Don't Love the Candidates, Love the Game
Today's the Iowa Primary, arguably the first votes of the 2008 election. Last night matrushkaka asked me what candidate I favored. I currently don't have a favorite candidate, but I remain relatively unconcerned.
The free market works because it incentivises entrepreneurs to produce the cheapest, safest, most efficient products possible (until that market starts becoming saturated). At any dealership you'll see a section of nearly-identical array of foreign and domestic economy cars that cost under $15,000, get around 35mpg and will run for 200,000 miles. It's a market where you literally have to go out of your way in order to buy a bad car. Not a "bad car" compared to whatever utopian car you think is optimal, but "bad car" compared to vehicles previously available in quantity to the general public (with minor exceptions). The wisdom of forming a society around petroleum-fueled private transportation is questionable, but the dilemma of which car to drive is largely moot. You can't buy a car with tank treads that runs on coal because the market has already decided that this is a bad design. The market has created so many good alternatives and so few bad ones that 90% of the choice has already been made for us, by us, indirectly, in the design→market feedback loop. There are occasional remarkable failures, but that's why they're rare and remarkable. The free market incentivises entrepreneurs pretty well.
The American political system works. I don't mean it works as well as whatever hypothetical utopian system you imagine - your utopia is at least as different from my dad's utopia, Ron Paul's utopia, or the private utopia of anyone else you could care to mention. I mean that our political system is about as good and frequently better than other places in the world, including many of the places where I visited this winter vacation. Our politicians actually attempt to figure out what their constituents want and then attempt to address those concerns. They've been engaging in numerous ridiculous 10-way debates since April, watched by hardly anyone, in an attempt to figure out what kind of policy and message is going to please the most people. Politics are refined in the speech→commentary→poll feedback loop. Speeches are retooled, polls are created, promises are made, and each candidate attempts to get a few fractions of a percent closer to what the voting public wants than the other guy. It's convergent evolution. You don't get to vote for an anarchist cannibal or a professional exorcist because the political process has already determined that these people would not make good politicians. There are occasional remarkable failures - Bush and Cheney were democratically elected (more or less) and have made some of the worst mistakes in United States history - but that's why their falures are so remarkable. Because the democratic political system incentivises most politicians pretty well.
That's why it doesn't bother me when I hear complains that there's no difference between the "Democans and Republocrats". There's no difference because our system is designed to build concensus. That concensus is achieved not on the day of the election but in the months or years of public discussion leading up to the election. I am far more interested in what the entire system produces and in changes which will improve transparency and responsiveness in the entire system (campaign contribution limits, instant runoff voting) than in whether voters are presented with a sufficiently broad choice on election day. Want politics to work for you? Don't wait till election day and hope that one of the candidates has a platform you can support. Be active and vocal in the advocacy of your position throughout the campaign, so that by the time election day rolls around both of the candidates agree with your position.
The free market works because it incentivises entrepreneurs to produce the cheapest, safest, most efficient products possible (until that market starts becoming saturated). At any dealership you'll see a section of nearly-identical array of foreign and domestic economy cars that cost under $15,000, get around 35mpg and will run for 200,000 miles. It's a market where you literally have to go out of your way in order to buy a bad car. Not a "bad car" compared to whatever utopian car you think is optimal, but "bad car" compared to vehicles previously available in quantity to the general public (with minor exceptions). The wisdom of forming a society around petroleum-fueled private transportation is questionable, but the dilemma of which car to drive is largely moot. You can't buy a car with tank treads that runs on coal because the market has already decided that this is a bad design. The market has created so many good alternatives and so few bad ones that 90% of the choice has already been made for us, by us, indirectly, in the design→market feedback loop. There are occasional remarkable failures, but that's why they're rare and remarkable. The free market incentivises entrepreneurs pretty well.
The American political system works. I don't mean it works as well as whatever hypothetical utopian system you imagine - your utopia is at least as different from my dad's utopia, Ron Paul's utopia, or the private utopia of anyone else you could care to mention. I mean that our political system is about as good and frequently better than other places in the world, including many of the places where I visited this winter vacation. Our politicians actually attempt to figure out what their constituents want and then attempt to address those concerns. They've been engaging in numerous ridiculous 10-way debates since April, watched by hardly anyone, in an attempt to figure out what kind of policy and message is going to please the most people. Politics are refined in the speech→commentary→poll feedback loop. Speeches are retooled, polls are created, promises are made, and each candidate attempts to get a few fractions of a percent closer to what the voting public wants than the other guy. It's convergent evolution. You don't get to vote for an anarchist cannibal or a professional exorcist because the political process has already determined that these people would not make good politicians. There are occasional remarkable failures - Bush and Cheney were democratically elected (more or less) and have made some of the worst mistakes in United States history - but that's why their falures are so remarkable. Because the democratic political system incentivises most politicians pretty well.
That's why it doesn't bother me when I hear complains that there's no difference between the "Democans and Republocrats". There's no difference because our system is designed to build concensus. That concensus is achieved not on the day of the election but in the months or years of public discussion leading up to the election. I am far more interested in what the entire system produces and in changes which will improve transparency and responsiveness in the entire system (campaign contribution limits, instant runoff voting) than in whether voters are presented with a sufficiently broad choice on election day. Want politics to work for you? Don't wait till election day and hope that one of the candidates has a platform you can support. Be active and vocal in the advocacy of your position throughout the campaign, so that by the time election day rolls around both of the candidates agree with your position.