Tag Archive: “government”

We Need Leaders.

Posted in society by Adam

28 June 2022

Leaders tell people what needs to be done.

A leader is someone who tells people where they’re going, and the people, agreeing with that goal, finding it worth the effort, work to go there too. That’s where we get the name leader.

In America we have people who set them selves up as legislators, or in executive roles as administrators. They know how to, what, sign papers, speak in public. But how few actually lead? Do they bother to go ahead of the people and bring them along?

In the wake of Dobbs, we need leadership. We need Biden and other Democrats to stand up and say, “We’re going to bring about an America where rights are protected as they’re supposed to be. And here’s how I think we get there, and here’s what I want you to do to help us get there.”

In general, we don’t get status updates from our parties. They don’t check-in with us in a meaningful way. They often shove thorns of reality into our flesh, in hopes we’ll wince and donate. But they don’t stop and say, “Okay, here’s how it’s going. Here’s why it’s not working. Here’s what we should do differently.”

But status updates are exactly what leaders do. If your team at work has a big smelly hairy project and you’re yak-shaving it away one step at a time, they want to make sure everyone’s doing the right thing, and if something goes wrong, they want to adjust quickly.

Finally, if a leader knows themselves incapable of the job, either they’re unwilling to go where they need to go, or they know the people will not follow, or they cannot imagine the path, or they think themselves inadequate to the journey, they quit and let someone else lead.

Obviously my go-to on abortion rights is an effort to amend the Constitution that joins with other movements that also seek constitutional memorialization of rights (equal rights amendment, gay marriage, gun safety, etc.). In Biden’s Dobbs speech, I was a little surprised he didn’t say that we should ultimately work to change the Constitution. But he didn’t say much of anything about where he wants us to go.

Democrats need to be leading. Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader. Jack Kennedy was a leader. He pointed up to the Moon and said, “Grab your shit. Let’s go.”

And it’s okay for a leader to be lost. It’s a bewildering country. Where should we go? How can we get there? It’s okay not to have the answer. But you have to tell us. You have to say, “If we get 60 in the Senate, then…” or “We’re going to need states to call for a constitutional convention.” Or whatever the lift is. People need to know where you want to try to go. Where do you foresee the mountains and rivers and perils of the journey? Maybe we can’t get there, but dissembling is a waste of time.

So where we are, unless Biden and the Democratic governors, legislators at all levels, step up and lead, give status updates on where we are, what we need to get there, is we’ll have to find some leaders. That means either other Democrats or third parties or whatever. But it’s going to take leadership, not just stump speeches and deafening silence when we need fireside chats with action items.

And it will be 2024 before most of the people who want a better response can build the machinery in most states. Names on the ballots, all that jazz. In most states it’s too late to do much for 2022 beyond what was already in the pipe. A few states have odd-year elections next year (Louisiana, Mississippi, plus legislative in Virginia and New Jersey, and gubernatorial in Kentucky).

The people will listen if you lead. If you just read some warmed over gibberish, we’ve heard it before. Tell it to Buncombe.

There are leaders in some organizations today doing whatever they can to help the vulnerable tied to the fucking tracks by five Repubs on the Supreme Court. (Oh, sorry, they handed the rope to the states to tie them to the tracks.) The good people are not going to stop pushing their missions. They’ll arrange transport, expand access to contraception, to anti-implantation drugs, and to medical abortion drugs. They know their missions and what they can do. But they and the folks on the tracks deserve leaders. Tell us how you want America to get to those tracks, and how we’ll cut those fucking binds and get them up. Lead your nation.

The Political Clock’s a-Tickin’

Posted in society by Adam

4 December 20212 December 2021

If the Democrats sought to build a national clock, how would the bill develop?

Note that this is satire.

The Democrats in Congress introduced legislation to build a clock. The Republicans immediately proclaimed their opposition to the clock, to clocks in general, and to the lascivious notion that time exists.

The Democrats, while working on their bill, decided the clock should beep loudly every five minutes, all hours of the day. And also at random intervals during the last week of every month. They say this would promote awareness of the fleeting nature of existence. The people didn’t like the idea, but they do want a clock.

The media initially covered how everyone agrees America needs a new clock. The polls showed people would like to know what time it is. The beeping issue didn’t get much coverage, but something else did.

The Republican media and the more extreme Republican House members started a campaign against Roman numerals. “The Pope’s in Rome, but this clock is going to be in America,” they pointed out, seeming proud to know where the Pope was headquartered. “American clocks should have American numbers!” their rallying cry went. The Democrats retreated to regular numbers, but when a caller on C-SPAN mentioned they preferred Arabic numerals anyway, the whole issue blew up again.

The media taught the controversy around the numbers on the clock. Some experts raised the question of whether analog clocks are the best way to tell time. Digital clocks were considered, but abandoned when they realized in case of a power outage or malfunction the clock would be down. “Analog is more classy, anyway, and if something goes wrong, at least it will say a time, if not the time,” the House majority leader said.

The Democrats added to their proposal that only clean energy may be used to wind it, and that the materials used in its construction must be conflict-free. The business lobby and carbon fuel lobby bristled against these new provisions. The business media and US Chamber of Commerce condemned them as a tax. They said that hardworking Americans would be late for work and would miss their daughters’ alphabet-burping recitals if the clock couldn’t be wound using carbon fuel energy. They added that the conflict-free provision would cost too much and that China would use it to corner a large part of the market, making America less competitive.

The Republicans all cheered on these calls for paring back the bill, while progressive activists clamored for stronger labor provisions. A prominent West Virginia Senator weighed in, saying he thought the clock should be wound using coal, but he was in favor of the beeping. “ ‘The people of West Virginia love a good beep. Really tingles in the ear, if you know what I mean,’ the gentleman said Thursday,” a major publication reported.

There was an op-ed by a science think-tank calling for it to be an atomic clock, which caused immediate alarm and confusion online. Half the people seemed to think it was a call for the clock to be powered by nuclear fission, and most of them didn’t like that. The other half argued about whether the clock needs to be that accurate, or whether it could be set using atomic time without being an atomic clock, per se.

A second op-ed, this one by an evangelical-type, revived the hour label issue. “Roman numerals are for Super Bowls only,” she wrote. “America’s clock should feature the English names of the hours, not some fuddy foreign symbols.”

The word-based clock mockups got passed around online, with people commenting how the words were too small or the clock face too big. There were arguments about handling the words at three and nine, lest people have to turn their heads too much to read them. Others suggested the clock itself turn to show the hour, while the minute hand moves independently. But the conservatives said this would entice Americans to idleness, creating a welfare state. “Americans can turn their heads. Look at that Regan MacNeil—turned her head with the real vigor of American exceptionalism. The younger generation is grown soft,” one conservative pundit said.

Mainstream commentators did not know what to make of the fact that Regan MacNeil was the fictitious girl possessed by the enemy in The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty, 1971). But conservatives rally to the idea, posting videos of themselves trying to twist their own heads farther and farther around. Republican media explodes with advertisements for natural extracts to help turn your head like a real American should, including one made from owl feces.

A counter-proposal for the hour labels briefly gained traction, with right-wing radio fawning at the idea that every hour to be named for a president. Noon would be Ronald Reagan, six would be Lincoln, and so on. Once it was pointed out that the clock also represents night hours, the proposal fizzled. “We can’t have Ronnie be associated with midnight—the witching hour!” said one southern Republican senator, nearly fainting and fanning himself with a hankie.

At the eleventh hour, the Democrats added a new rider to the bill, which would empower the president to declare any hour a celebration or memorial of a cause. The Republicans immediately sought to amend to allow sponsorship by corporations and religious groups instead. More, they want a declaration that the clock not be used for menstrual-related math or contraception calculations. When Democrats point out using a clock as a calendar would be stupid, one Republican countered that time is time, and a clock’s just a short-term calendar.

Not satisfied, the Republicans pushed for another change: that the clock not be used to wake people from slumber. “We got this new problem called woke and it’s weakening our nation,” a former sitcom star tweeted. “If people can wake up other than from their butler bringing them breakfast, who knows where that leads.”

The Democrats went on to pass the bill, which included several other provisions:

a prescription-drug plan that has the federal government pick up the cost of the bottle labels (paid for by a tax on pool noodles)
a copyright provision that extends any outstanding copyright by one year for every dollar paid to a political campaign
a requirement that all state official paperwork begin dotting their lowercase Is with hearts or smiley faces, or optionally hearts with smiley faces inside

The clock will be built over the next ten years, assuming funding is added every year until then. Once completed, the clock will initially operate on weekdays between noon and six pm. After the first year, service will expand to weekends and other hours of the day, budget allowing.

The Need for Legislative Experimentation

Posted in society by Adam

20 March 202112 October 2021

The long-term success of any system is in its ability to adapt through trial and error.

With the Democrats looking at the filibuster, looking at the country’s legislative needs, and looking at the henceforth reluctant Republican side of their chambers, the need for experiment by legislation endures.

The best way to find solutions to our problems involves careful study followed by trial followed by more trial to fix the problems from the previous. We need to begin to establish as a practice, as a tradition, the kind of cyclical experimentation that will drive America into the future: Try Something ↔ Evaluate Result.

That’s a system that’s stalled for too long, on any major issue. It’s a system where the Republican party too often opposes any meaningful effort, and the Democrats have their narrow approach that means if anything happens it can’t go very far.

The Democrats are being bold, and that’s certainly a great change. But sooner or later the Republicans have to get some ideas of their own. Things like college and healthcare and senior care and drugs are too expensive without real changes to regulation and approach. The Democrats want to help people pay for these things, but there’s not enough effort to make them cheaper while doing so. The Republican party doesn’t seem to be interested in making them cheaper, they just want to exclude those who can’t afford them.

This is the kind of issue that a BNP, a brand new party, perhaps a moderate-conservative party, could champion. Make college cheap by finding ways to standardize many courses, letting professors focus more on the edges than the middle. Push for more automation in nursing homes, so that there’s less grunt work and the workers can focus more on elder care than on cleaning. Push for a formula applied to drug prices, so that they can be under patent longer if they’re cheaper and shorter if they’re more expensive.

On healthcare, automation is also key. Subsidization has its place in helping ensure broad coverage, but also in targeting particular equipment and surgical methods, particularly when private insurance lags in covering them, in order to get to scale faster, to move prices down faster. If you have a new surgery that insurance won’t cover for five years, but it has better outcomes and reduces hospitalization, the government stepping in can mean quite a lot of savings.

(Better outcomes includes faster recovery, fewer drugs, more productivity… I think the military types call that a force multiplier.)

Insurers don’t want to adopt techniques and technologies too soon, when they’re still expensive. It’s not cost effective for them to do so. The initial buildout stage is something that government can do, a kind of infrastructure investment that both accelerates medicine and lowers costs.

One of the biggest failures of government is to not plan for the future in the a priori sense. If you do not know what future will come, there is still planning that can prepare you. That’s the planning of learning how to build experimentation and flexibility into the system itself. The founders understood the flexibility part. They had some experience with experiments, but today we are far more versed in the powers of evolution. We just have to build it into our systems.