The California Legislature full with Girlie Men

[Perinquus]

I never claimed the current system is perfect, but following this prescription of BS's is a cure that I think could well turn out to be worse than the disease.

Why? The current system makes it so that only the very wealthy and well-connected can possibly hope to participate. Are you seriously arguing that effectively restricting eligibility to the wealthiest 1% of the population is somehow better than restricting it to the other 99%?

Why is it indispensable for a leader to "understand" the majority of the people? Oh to a certain extent it is, I grant you. No leader who is too far out of touch with the people he leads can represent their interests well.

It appears you answered your own question, so I won't comment.

Yes, but you seem to attach far more importance to this matter than I think it strictly warrants.

But lots of great leaders in history have not been what you would call men of the people, yet they were still great leaders. Marcus Aurelius, for example, is rightly considered one of the greatest of the Roman emperors, but how well could he have "understood" a plebiean tavernkeeper or peasant farmer? George Washington was a great president, if for no other reason than that he showed immense restraint in using or keeping power at a time when it was his for the taking, but he was a wealthy planter who had never wanted for anything in his life, so how well would he have "understood" the average American of his day. Ditto for Thos. Jefferson, who was also born into wealth. Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt were both filthy rich, and yet they did very well as leaders, despite the fact that neither of them could have "understood" the common man perfectly, never having been in his economic bracket. I could think of boatloads of wealthy, priveledged men, some born to it and some self made, who were excellent leaders.

So you can think of some rich men who were good leaders, therefore it's better to restrict politics to rich men than to restrict it to the 99% of society which isn't rich?

You still haven't proven that it is so restricted, you have merely asserted it. In point of fact, there have been many U.S. Presidents who were not rich. Harry Truman was a failed haberdasher before he went into politics. He did not become especially wealthy after entering politics either. Dwight D. Eisenhower came from a poor family and lived on a soldier's pay. Ronald Reagan came from a relatively poor background. The current system certainly makes it harder to rise to the top in politics if you have no wealth, but it certainly does not make it impossible.

More to the point, how does this change the fact that the vast majority of the population has been locked out of the political process by the machinations of wealth? In some of the older democratic societies which the Founding Fathers (partially) copied, people had to give up personal wealth in order to become leaders. The term "public service" actually meant something in that context.

Which ones? Roman senators certainly didn't give up their wealth. I'm less familiar with the democracy of Athens, but I know enough about it to know it was really an oligarchy; they voting populace was only a part of the total populace, and the reason they had so much time to devote to civic affairs is that they had a large slave population to actually do the labor of maintaining their city state. And other republics, like that of Venice certainly couldn't have been the model. Venice was even more of an oligarchy than Athens was, or perhaps a plutocracy would be more accurate still, and made no attempt whatever to disguise it. Venice was governed by by a group of about 500 billionaires. The Ancien Regime of the Swiss Republic (1536 - 1798) was a loose confederacy of 13 cities and small valley communities dominating the rest of the country. A few families controlled state affairs. (Several rebellions were put down by military force: repressed aspects of history in a country so proud of it's tradition of democracy.) Prior to that was Calvin's odious theocracy, and prior to that (from1291 - 1515) was the old Swiss confederacy, but I'm not aware that its leaders ever gave up wealth in order to govern.

Of course, there are examples of the "common man" who seemed to stay very grounded in their middle class origins, and became great leaders also - Harry S. Truman is an example of this. But I still maintain that a lot of people who become wealthy do so because they possess certain admirable qualities - drive, energy, talent, determination, a good work ethic, a willingness to make sacrifices in the present for the sake of the future, and other qualities, and these same qualties often make them exactly the sort of people you most want to have running the show. To close them off from positions of leadership would be to deprive the country of a vast reservior of human capital. History is full of examples of nations that squandered their human capital and saw their fortunes suffer for it.

That's a long-winded way of arguing that rich people deserve to lead, and everyone else is inferior. I still call bullshit.

And I call strawman, since I never said anything of the kind. Please point out, if you would be so kind, where I ever suggested people who are less well off are inferior and don't deserve to lead. Find me the quote.

What I did say was that excluding wealthy people would be a bad idea. Perhaps the system could stand a thorough overhaul and reform, but adopting the particular measure of excluding the wealthy will eliminate a lot of talent from the pool from which a society draws its prosepctive leaders, and I think that would be a bad idea. I'll grant you our present system is unjust. But what would you realistically replace it with that would be any less so?

You want to exclude the wealthy? Alright, leaving aside for the moment the argument of whether or not that would be a good idea to begin with, let's say you do it. I'd venture to say that it wouldn't last. I never heard of a ruling class that didn't eventually prove it had an eye for its own advancement and profit. In every system I am aware of, the people eventually ended up ruled by the wealthiest members of the society, because wealth and power go hand in hand. Either the ruling class was drawn from the wealthy to start with, or the rulers got their hands on power and then made themselves wealthy. If our government has gradually grown more and more skewed to leadership by the wealthy, it's no more than I'd expect, being familiar with history. As Rafael Sabatini said: "The future is to be read with certainly only in the past."

To succesfully exclude wealth from the governing classes you would have to change man, not systems. If you can come up with a way to do that, go into politics yourself. I will make speeches for you, but they won't let me vote up there.

[BoredShirtless]

I never claimed the current system is perfect, but following this prescription of BS's is a cure that I think could well turn out to be worse than the disease.

What are you blabbing on about? It wasn't my idea.

[BoredShirtless]

Jeez, if Vympel can see that strawman all the way from Aussieland...YOU GOT PROBLEMS PAL!!

No, because this idea does amount to discrimination against those who acheive financial success. And when you discriminate against a certain group, you create a disincentive for that group - in this case a disincentive for people who have achieved financial success to enter politics. Successful people often bring a lot of talent with them. Here in Virginia right now, we have a self made man as governor - Mark Warner - and he's a democrat. Conservative though I am, I have to admit, he's doing a pretty good job. I certainly don't agree with everything he's doing, but he's doing enough that I'd probably vote for him if he could run for a second term. He's helping to straighten out a rather severe budget crisis we have. To do do, he is using a good deal of the business acumen that helped him achieve his wealth. Now according to your idea, he would be barred from entering politics. In his place, we might have a governor with a lot less understanding of business and finance, and therefore a lot less able to help iron out the budget. But what the hell, he'd be able to "connect" with the middle class, whatever the hell that means. So I guess we'd feel good about him and that's what's really important, isn't it?

This idea of yours would turn out to be a sterling example of the law of unintended consequences. Not every man who stays in the middle class is a mediocrity, if you think that's what I am suggesting, it is you who are making a straw man of my argument. But it is nevertheless true that a lot of people who rise to the upper class do so because of talent, determination, and hard work. Barring them from politics amounts to nothing less than closing society's leadership positions off from some of your most talented and hard working people and why anyone would think that's a good idea, I can't imagine. It smacks of resentment toward the wealthy that seems to be common among left-leaning people, who are so often in favor of socialism and other wealth redistribution schemes.

That's all very nice...in theory. In reality, most self made men and women only want to get richer and will step on people to get there; they can never have enough money. Money corrupts.

The advantage of a middle class man is that he wouldn't have experience in that kind of corruption; maybe he'd be less inclined to start? Probably not actualy. And you are also right that a self made man brings advantages to the table like drive and a hard working ethic.

I think the best idea would be to set a campaign budget maximum, say of 10 million. Even people with a personal wealth under 1 million would be able to get that kind of money [you'd think so anyway].

[Darth Wong]

I still like the solution of simply disallowing all radio/TV advertising and forcibly shortening the campaign (I mentioned that in another thread before this one, but some people didn't like that either). When people talk about $60 million advertising budgets, something's wrong with the system.

Nevertheless, the "oh well, only the super-rich can get in, I guess that's not perfect but it's good enough for me" attitude seems ridiculous. Something should ideally be done, not that I expect the powers-that-be to actually do it.

[Perinquus]

That's all very nice...in theory. In reality, most self made men and women only want to get richer and will step on people to get there; they can never have enough money.

Hasty generalization. Do you honestly have a broad enough acquaintance with self made millionaires to know what most of them will or will not do? Or are you just asserting based on your preconceptions?

Money corrupts.

So does power. Give the middle class man power and it will corrupt him no less than it does the upper class man.

The advantage of a middle class man is that he wouldn't have experience in that kind of corruption; maybe he'd be less inclined to start? Probably not actualy. And you are also right that a self made man brings advantages to the table like drive and a hard working ethic.

I think the best idea would be to set a campaign budget maximum, say of 10 million. Even people with a personal wealth under 1 million would be able to get that kind of money [you'd think so anyway].

Oh certainly there needs to be some kind of reform. The McCain/Fiengold bill not only failed to do it properly, it's unconstitutional, no matter what the SCOTUS says; it's a clear infringement of free speech. How the SCOTUS justified passing it I'll never understand. And Bush's signing it into law was something for which I think he ought to be burned in effigy.

[Darth Wong]

Oh certainly there needs to be some kind of reform. The McCain/Fiengold bill not only failed to do it properly, it's unconstitutional, no matter what the SCOTUS says; it's a clear infringement of free speech. How the SCOTUS justified passing it I'll never understand. And Bush's signing it into law was something for which I think he ought to be burned in effigy.

Oh, for fuck's sake, the Constitution NEVER guarantees you the right to completely unregulated expression. That's the same asinine rebuttal raised against the "no TV/radio ads" idea, and it doesn't wash. The government does have the right to restrict the manner of expression.

[Darth Wong]

Hasty generalization. Do you honestly have a broad enough acquaintance with self made millionaires to know what most of them will or will not do? Or are you just asserting based on your preconceptions?

How many successful businessmen have you known? How many corporate ladder-climbers have you known? People with that much ambition and drive are almost always snakes. They are successful precisely because they are single-minded in their pursuit of wealth, and because they are willing to fuck people over for money.

You talk about the positive attributes which you imagine to apply to ALL rich people, but you don't talk about the negative sides of those same attributes. Yes, my uncle was a self-made millionaire. Yes, he was ambitious. Yes, he had drive. He was also a ruthless prick, who could smile and shake your hand but stick a knife in your back if it served his business interests. Same goes for every really successful businessman, and not just because of a personal conception, but because if you aren't like that, somebody who is like that will beat you, and you won't be a successful businessman any more.

[Perinquus]

Oh certainly there needs to be some kind of reform. The McCain/Fiengold bill not only failed to do it properly, it's unconstitutional, no matter what the SCOTUS says; it's a clear infringement of free speech. How the SCOTUS justified passing it I'll never understand. And Bush's signing it into law was something for which I think he ought to be burned in effigy.

Oh, for fuck's sake, the Constitution NEVER guarantees you the right to completely unregulated expression. That's the same asinine rebuttal raised against the "no TV/radio ads" idea, and it doesn't wash. The government does have the right to restrict the manner of expression.

Sorry, but how does restricting the right of people to speak out on matters of politics before the election not violate the 1st amendment? The kind of speech the Constitution does restrict is the kind that presents a "clear and present danger". In several cases, such as Schenk v United States, Debs v United States, Abrams v United States, and Gitlow v New York, thus justification for abridging freedom of speech was that it was "clear and present danger. In other words, the court ruled in each case that free speech is potected unless the following conditions are met: 1) the speaker's specific intent in uttering the speech is to cause an unlawful injury, 2) the injury in fact occurs as a proximate result of the speech, and 3) the speaker, through his or her speech, overwhelmed (i.e., controlled) the will of the listener. Now tell me how taking an ad out in the newspaper for or against a candidate, 10 days before an election takes place meets any of these three criteria? It doesn't. But McCain/Feingold makes it illegal. Sorry, but that abridges freedom of speech. And freedom of speech, especially about what our elected leaders are up to, is exactly the kind of speech that the 1st amendment was enacted to protect.

[Darth Wong]

Oh certainly there needs to be some kind of reform. The McCain/Fiengold bill not only failed to do it properly, it's unconstitutional, no matter what the SCOTUS says; it's a clear infringement of free speech. How the SCOTUS justified passing it I'll never understand. And Bush's signing it into law was something for which I think he ought to be burned in effigy.

Oh, for fuck's sake, the Constitution NEVER guarantees you the right to completely unregulated expression. That's the same asinine rebuttal raised against the "no TV/radio ads" idea, and it doesn't wash. The government does have the right to restrict the manner of expression.

Sorry, but how does restricting the right of people to speak out on matters of politics before the election not violate the 1st amendment? The kind of speech the Constitution does restrict is the kind that presents a "clear and present danger". In several cases, such as Schenk v United States, Debs v United States, Abrams v United States, and Gitlow v New York, thus justification for abridging freedom of speech was that it was "clear and present danger. In other words, the court ruled in each case that free speech is potected unless the following conditions are met: 1) the speaker's specific intent in uttering the speech is to cause an unlawful injury, 2) the injury in fact occurs as a proximate result of the speech, and 3) the speaker, through his or her speech, overwhelmed (i.e., controlled) the will of the listener. Now tell me how taking an ad out in the newspaper for or against a candidate, 10 days before an election takes place meets any of these three criteria? It doesn't. But McCain/Feingold makes it illegal. Sorry, but that abridges freedom of speech. And freedom of speech, especially about what our elected leaders are up to, is exactly the kind of speech that the 1st amendment was enacted to protect.

Learn to read. Those conditions are on SILENCING you, not merely regulating the time and place where you may speak. The government can do that without meeting these requirements. The FCC is an excellent example of this fact.

[Perinquus]

Hasty generalization. Do you honestly have a broad enough acquaintance with self made millionaires to know what most of them will or will not do? Or are you just asserting based on your preconceptions?

How many successful businessmen have you known? How many corporate ladder-climbers have you known? People with that much ambition and drive are almost always snakes. They are successful precisely because they are single-minded in their pursuit of wealth, and because they are willing to fuck people over for money.

Prove that. You asserted that they get where they are through luck and help from others. You are now asserting that they get where they are because they fuck people over for money. You're making the assertions here. I am merely pointing out that they are not backed by evidence. The burden of proof isn't on me Mike.

You talk about the positive attributes which you imagine to apply to ALL rich people, but you don't talk about the negative sides of those same attributes. Yes, my uncle was a self-made millionaire. Yes, he was ambitious. Yes, he had drive. He was also a ruthless prick, who could smile and shake your hand but stick a knife in your back if it served his business interests. Same goes for every really successful businessman, and not just because of a personal conception, but because if you aren't like that, somebody who is like that will beat you, and you won't be a successful businessman any more.

Again, an assertion without proof. Or rather, the only proof is an anecdotal example. And you yourself pointed out the unreliability of anecdotal evidence in an earlier post on this thread. I'm well aware of the negative aspects of many self made men. But to assert that all self made men are like that, especially absent any solid evidence, is nothing more than a hasty generalization fallacy. My God Mike, you have devoted an entire section of your website to the many fallacies people employ. I'm surprised to find you willing to employ one so openly.

[Perinquus]

Learn to read. Those conditions are on SILENCING you, not merely regulating the time and place where you may speak. The government can do that without meeting these requirements. The FCC is an excellent example of this fact.

Even that's not so clear cut. Or else why do you think that so many anti-obscenity ordinances have been successfully opposed on the grounds of violation of the first amendment? The FCC regulates speech it considers obscene on the public airwaves, and local ordinances regulate it in public places, but historically, this has always been one of the gray areas of the law. And you'll seldom find two jurists or legislators who agree on it.

And freedom of speech on political matters was perhaps the primary area in which the founding fathers were concerned to protect free speech.

[Darth Wong]

Prove that. You asserted that they get where they are through luck and help from others. You are now asserting that they get where they are because they fuck people over for money. You're making the assertions here. I am merely pointing out that they are not backed by evidence. The burden of proof isn't on me Mike.

Logic does not suffice? Business is not moral; it is ruthless by nature. It stands to REASON (you know, that thing you keep ignoring in your pedantic "I'm right unless you can present proof of a phenomenon in which no real studies have been done" bullshit) that therefore, successful businessmen must also conduct themselves without normal human ethics in their business dealings.

Again, an assertion without proof. Or rather, the only proof is an anecdotal example.

Wrong, I pointed out the logic behind the argument, and you ignored it.

And you yourself pointed out the unreliability of anecdotal evidence in an earlier post on this thread.

Strawman fallacy. Grow up.

I'm well aware of the negative aspects of many self made men. But to assert that all self made men are like that, especially absent any solid evidence, is nothing more than a hasty generalization fallacy.

No generalization is EVER perfect when it comes to human beings, so don't waste my time by being a pedant.

My God Mike, you have devoted an entire section of your website to the many fallacies people employ. I'm surprised to find you willing to employ one so openly.

Your strawman bullshit is a waste of breath; you state (without evidence, based on reasoning) that all self-made wealthy men have superior drive and work ethic, then you turn around and deny that I can make similar logical conclusions based on the necessities of the business environment unless I present some kind of statistical evidence to prove the conclusion of the logic. What school of knee-jerk right-wing bullfuckery do you subscribe to, exactly? The Hannity PhD diploma mill?

[Darth Wong]

Even that's not so clear cut. Or else why do you think that so many anti-obscenity ordinances have been successfully opposed on the grounds of violation of the first amendment?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

The FCC has not had its anti-obscenity rulings challenged on first amendment grounds.

The FCC regulates speech it considers obscene on the public airwaves, and local ordinances regulate it in public places, but historically, this has always been one of the gray areas of the law. And you'll seldom find two jurists or legislators who agree on it.

A legitimat First Amendment challenge to the FCC would be news to Howard Stern, I'm sure.

And freedom of speech on political matters was perhaps the primary area in which the founding fathers were concerned to protect free speech.

Yes, but guess what: it's possible to communicate without radio/TV. People have been doing that for, oh, THOUSANDS OF FUCKING YEARS.

[Howedar]

If one is really so addicted to the idea of TV/radio advertisements, I suppose one could conjure up a magical completely nonpartisan agency to put out PSAs about what a candidate's basic issues are, where he/she stands on relevant current events, and so forth.

[Perinquus]

Even that's not so clear cut. Or else why do you think that so many anti-obscenity ordinances have been successfully opposed on the grounds of violation of the first amendment?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!

The FCC has not had its anti-obscenity rulings challenged on first amendment grounds.

Oh really? I refer you to Miller v. California. I grant you this did not concern the FCC, but so what? It concerns the ability of the government to regulate material on the groundsof obscenity, and that ecompasses the FCC's powers. This case established the guidelines by which the FCC and other local agencies must operate on this subject. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court established a three-pronged test for obscenity prohibitions which would not violate the First Amendment:

(a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

The Communications Decency Act was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 1997. And 20 U.S.C. 951 pertaining to the National Endowment for the Arts, was a bit of legislation that was struck down as unconstitutional by lower courts but was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1998 in NEA v. Finley

The FCC regulates speech it considers obscene on the public airwaves, and local ordinances regulate it in public places, but historically, this has always been one of the gray areas of the law. And you'll seldom find two jurists or legislators who agree on it.

A legitimat First Amendment challenge to the FCC would be news to Howard Stern, I'm sure.

And freedom of speech on political matters was perhaps the primary area in which the founding fathers were concerned to protect free speech.

Yes, but guess what: it's possible to communicate without radio/TV. People have been doing that for, oh, THOUSANDS OF FUCKING YEARS.

So what? The fact that a technology did or did not exist at the time the Constitution was written has never been a litmus test as to whether or not the government has the power to regulate it.

[Perinquus]

Prove that. You asserted that they get where they are through luck and help from others. You are now asserting that they get where they are because they fuck people over for money. You're making the assertions here. I am merely pointing out that they are not backed by evidence. The burden of proof isn't on me Mike.

Logic does not suffice? Business is not moral; it is ruthless by nature. It stands to REASON (you know, that thing you keep ignoring in your pedantic "I'm right unless you can present proof of a phenomenon in which no real studies have been done" bullshit) that therefore, successful businessmen must also conduct themselves without normal human ethics in their business dealings.

Again, an assertion without proof. Or rather, the only proof is an anecdotal example.

Wrong, I pointed out the logic behind the argument, and you ignored it.

And you yourself pointed out the unreliability of anecdotal evidence in an earlier post on this thread.

Strawman fallacy. Grow up.

I'm well aware of the negative aspects of many self made men. But to assert that all self made men are like that, especially absent any solid evidence, is nothing more than a hasty generalization fallacy.

No generalization is EVER perfect when it comes to human beings, so don't waste my time by being a pedant.

My God Mike, you have devoted an entire section of your website to the many fallacies people employ. I'm surprised to find you willing to employ one so openly.

Your strawman bullshit is a waste of breath; you state (without evidence, based on reasoning) that all self-made wealthy men have superior drive and work ethic, then you turn around and deny that I can make similar logical conclusions based on the necessities of the business environment unless I present some kind of statistical evidence to prove the conclusion of the logic. What school of knee-jerk right-wing bullfuckery do you subscribe to, exactly? The Hannity PhD diploma mill?

You know, even if I admit, for the sake of argument, that you are completely correct, and that no self made made ever lived who did not obtain his wealth by being unscrupulous in his dealings with others, it would still not mean you have a good case for eliminating wealthy people from government. In fact, since politics is seemingly every bit as dog eat dog and amoral as business (see Machiavelli's "The Prince" long held to be the instruction manual for politics), the self made man's ability to make decisions without scruple might be a positve advantage in this field. A ruthless nature, far from being a disqualifier for political power, might very well be a tremendous asset for it.

In any case, your assertion still oversimplifies things. You seem to suggest that all self made men are selfish bastards, and therefore ought to be disqualified from leadership because they can't identify with the common man. Just because a man may be a self made man, and therefore to a certain degree ruthless and unscrupulous, you still have not proven that such men lack all empathy for people less well off. Many self made men, even if they have been cutthroat in their business practices, have also been notable philanthropists in other ways. People are not so black and white.

And there's the issue of costs to benefits. If we accept that on the one hand, self made men have a lot of qualities, such as drive and a hardworking nature, that are assets in a leader; and on the other hand they also have a lot of negative assets, such as ruthlessness and a willingness to be unjust, there is still the question of whether the cost removing their talents from the pool of available leaders will outweigh the benefits of removing their vices - especially given that there is no reason to believe that middle or lower class men will not be just as susceptible to the corrupting influence of wealth and power as the upper class men are.

[Perinquus]

Oops. In one sentence in the post above, I meant to say negative aspects, not negative assets. Wish this forum had an edit option.