections. Businesses need no additional, redundant, amplified freedom of speech, no megaphone.

Business isn't going to suddenly stop happening if we change laws in some way that is unfavorable to particular rich folk. If the people who are in business now don't like it, they can drop out. Others will happily take their place.

Fairly Represented

What needs representation in government are regular people. Government sets the rules that all businesses must follow.

Adam Smith, called the father of economics and/or capitalism, expressed concern about morality in business. He very clearly understood that the optimization engine that is the marketplace will not find morality on its own, that business will tend toward tyranny if not forced to do otherwise. He suggested that if you want morality in business, it must be encoded in law.

It's government's job to make good rules that hold tyranny at bay. Some people and businesses will tell you they'd profit better if there were no rules. In my view, where there are no rules, bullies rule. That's no world to be seeking.

What Privatization Dodges

Nor should government be privatized. An important thing that government offers is accountability and auditability by the public, and redress of injustice. Many pushes for privatization are attempts to get around such scrutiny and accountability.

Business is a dictatorship in structure, where the US government distributes control to avoid dictatorial control. We're lulled by business success to thinking such dictatorships nonthreatening, but you can go home from them at the end of the day, they cannot keep you from leaving, and they can't threaten your family or property, as government dictatorships might.

Employees have a duty to business leaders, who have a fiduciary duty to shareholders, whereas our elected representatives have a duty to the public, those who elected them. Elected leaders must be working for The People, not vice versa.

DOGE Debunked

Business profits by efficiency, where democracy finds strength in inefficiency because it distributes power. Too-concentrated power is historically understood to be a great danger. A DOGE-like effort to focus on efficiency might be defensible in some businesses, where efficiency is the central concern, In government, however, DOGE undermines both the safeguards underlying and the stated goals of the US government.

Government must not be run like a business. Elimination of inefficiency is not an automatic positive. Privatization loses control of and accountability for things that affect citizens' lives. Such suggestions are active dangers to democracy to be discussed with great wariness.

 

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Other Posts by Kent Pitman on related topics:

• Speed Kills
• Retirement Savings
• Political Terraforming
• Fiduciary Duty vs. The Three Laws of Robotics

Author's Notes:

If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.

This post was cobbled together from other writings of mine, so if you feel like you've read some or all of this before, you're probably right. But I wanted to put it all in one place.

The graphic was produced using abacus.ai using Claude-Sonnet 3.7 and FLUX 1.1 [pro] Ultra, then post-processing in Gimp.

Election 2024 FAQ

Q. Who should I vote for?

A. Kamala Harris.

Q. But what about Trump?

A. The guy with 34 felony convictions and several court cases pending?

The guy who says he'll be a dictator on day one? He says only day one. Give some thought to how much you trust his impulse control.

I could go on, but just read some of these other questions and answers. They should make it plain why Harris is the only safe, sane, and moral choice.

Q. OK, so he's pretty evil. But I'm willing to put on my blinders because he's quite a business man, am I right? He'll make our economy successful, right?

A. Rachel Maddow spent a segment calling his bluff on all of this. This shouldn't be a great surprise. Trump was convicted in of fraud in New York civil court, and ordered to pay $355 million dollars. It is not a stretch to think he might commit fraud in other situations. Trump's niece, Mary Trump, has a lot to say about his lying.

Q. But hasn't Biden just weaponized the Justice Department? Those aren't real charges are they? Surely they're partisan fictions.

A. No. Biden hasn't done any such thing. In fact, it's the other way around. We're finding more and more evidence that weaponizing the Department of Justice (DOJ) is something Trump sought to do as President. He was held back by others in the government who told him he couldn't. Such restraint is unlikely to happen again because he'll pick yes men to advise him this time around.

Also, Trump is promising to prosecute his political rivals. That isn't how we've traditionally done politics in the US. The whole point of “free speech” is the free exchange of ideas. He wants to end that. He doesn't like dissent. It could get very ugly.

Q. Trump says he'll protect American business by adding big tariffs other countries have to pay. Isn't that good?

A. In a word? No. Trump can't make other countries pay anything. He can make you pay to receive things from other countries. Economists estimate this will cost the average household an extra $4000 a year. Harris is calling it a Trump “sales tax,” which is what it will feel like.

Also, it's been widely reported that businesses are readying to raise prices in anticipation of Trump's tariffs.

Q. But isn't Trump a business guy? He says he'll hire “only the best people”.

A. Many of those same people warn strongly against electing him.

Q. This is upsetting. If that's true, what about his January 6 “lovefest”? Surely you're not saying that was a fiction.

A. Several people lost their lives at Trump's so-called “lovefest” that day. Pence barely made it to safety as crowds chanted “Hang Mike Pence”. The House investigated and confirmed the seriousness of these actions, calling Republican witnesses, many of them Trump staffers, to build their case.

Q. Trump says he'll be a protector of women—

A. Oh, just stop. I know you didn't even get all the way through your question, but, please, just stop. No. He will not. Neither will Vance.

The Washington Post counted his false and misleading statements over a four-year period. They tallied 30,573. You can't trust his promises. He knows they are not legally binding.

But he also appointed Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and bragged about it. During the 2016 campaign period, MSNBC's Chris Matthews got Trump to say “there has to be some form of punishment” for a woman getting an abortion.

And if you haven't read Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale, might I suggest you do? It just might turn out to be a useful reference.

Q. My husband tells me I should vote like he does. Is that true?

A. No. We vote privately in the US. At least we do now, under democracy. Who knows what will happen if Trump gains control. He'll probably appoint still more Supreme Court justices. The ones he already appointed have suggested they may want to roll back women's right to vote.

Q. I hate all of this. What if I just “send a message” by staying home?

A. Sitting it out does not send the message “I want another choice.” It sends the message “I'm equally happy with either of these choices.” Read the rest of this FAQ and then get yourself to the polls. You'll be glad you did.

Q. I'm mad about Harris's Climate policies. Can I “send a message” by voting for Jill Stein?

A. Only Trump or Harris will be elected. Stein doesn't have any hope at all of being elected. So the message you send will be at a steep price because Harris has by far a more Climate-friendly record and platform than Trump. Trump does not think that “science knows” if Climate Change is real. (Spoiler Warning: Science knows.)

Voting for Stein does not send the message “I want another choice,” but instead sends the message “I'm equally happy with either of these choices.” There are better times and ways to protest Climate policy.

The world will be very different under these two candidates.
If you care about those differences, you need to vote.

There is good reason to think that protest votes for Jill Stein may have tipped the 2016 election to Trump. If you care about Climate and would be otherwise voting for Harris, there are other ways to protest than to throw the election to Trump.

Q. But what about the Gaza genocide? Biden and Harris are still sending munitions.

A. This is a real concern, but boycotting the election is the wrong way to solve it. Whatever you think of Biden and Harris on Gaza policy, Trump is much worse. He wants to be best friends with Netanyahu, in part because both of them see it important to stay in power to avoid prison.

My advice? Find another way to protest. But believe me, you want to be protesting under Harris, who thinks that's a normal thing to do. Trump wanted to shoot at protesters. He does not like dissent, and especially when it's by or about people of color.

Q. But, but—the border. And all those migrants.

A. The border issue is a real issue, but very complicated. In collaboration with the Biden/Harris administration, Republican conservatives drafted a somewhat harsh policy that nevertheless had bipartisan support and by all accounts would have passed. But Trump asked Republicans to kill it because it doesn't matter to him to have that problem solved. He just wanted something to whine about, and to blame on Biden. Republicans did kill it, and Trump's the one that deserves the blame, not Biden.

Q. But shouldn't I worry that Trump often says Harris is “low IQ”?

A. I'm going to bite my tongue and not ask if you seriously think Trump is “high IQ.” Let's instead just jump straight to the heart of the matter: Calling someone “low IQ” is just a pattern behavior he has for how to talk about people who are black or female. He obviously hopes that, through force of repetition, you'll eventually associate certain attributes with certain people or certain demographics. Of course, he offers no evidence. And anyway, polls suggest she unambiguously beat him at the debate.

Q. It's only for four years, though, right?

A. That's how it used to be. But staying in office keeps him out of prison.. Liz Cheney has credibly suggested that if Trump is given power again, he will not yield it voluntarily.

Q. Maybe Vance will take over. That will fix things, right? He seems more sane.

A. Vance seems comfortable with the US following Rome's pattern, turning from a Republic to an Empire (in effect, giving up our democracy for a dictatorship). He appears to see Project 2025 as the implementation mechanism.

Q. Is there a place I can learn more about Project 2025? Are you sure it's associated with Trump?

A. Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025 because he knows it's a source of concern. However, many connections between Trump, Vance and Project 2025 have been documented.

There are several places you might want to consider to find out about Project 2025:

• Democracy Forward has created a user-friendly way to browse its serious dangers: The People's Guide to Project 2025.

• A band of graphic artists—some named, some anonymous—has brilliantly put the issue into graphic novel (comic book) form. This is a “must see.”

• The Center for American Progress (CAP) offers a useful explainer piece, The Dangers of Project 2025: Global Lessons in Authoritarianism, that puts Project 2025 into perpective by showing how it will “threaten American democracy by mirroring authoritarian tactics seen in Hungary, Turkey, and beyond.”
• The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has an article, Project 2025, Explained, that summarizes what they see as key dangers in Project 2025, and what Trump's connection is to it.

• Project 2025 has its own web page. It's very detailed. 900+ pages. It's highly specific about the speed and scope of what it plans. The goals it sets are scary enough, but the highly undemocratic ways in which it proposes achieving those goals is scary in its own right.

Q. This FAQ by Kent Pitman was kind of fun. Is there more stuff by Kent that I can read?

A. So glad you enjoyed it. Yes, here are some election-related writings by Kent:

• Common Ground on Reproductive Health (on Liz Cheney's fresh outlook)
• Emperor's Wardrobe Day (about those who've been silent)
• The Fraud Who Stole Freedom (an epic poem, with audio)
• Vance Notice (about the danger Vance poses)
• Political Terraforming (why they're limiting rights)
• A to-do list for repairing US democracy (some helpful suggestions)
• American Dictatorship (thoughts on a possible loss of democracy)
• The Pace of Political Evil (what we come to see is normal)
• Conspiring to Contest Key Elections (it won't just be about votes)
• Stayers and Steppers (my advice to Biden to step back, let Harris run)
• Supreme Challenge (urging Biden to use power SCOTUS gave him)

Don't forget to check for other posts that may follow the post you're reading.

A to-do list for repairing US democracy

 

If we're lucky enough  not to spiral down into dictatorship during this fall's Presidential election in the US, we need to have a ready-made to-do list for repairing democracy.

To start off a conversation on that, here's my current thinking…

Draft Proposed “Freedom Amendment” to the US Constitution

(Rationales, in green, are informational, not part of the amendment.)

In order to solidify and preserve democratic rule within these United States, these changes are hereby ordered to all United States policies and procedures:

1. Voting

1. No Electoral College. The Electoral College is hereby dissolved. Presidential elections shall henceforth be determined directly by majority vote of all United States citizens who are eligible to vote.

2. No commercial interference in elections. No for-profit corporation or company, nor any non-profit corporation or company that as their primary business offers products or services for commercial sale, may contribute to campaigns or other activities that could reasonably be seen as trying to affect election. (The ruling in Citizens United v. FEC is vacated.)

3. Restore the Voting Rights Act. The ruling in Shelby County v. Holder that voided section 4 is hereby reversed, restoring this Act to its full form and asserting full Constitutional backing to the Act. Preclearance is hereby required for all 50 states equally.

4. No “gerrymandering.” The practice of gerrymandering while drawing district boundaries at the federal and state levels is hereby disallowed.

5. Ranked-choice voting. All federal elections shall be handled via a ranked-choice voting process.

2. Ethics & Oversight

1. Supreme Court Ethics Code. The Supreme Court shall henceforth be governed by the same ethics code that binds all federal courts.

2. Congress and the Supreme Court shall be subject to term limits.

   1. Senators may be elected to no more than 3 terms.
   2. Representatives may be elected to no more than 5 terms.
   3. Supreme Court Justices may serve no more than 18 years.

3. No one is above the law. Elected members of all three branches of government are subject to all laws, just like any other person, even though prosecution of such a person for crimes must wait until that person leaves office. In cases where immediate prosecution might be important, impeachment is an option.

4. Senate impeachment votes are not optional. If the House impeaches someone, the Senate must immediately perform all business necessary to assure a timely vote on that impeachment; this process is not optional and may not be postponed. Once an actionable concern has been raised that a public official might have committed a crime, the public has an interest in swift resolution.

5. House and Senate impeachment votes are temporarily private. Impeachment votes by both House and Senate will be recorded and tallied privately, preferably electronically, with only the aggregate result reported immediately. Individual votes will be held securely in private for a period of ten years, at which time all such votes will be made a public part of the historical record.

6. Public office is not a refuge to wait out the clock on prosecution. Any clock for the Statute of Limitations does not run while prosecution is not an option. This applies for all elected persons for whom indictment or prosecution is locked out due to participation in public office, but in particular for POTUS. It may be necessary to the doing of orderly public business not to prosecute a President while in office, however public office is not a refuge in which someone may hide out until the clock runs out on otherwise-possible prosecutions, whether that clock began before or during time in office.

7. Pardon power is subject to conflict-of-interest (COI) restrictions. It is necessary to the credibility of all public officials in a free society that there be some reasonable belief that rules of law do not create options for corrupt officials to abuse the system. Presidents and other state and federal officials embued with the pardon power may never apply such power to themselves, their families, or any other individuals with whom there is even an appearance of conflict of interest. No such person may solicit any action by anyone on promise of a pardon. Any single such action, attempted action, or promise of action where there is a conflict of interest that is known or reasonably should have been know to the party exercising pardon power is an impeachable offense and a felony abuse of power subject to a penalty of ten years in prison.

8. Independence of Department of Justice. The head of the Department of Justice shall be henceforth selected by a supermajority (2/3) vote of the House of Representatives, without any special input from or deference to the Executive.

   Rationale: Assure DOJ operates independently of the Executive, its mission being to fairly and impartially uphold Law, not to be a tool of partisan or rogue Presidential power.

9. Independence of the Supreme Court. Justices of the DOJ shall be henceforth selected by a supermajority (2/3) vote of the House of Representatives.

   Rationale:

   1. When SCOTUS must rule on the validity of Presidential action, a conflict of interest is created if those Justices might be appointed by that same President or even a majority party.

   2. Since the Constitution requires a supermajority to change its intent, an equivalent degree of protection is essential for choosing those will will interpret that intent. Recent history has suggested that it was easier to change the Court than to change the Constitution, with catastrophic effect decidedly unfair to the majority of citizens.

   3. A President is more than Appointer of Justices, yet that singular capability is so powerful and lasting that it often dominates election campaigns. Citizens need to be free to hire Presidents for other reasons more unique to the moment, such as good judgment; logistical, management, or negotiating skill; expertise in technical or scientific matters; or even just empathy with public issues.

3. Rights of People

1. Corporations are not people. Corporations are legal constructions, nothing more.

   Rationale: To say that they are independent people, is to give some actual people (those who own or control them) unequal, magnified, elitist, or otherwise distorted power over others. There is no place for this in a democracy that purports to speak of all people being created as equals.

   1. No Implicit Rights of Corporations. Any powers and duties of corporations must be explicitly granted to them, as coporations, whether by the Constitution or by legal statute, and henceforth must never be derived from any implication of imagined personhood.

   2. Explicitly Enumerated Rights of Corporations. Long-standing legal powers and duties of corporations such as the right to sign contracts, the right to own property, the responsibility to pay taxes, and any legal responsibility under tort law are hereby acknowledged by express enumeration in support of demonstrated corporate need and are no longer intended to be inferred as part of any preposterous fiction that corporations are just another kind of person.

   3. Non-Rights of Corporations. Alleged rights such as, but not limited to, rights of free speech and religious rights for corporations are hereby clarified to be nullified and without basis. A corporation has no automatic rights of people extending from any metaphor of being person-like. Politics is the province of individual persons, not corporations. Corporations exist for sales, subject to the rules of laws made by individuals, not vice versa.

2. Bodily autonomy right. All mentally competent people have a right to autonomy over choices of medical procedures affecting their own body.

   1. No Forced Pregnancies. From the time of conception to the time of birth, no government nor any other person may have a superseding say over a pregnant person as to any matter relating to a fetus.

      Rationale: This should already follow from the Religious Freedom Clarification, but it is too important to leave to chance. To say that any other person could make such choices would be to allow their religious freedom to infringe the religious freedoms of the pregnant person.

      Also, the term “pregnant person” is used here intentionally to include that adulthood is not a requirement of bodily autonomy. In general, any person who has not been legally ruled mentally incompetent is entitled to self-determination on matters like this. Not even a parent should have superseding control, since a parent will not have to live a lifetime with the consequences.

   2. Fetal Disposition is a Private Matter. Whether a pregnant person wishes to refer to a fetus as simply a fetus, a potential life, an unborn child, or an actual child is a personal religious choice to be made by that pregnant person. No law shall impose a policy on this.

      Rationale: To say otherwise would be to deny the obvous fact that people simply differ on this matter. To assume there were some single right way that everyone must adhere to would be to give dominance to some religious philosophies over others.

      It's a compromise, but the only one that it allows each person the best guarantee of at least some autonomy in a society where not everyone agrees and we are not likely to change that fact by fiat.

      Also, and importantly, some pregnancies are not successful and even in a society where we permit abortion for those who weren't wanting to be pregnant, it would be callous and undignified not to acknowledge the legitimate loss to others who sincerely wanted to carry a pregnancy to term but were unable. It is possible to be respectful in both situations, by feeling the grief of someone who wanted a child and not manufacturing grief for someone else who did not.

3. Right to Choose a Marital Partner. Among consenting adults, the choice to choose who to marry must not be restricted due to race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

   Rationale: This has been accepted already and it is not appropriate to roll that back. It was a good idea anyway, though, because happy families add an extra level of safety net protection to society. Family members try to take care of one another during sickness and other hard times, and this hopefully reduces some amount of stress on public safety nets.

4. Religious Freedom Clarification. The right to religious self-determination is a basic human right.

   1. Religious Choice. All people have the right to explore religous choice on their own timeline and terms. No one is required to pick any particular philosophy, or any philosophy at all, or even to make a choice.

   2. Religious Equality. Religious protections span all religious choices (and non-choices), and hence are accorded equally to all people. No person may be accorded second-class legal status on the basis of their religious philosophy—or lack thereof.

      Rationale: So atheists, agnostics, etc. are still due religious freedom protection. Answers to “Is there a God?” are still due religious protection if the answer is “no” or “I don't know” or “I haven't decided” or “I don't know what that means” or “This is not a binary question.”

   3. No State Religion. The so-called “establishment clause” of the First Amendment is hereby clarified to mean that the United States takes no position that might give the appearance of preferring one religon over another.

      Rationale: We are not, for example, a Christian nation. Nor a Jewish nation. And so on. And yet the US is a nation that intends to treat each religion and non-religion in the same supportive and respectful way, and expects each of these religions to be respectful of others. This is how balance is maintained in pluralistic society.

   4. Religion is not a Popularity Contest. The fact that one religious philosophy might at any given point be more common than another does afford that philosophy a greater or lesser status.

   5. No Bullying in the name of Religion. The freedom of religious choice is not a right to bully or coerce, nor to violate law. Each person's right of religious choice extends only to the point where it might infringe on the equivalent rights of others.

Yes, this could be done by separate amendments. But it would be a lot of them, and the discussion would be much more complex. I say do it all at once because every one of these things is absolutely needed.

If anything, there might be a few things I left out.

 

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Author's Notes:

If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.

This post was catalyzed by a single tweet by me on ex-Twitter, but it has been hugely elaborated since, after all, this venue does not have a 280 character limit.

The odd graphic of the scales of justice under repair was created by Abacus.AI's ChatLLM facility, using Claude Sonnet 3.5 and Dall-E and the prompt:

Draw a picture of a grayscale statue of a woman holding the scales of justice in one raised hand and a small wrench and a pair of needle-nose pliers in the other hand, lower, at her side. part of the statue should include a toolbox next to her feet that is open and presumably where she's taken the wrench from. the woman should be wearing a flowing gown, as is traditional for this kind of statue, but she should have a pair of goggles on her head, as one would use in a metal shop to protect one's eyes. The woman should have a pair of protective goggles, like one would use for metal working, over her eyes.

And, yes, I'm aware I did not get the needle-nose pliers got left out. And on this iteration I didn't ask for her to be seated, though I had been thinking of requesting she be seated at a work bench to resolve some unwanted aspects of previous attempts, so I went with this as the best of several tries.

Capitalism's Dominion

I've seen a lot of news reports explaining why even though the Dominion law suit was settled out of court, we in the public should still see this as a victory.

I just want to say this is bunk.

The problem here is one of reductionism, by which I mean taking a hard problem that's hard to think about and reducing it to some other proxy problem that appears to represent the original problem so that the problem is easier to think about. This is a common and sometimes defensible practice, but one must always double-check when solutions start to arise in the proxy space that the original problem is being solved.

Just as an example, we hear proposals to address carbon in the atmosphere by taxation. This is because people think that taxation will create economic pressure to spend in ways that will fix the problem. But if you look at how the rich do their taxes, they mostly do not in fact spend in ways taxation is trying to make them. Rather, they invest in accountants who find loopholes, or they invest in regulatory capture to create loopholes. And then they smugly claim they did their part on the original problem, when they didn't.

Too often in recent years, media has gotten to the place where we have serious societal problems for which they have on-hand experts they can call in when something happens. When something happens for the first time, sometimes it's good to call in an expert to hear how they think about it. But finding a way to understand technical detail is not always a substitute for good journalism. If one becomes too practiced at calling up an expert on speed dial, one stops asking the question "What really happened?" and "What does the public need to know?"

Because here's the thing: What the Dominion settlement really exposes is the stranglehold capitalism exerts on society by insisting on reducing civil disputes to money. While clearly Dominion suffered enumerable economic harm, just as clearly the real damage was non-monetary, to our democracy, our society, and civilization. And none of the news outlets are saying that. They're so focused on how we have experts in law that they aren't focused on the question of whether our system of law is serving us at all in this case. It simply is not. It may serve Dominion. They may take home quite a payday. But that is not why this was a big story. And the big media places have lost this point.

We as a society have no standing to sue. We hoped in vain this would proxy for us, yielding results as non-monetary as the damage. Of course that was fantasy. But it explains the crushing sadness many of us feel. Pundits too practiced with procedural expertise keep missing this.

We as a public are sad, but this sadness is not a failure to understand process, so stop trying to tell us what a historic win this is. The public understands acutely that even a historic win is not helping them. This was not a success for society no matter what career policy wonks say. Ordinary folk know.

What we as a society need is a recognition that there is both process due and none to be had. We need to be allowed to express our pain. That pain needs to be acknowledged. If you want to call in experts, call in grief counsellors or experts in how to change government because from where we sit, the problem is that only the rich can change government, and that's why we are in collective pain.

Not only will it be busines as usual for Fox, but they will write off a big piece of their payment as a tax deduction (meaning the public will pay for some of this), and the rest will be passed along as costs to subscribers (which means viewers will pay more). Some will tell us that increased costs to viewers will hurt Fox and that this will ultimately do well. But meanwhile they will go on lying and issuing propaganda in exactly the way they did, and the real, non-monetary damages will continue to mount without recourse.

Prosecuting Political Fraud

There are lots of things democracy can't survive, not all of them enumerated as illegal. Some used to be protected by just shame. But Donald Trump has shown evil politicians everywhere that shame can be shrugged off, and this has emboldened a new crop of worse evil.

That George Santos could lie freely and still be elected is a direct consequence of the shift Trump created. It cannot be allowed to stand, to be normal.

Democracy requires more than just voting. It requires information. If you have a right to vote, but you don't have a right to know what's true, then you won't be voting in ways that react to the past and plan for the future. You'll just be playing Russian roulette.

So what's to be done? Do we have a law against politicians lying? No, not exactly. But these guys are selling their services to us. And let's just say it. It's not pretty, but it's true. Politics is a business. People profit from it. I wish it were not so, but let's at least apply the laws that apply to commerce.

George Santos profited by selling the public something that wasn't what it seemed. It'd be nice if we had a law against politicians lying to us to get into office, but let's just charge him with commercial fraud.

And let's not hear that this is a radical proposal. I'm tired of hearing radical thrown in to dampen common sense action. What's radical is that he did what he did. The response I'm proposing is “merely proportionate.”

I see prosecutors delaying where I think no delay should be needed. I guess they want to make sure they've gotten all their ducks in a row, but taking more than just a few minutes to do that sends the message that this is somehow more complicated than it is, that there are hidden factors that might excuse him. There are no such factors.

It is simply bad when someone lies to get into office. (The Supreme Court would tell us this if more than one of them had not lied to get appointed. Alas.)

Santos sold voters snake oil to get a job he didn't merit. If left to stand, it makes a mockery of democratic process. We must address this and soon before it becomes the norm.

Every bit of delay suggests there is some other rational point of view, in which he should be allowed to lie to get into office, in which we should have no recourse if someone successfully tricks us into letting them into office on false pretenses.

We must not accept that. It must not be the case that someone can lie to get into office. It must not be the case that if someone is found to have lied to get in, we no longer have recourse.

This is not complicated. He cheated. There is law that makes sense to apply.
Prosecute him. Now.

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Author‘s Notes:

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The Case of Filibuster v. Coup

A Senate majority voted Friday (May 28, 2021) to establish an independent commission to investigate the January 6 riot.

But alas, in the US we're not ruled by the majority.
Oh, we let them suggest things and wish for things, even promise things,
but in the end we let the minority have final say.
So most good ideas go in the trash.

On balance, we get the right to occasionally trash the opposition's ideas.
So nothing changes.

We're told that's important stability,
even as voting systems are being dismantled locally across the ntation,
even as the train wreck of climate change approaches at frightening speed.
Change is needed but the filibuster is going to consistently block change.

We had a coup attempt on January 6.
By majority vote, We The People really care about such things.
But a minority disagrees, and the filibuster gives them the power.
So that ends that.

• • •

If it was some other country and we saw video of an attack on the capitol, we would not speak of those “alleged” to have attempted a coup.

If it was some other country, we would not say that we saw something but could not be sure what it was unless that country created a bipartisan committee to study it thoroughly and report with more reliability what was already obvious to anyone watching.

If it was some other country, we would not doubt the contemporaneous report of on-site American reporters as if it could all be some form of mass delusion or fake news that appeared consistently on myriad cameras in real time.

If it was some other country, we would just call it an attempted coup.

If it was some other country, any president but the previous would already be lecturing the world on the precious nature of democracy and how they must rush to safeguard it—the way we do in the US.

We do still defend democracies in the US, don't we?

I ask because I know of one that's in immediate danger and needs such help.

Please?

• • •

The failed vote can't keep us from knowing what happened. We know. It is instead just more proof that we don't need a blue ribbon commission to see that things are seriously amiss, and that we need swift action:

Ditch the filibuster and start governing proactively, not just reactively.
That's what democracy is meant to be.

Fix voting rights while there's still time.
Now. Not tomorrow. As with Covid, every day counts.

Do not wait because things can change even without an election.
If bad things happen, we need good rules already in place.

Otherwise, the GOP is set to move in and show us all how power is used.
But they're not going to waste time on bipartisanship.
And they're playing for keeps.

So, do your job, Democratic Senators, as a majority of voters sent you there to do.
Safeguard the nation, not the dysfunctional filibuster.
If you don't do it today, we may never get another chance.

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This post began as a Facebook comment.

Vote Today. Vote Democratic.

Rights are more fragile than we wish. Operationally, they are little more than laws that require a supermajority to change ... or a majority of SCOTUS to ignore.

Our nation is more fragile than we wish. We imagine there will be other elections, other chances to win. But that is not the GOP plan. Their plan is to occupy the treehouse and to pull up the ladder behind them, to undermine those elements of democracy that would permit others to challenge their complete authority.

Our planet is more fragile than we wish. We imagine the climate debate is something we might ultimately win, but physics doesn't work that way. It will quickly become uninhabitable due to Climate Change, and the race is not against each other but against an unyielding clock. It matters to act now, and every bit of delay is a nail in humanity's collective coffin.

If you are not voting today, if you are not voting for all Democrats today, you are by implication agreeing that the GOP should continue dismantling rights, dismantling democracy, and dismantling the habitability of the planet.

Vote Today. Vote Democratic. The GOP have shown themselves poor stewards of our rights, of our nation, of our ecosystem. It is important to stop them before they rob the US and all humanity of a future in their ugly, selfish, reckless quest for power at the expense of all else.

—Kent Pitman, November 6, 2018

Maybe You Have Two Cows

There are some descriptions of various political systems running around the net that are expressed in terms of you having two cows and how each political system affects you.

Here’s one about Democratic Socialism that a friend quoted on Facebook:

Democratic Socialism
You have 2 cows.
You pay your taxes.
You now have free healthcare and free college
 and a government that isn’t owned by billionaires.

I don’t find this to be as useful as it could be. Its tone hints that Democratic Socialism isn’t carefully thought through. Or, at least, that’s how the opposition spins it, unquestioned by media.

I would prefer something more plain and to-the-point. Then again, I don’t know if this describes Democratic Socialism. It just describes what I want. Yet somehow I doubt that Bernie would disagree with a lot of this:

Common Sense Politics
 (as interpreted by Kent Pitman)

Maybe you have 2 cows, maybe not.

Many have far less. Can we stop pretending everyone has it good? People are getting left behind.

People making enough to have a surplus
 pay tax on surplus.

Why are we taxing people who have less than they need to get by? So we can give it back to them later and call ourselves heroes? Leave them alone and get the money we need from the people who can afford it.

Forget this “skin in the game” crap
 about why everyone should pay tax.

Being poor IS having skin in the game. No additional reminder is necessary. The poor are not parasites, they are people society has failed.
And anyway, if you want fewer people, fund birth control.

Rich people pay their fair share
 and stop calling it pain.

Less luxury is not pain. Of course the money for a society is going to come from those who have a surplus. To do otherwise is irresponsible or inhumane.

Corporations pay tax on surplus, too.

Profitable corporations don’t need or ask for subsidies.
And it should go without saying, but...
Corporations are not People.

Corporations pay a living wage.

So employees don’t have to ask for government subsidy. Duh.

The military doesn’t get to waste money either.

No more buying stuff we don’t need just to supply pork to someone’s district.

A healthy and educated society benefits us all.

We pay for these collectively out of society’s surpluses, not by making people choose between these things and basic needs. And we stop calling the money that society pays for these things “expenses.” They are “investments.” It’s not “should we spend on healthcare or education?” but “should we invest in healthcare or education?”

To decide our future, we count citizens, not dollars.

Everyone should participate. Yet another reason education matters: We need well-informed voters. But it’s citizens, not dollars, that need a voice. Money always speaks loudly. Government is supposed to counterbalance that. Any suggestion that money needs a voice in politics misses the point of the Constitution, which assigns no special privilege to wealth, but rather takes it as given that we are all equal.
End Citizens United.
End gerrymandering.
Make voter registration easy and fair.

Fix Climate.
 Now.

Or none of the rest of this will matter.

But, either way... Go Bernie!

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