Last
week, after a brief summary, I offered a simple but radical
solution to campaign finance
(decrease the maximum limit to an amount the middle class can
afford). Yet the power for this solution resides in Congress and the
Supreme Court, who seem intent on allowing an unlimited amount of
money into politics. Today I unveil another solution, admittedly
desperate, and yet an archaically, democratic path forward out of
corporate party control. Perkicles of ancient Athens declared,
“Athens’ constitution is called a democracy because
it respects the interests not of the minority but of the whole
people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone
is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person
before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is
not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which
the man possesses.” In the United States, political parties are
currently acting in the interest of the minority: corporations and
the wealthy. In contrast, the Athenian's emphasized their belief, in
the equality of all citizens filling government positions by lot.
For various positions, each citizen had the opportunity to place
their name into the lottery. Any free, male citizen could
participate, and with the same chance as anyone else, become an
official in Ancient Athens. Elected officals in Ancient Athens were
viewed as a minor form of oligarchy, and these public positions a
bulwark against Tyranny.
And so, the proposition is this: The
next president should be appointed by lot. Practically, how
would this be implemented? One must begin by reemphasizing the
incredible difficulty, but reemphasize the possibility. The
president would be chosen at random, but how would the choosing
occur, and who would vote for the person? To be eligible, a citizen
would declare their intention to enter into, and accept the result of
presidency by lot. A record would be made of all who have agreed to
such a proposal. At a reasonable time, November 1st 2019,
all members who have submitted, would have their names placed in a
physical box (or an electronic equivalent). A name would be picked
at random, and all members would be bound (not by legal mechanism,
but by personal integrity) to vote for the winner in the presidential
election.
Is it absurd, outrageous, and insane?
Certainly, but are we more comfortable with the vacuous and callous
wealthy (who yet expound upon their superior intellect and
compassion) leading the country into further economic predation and
suffering? Whether one has supported Democrats or Republicans in the
past, one must concede their capacity to abandon the poor and middle
class for a prime
lobbying job. Both are two entwined with corporate
interests.
Could
it succeed? The number of citizens required to bring the plan to
fruition would need to be a significant portion of the population,
enough to secure enough states to earn 270 electoral votes.
President Trump won with only 46% of the vote. But is it impossible?
Again, Donald Trump won.
And there is more than two years until the primary season.
Aside
from the innumerable difficulties (again, not insurmountable), there
are a equally innumerable number of issues. Critics of this plan
might contest it on the same issue as Plato, who saw democracy as
likely to be administered by a collection of well spoken charlatans
and fools. These incompetent bunglers, he claimed, would soon lead
the ship of state onto a reef of disaster.
So,
who is supposed to compose the government? The Constitution, Civics,
Democracy all declare: the elected, aided by experts. Citizens are
best served by professionals advising the National Government in
devising policy, whether it be in science, diplomacy, economics or
other study of national interest. There are strident disagreements
between experts in a field, but everyone should recognize the
difference between an expert and their opposite: the faker, the
neophyte, the political hack. President Trump has not filled his
cabinet and administrative departments with experts, but their
antithesis, the anti-expert, persons who despise the mission of the
very agency which they have been appointed to lead. There is no
other explanation for appointees such as Betsy Devos (who doesn't
even understand basic educational terms such as proficiency
and growth),
Rick Perry (who is helming the department he couldn't
remember he wanted to eliminate),
Scott Pruitt (who has repeatedly
sued
the department he operates), and Ben Carson (whose only qualification
is he was poor once,
but is no longer). This is to name only a few of the many
incompetent, anti-experts who manage the vital agencies of the most
powerful government in the history of the world. If one wants to
disagree with this assessment, it is possible to find a few true
experts in the Trump administration, and thereby demonstrate the
difference. Contrast these anti-experts with James Mattis and H. R.
McMaster. Both are men who I vehemently disagree with on policy, yet
I admit they are experts in their capacity to kill. With these
examples, it is possible to see the difference between experts, and
the dilettantes.
And
this plan, of electing by lot, does not alter this desire for
experience and expertise. In fact, when Plato (and others through
the ages) have criticized democracy for empowering those with the
most sophisticated voices (whether the speaker be wise or witless),
are they not also condemning those with the loudest, cash fueled
voice, for where is the difference between how one acquires the
political reigns if it is not through the value of policy?
This essay isn't intended as a
nihilistic, what-do-we-have-to-lose proposal based on the hopeless
cynicism which has begun to infect those across the nation. In fact,
it's an paean to the essential democratic principle: the United
States is a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people,
not of the rich, for the corporations, and by the elite. There
is a value in the egalitarian spirit of democracy, of the election of
the common man, an occurrence which lies outside the realm of
everyday experience because of the sickness of campaign finance. We
must resist the Tyranny of the wealthy, the anti-expert, and the
system of oligarchic privilege.
Let me begin by saying, I'm in.
The Supreme Court, Money in
Politics, and Originalism
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