Fixing the Two Party System

[Severian]

All term limits actually do is put the staff in charge instead of the elected officials. People in favor of them are just plain ignorant.

elaborate

[cthulhu]

Being a government minister is a real job that is very difficult, and is often thrust on people after a completely unrelated career up to that point. You have a massive and difficult to manage bureaucracy that reports to you, and they know they will still be there long after you are politically dead.

Also, they also know and understand far, far more about the problems confronting them and it takes dedication and hard-work to get the same level of understanding after 2-3 years in the job, if you are a minister.

So if you're doing 6 year term limits or whatever, 50% of the time the government will be functioning at the direction of people that have no fucking idea what is going on and they will have to increase their reliance on ministerial staffers to have any hope of coping.

[Severian]

hmm. Fair point, actually.

[cthulhu]

It's a really big problem, partly offset by the fact that the average government minister is smart and works really hard. But read the Australian National Audit Office report about the green loans scheme to see how an inexperienced minister (Peter Garrett) can be fucked by his Department, and he really got fucked, the Department was actively lying to him.

Edit: Yes Minister isn't really that far from the truth. The star is unusually incompetent, but the Secretary of the Department has 30 years in the field under his belt and the Minister he reports to... doesn't.

[Username17]

This seems like a good place to use a simple model for people to relate to. Let's say you work in an office. You have some sort of goals and operating procedures, and an internal hierarchy and shit like that. Now, a new boss comes in. What happens?

To start off, people get worried that the new boss will change shit, but the office's goals, work culture, and internal hierarchy do not magically change over night. The people are th same people and they will keep doing their jobs as they understand them in the manner they are used to doing them. The new boss needs to work against some serious bureaucratic inertia to change anything, and likely needs to be trained by the people he is supposed to be managing.

Now let's expand this example. We have a new boss, only he definitely isn't brought in to represent higherups in the company and has no experience in this job at other firms. Plus, he's not even up for performance reviews, he's straight up guaranteed to be out on his ass in some specific amount of time no matter what he does. So now, not only is there great bureaucratic inertia to doing anything he wants, but all the workers in the office have no reason to respect him and all they have to do is keep their heads down and ignore him and he'll go away.

The government isn't 100 senators, it's an entire machine that involves people who read, interpret, and enforce the legislation that exists as well as people who research, draft, and produce compromise versions and so on to make new legislation. Each senator is the executive of an office, but that office has an average staff of 34 other people in it. The office then has considerable inertia even when senators change, and the only realistic way it can change is for the party to go hire a bunch of people to fill the shoes of everyone in the office. It takes quite a while for a senator to make a personal mark on the office. The House of Representatives is even worse, because people only stay in office for 2 years before standing for election again, and a lot of that has to be spent campaigning for the next election.

So if you take away the possibility of someone staying in office, you've basically reduced them to a rubber stamp of their party's goals. And that's in the legislative branch, where the office holder's actual Yes or No votes actually matter. In the executive branch it would be even more ridiculous. What with the fact that the parties can't even realistically expect to bring in new prosecuting attorneys and water treatment operators at a moment's notice.

-Username17

[sabs]

Presidents have a term limit and people don't keep heir heads down and wait for the president to go away in 8 years tops.

[RobbyPants]

That's how the system was designed: to be inherently inefficient.

[Username17]

Presidents have a term limit and people don't keep heir heads down and wait for the president to go away in 8 years tops.

Presidents have the ability to declare war. That being said, while Bush did fire 9 federal prosecutors for political reasons, that was out of a total of 93 US Attorneys. And it was a scandal because it was illegal. Bush was actively hostile to the EPA, and while he managed to weaken it, the damn thing kept plugging along through 8 years of his presidency. The FDA too.

Now to an extent this is a good thing. The government should have some controls on the demands of inexperienced "deciders" coming in and changing everything. But that's the justification and the actual direct consequence of having technocrats who don't get new jobs when the election circus comes to town. Which is fine, except that is literally the opposite of what term limits proponents say that they want.

The purpose of term limits is supposedly to throw the bums out and start fresh with fresh ideas and shit. But the reality is that the people it actually strengthens are the unelected technocrats who stay in their positions for decades instead of years. Which means that it is a demonstrably failed policy. Not because it doesn't have an effect, but because the effect its proponents say they want is not the effect it has.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

All term limits actually do is put the staff in charge instead of the elected officials. People in favor of them are just plain ignorant.

elaborate

Find and watch the first episode of Yes, Minister.

[sabs]

I don't so much want term limits, as I was a retirement age.

I'm tired of 85 year old Senators who can barely wipe their own ass getting elected over and over again.

[cthulhu]

Presidents have a term limit and people don't keep heir heads down and wait for the president to go away in 8 years tops.

I'm from Australia, but yeah, pretty much they do. I mean, to an extent no, but I have had meetings with this as a direct quote:

"Yeah, we don't want to do that as we'll just have to change it back after the next election"

The difference is that the government is generally split into two sorts of agencies. You have policy agencies that are small with an 'elite' workforce, and line agencies that are massive service delivery machines to crank out government payments and services. Most of the news about government agencies is about policy agencies, and policy agencies are much closer to the government, and have much less inertia as they don't have the workforce or ICT systems that line agencies do.

They are also the focus of political agendas from politicians.

However, the overwhelming majority of the government is actually employed in line agencies. In australia, Defence, the Tax Office and Centrelink (Welfare Agency) spend more money on ICT than the rest of the government combined. Their workforce is larger than the rest of the government combined. They spend more money than the rest of the government combined and handle more payments than everyone else. They are HUGE.

Another example - Centrelink in Australia has more mainframe capacity than every bank and financial services company in Australia combined.

It cannot be overstated how big these guys are. They are fucking massive.

The line agencies are massive delivery machines that cannot change direction in a four year election cycle, changing direction means a new ICT system and that is going to because cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take 4 years minimum to deliver. They are much more prone to the 'bunker down and wait for it go away' mentality, and realistically for them it makes sense. Any attempt to reform these agencies is a multi term effort that will cost billions of dollars, is really hard going and has few political benefits - no-one is intrested in a massive change program with few tangible benefits.

Most of the time someone comes in with big new ideas, gets told the implementation price tag and goes "What the fuck? Really? 900 million dollars? You've got to be joking? You're not?" and then does one of the following two things

A) Scraps the idea (Most of the time)

B) Says "Pfft, what do you know, that should only cost.. ooh.. 150 million dollars" and then is surprised when the final budget comes out at 900 million dollars, then blames the public sector for being inefficient. (Quoting an actual example here)

I don't so much want term limits, as I was a retirement age.

I'm tired of 85 year old Senators who can barely wipe their own ass getting elected over and over again.

Yeah, we have it for judges. Makes sense.

[tzor]

I've never met a tea partier that didn't support an autocratic government based on christian mythology.

Bullshit count, you know we met on several Gen Con's.

In fact, by definition the tea party and autocratic government are on the exact opposites. Tea partiers oppose Obama for his autocratic (alleged) use of Presidental power.

Honestly, now, is it because of his use of presidential power or is it because of his use of presidential power?

In one sense both. There is a massive opposition against the executive order and the use of combination of executive department regulations to accomplish what should be done through the legislature. In the most extreeme case it can be seen in the complaining about the First Lady talking to resturants to get them to change their menus.

The best example is in the President's environmental department to create a cap and trade in spite of the fact that congress refused to touch the issue and his threats to veto any attempt to stop them from doing this, even though they have no legislative mandate whatsoever on the subject.

Honestly, I think if the President were to use evecutive orders to massively reduce spending or lower taxes after seeing congress not do likewise, most members of the Tea Party would shit their pants and go into a six month period of comotose shock.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Bullshit count, you know we met on several Gen Con's.

In fact, by definition the tea party and autocratic government are on the exact opposites. Tea partiers oppose Obama for his autocratic (alleged) use of Presidental power.

Honestly, now, is it because of his use of presidential power or is it because of his use of presidential power?

In one sense both. There is a massive opposition against the executive order and the use of combination of executive department regulations to accomplish what should be done through the legislature. In the most extreeme case it can be seen in the complaining about the First Lady talking to resturants to get them to change their menus.

The First Lady isn't Obama's slave, so let's give her credit for her own actions. Regardless, there's no 'presidential power to change menus' which she is abusing.

The best example is in the President's environmental department to create a cap and trade in spite of the fact that congress refused to touch the issue and his threats to veto any attempt to stop them from doing this, even though they have no legislative mandate whatsoever on the subject.

The President flip-flopped and is now backing a 'bipartisan approach to climate change' (whatever that means) instead of cap & trade (the 'free market approach').

And the veto ultimatum pertains only to stripping the EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gasses. That sort of thing is basically why we have a President.

[tzor]

The First Lady isn't Obama's slave, so let's give her credit for her own actions. Regardless, there's no 'presidential power to change menus' which she is abusing.

I'm just giving the talking points of the Tea Party people; I'm not even trying to defend them.

The President flip-flopped and is now backing a 'bipartisan approach to climate change' (whatever that means) instead of cap & trade (the 'free market approach').

The president LIES, in fact he does so all the time. Actions, speak louder than words and currently there is no excutive order plans to prevent the department from ever implementing such regulations (after all, they have a SCOTUS rulling - the Dread Scott Decision of Atmosphere - that allows them to do this).

We have seen the years of OBama "Bipartisan" approaches. They all eventually wind up with "surrender to me and then it's all bipartisian."

And the veto ultimatum pertains only to stripping the EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gasses. That sort of thing is basically why we have a President.

I'm sorry, but I don't find the ability to declare all living beings a defacto threat to all living beings anywhere in the President's enumerated powers in the constitution. What's next, fucking water? (You know H2O is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2.) What's next, the forced dehydration of all citizens?

The EPA has the authority to regulate polution. To consider the greenhouse gasses polution is the height of liberal progressive insanity. Arrest the whole fucking earth, see if I fucking care. I will only insist on equal treatment under the law.

[sabs]

You do know that "Surrender to me and we'll call that Bipartisanship" is what the Republicans have been doing since Obama was elected (even before he took the oath of office).

All Presidents LIE. All Presidents tell the people what they want to hear, while doing what they think needs done. Where was your outrage when Bush stood before the US and told us that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, and that they were going to sell weapons of mass destruction to every terrorist cell in the world.

[Username17]

Tzor's alarmism to the contrary, people fart sulfur, but sulfur is still a pollutant, and the EPA has been regulating it with a Cap-n-Trade system, quite successfully, for almost two decades. The fact that humans excrete Carbon Dioxide as a toxic byproduct of their metabolism doesn't make it safe, nor does it make the regulation of pump tonnes of the stuff into the atmosphere into an unreasonable thing to do.

-Username17

[tzor]

There you go again ...

Let's establish a few points of fact. Sulfur emissions from my but does not contribute to acid rain. PERIOD. It is therefore not a polutant. More importantly, my personal source is last on the list of all sources. I auppose once you arrested everyone in the world you can arrest me for farting.

CO2 on the other hand is not a polutant. You can bash your head against the wall all you want but all you get is a bloody head and the lack of an ability to think clearly. CO2 is released in far larget qunatities by natural pocesses within the earth than by the releases of man. (I suggest putting the oceans under lock and key ... those massive emitters of CO2.)

[Username17]

Let's establish a few points of fact. Sulfur emissions from my but does not contribute to acid rain. PERIOD. It is therefore not a polutant. More importantly, my personal source is last on the list of all sources. I auppose once you arrested everyone in the world you can arrest me for farting.

Wait... so you're saying that the Poza Rica Hydrogen Sulfide Disaster didn't happen? Were those 22 dead people and 320 hospitalized people just imaginary?

CO2 on the other hand is not a polutant.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Seriously, what do you think it means for something to be a pollutant? Do you think that Insulin isn't a poison just because you need it to live?

There's a lethal dose for Carbon Dioxide. It's pretty small. If the atmosphere was more than 3% Carbon Dioxide, we'd all die. The fact that it shows up in the atmosphere naturally at some level doesn't make it magically OK for it to be put into the atmosphere at a higher level. Almost all pollutants have safe levels, that's why we have "safe levels" for these chemicals. Pollutants that have no safe levels (like asbestos) we simply ban outright.

But no one is suggesting banning Carbon Dioxide. The suggestion is to limit Carbon Dioxide. Because like most other gases, there are amounts of it that are not safe.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I've never met a tea partier that didn't support an autocratic government based on christian mythology.

Bullshit count, you know we met on several Gen Con's.

I didn't say that tea partiers couldn't be stand-up guys, to be fair.

Also to be fair, my experience with tea partiers tend to be influenced by the rallies they have on the town square every year. You gotta understand, the Klan shows up in full regalia to our tea party rallies in support of the type of anarcho-capitalism that the tea party claims to represent. I used to have a flier from the aryan brotherhood that someone handed me at one.

That is going to influence my opinion of the Tea Party more than any words you might say, Tzor. It is honestly nothing personal, I forgive a lot of things you say because as someone born into wealth, you don't have any more clue as what it's like to be born in the ghetto any more than I understand how one could make $15k a year and still bitch about not having enough money.

[tzor]

Just a minor nit pick, I wasn't "born into wealth." My father was a WWII veteran (Ex-POW - DAV) who upgraded his middle class job at the Long Island Ice and Fuel Company to the water cooling systems of the synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory. I never knew the ghetto, but I wasn't "born into wealth" either.

[tzor]

Wait... so you're saying that the Poza Rica Hydrogen Sulfide Disaster didn't happen? Were those 22 dead people and 320 hospitalized people just imaginary?

Frank, only you can pull a bullshit argument like this. Do you even know the reason why apples and oranges cannot be compared?

(No really ... H2O is perfectly safe for humans. Except of ourse when I freeze it and shove it right into Frank's chest, piercing his heart in the process. Then it might be a tad fatal.)

You are talking about a incident of concentrated hydrogen sulfide from a gas treatment plant, not an emission from a coal fired plant.

Though concentrations of hydrogen sulfide in urban areas may occasionally be as high as 0.050 mg/m3 (0.033 ppm) with averaging times of 30 min-1 h, they are generally (below 0.0015 mg/m3 (0.001 ppm). Peak concentrations as high as 0.20 mg/m3 (0.13 ppm) have been reported in the neighbourhood of point sources. In a geothermal area, 1-h mean concentrations of up to 2 mg/m3 (1.4 ppm) have been observed. When hydrogen sulfide was accidentally released in an incident in Poza Rica, Mexico, in 1950, the number of deaths that followed indicated that exposure levels probably exceeded 1500-3000 mg/m3 (1000-2000 ppm).Though concentrations of hydrogen sulfide in urban areas may occasionally be as high as 0.050 mg/m3 (0.033 ppm) with averaging times of 30 min-1 h, they are generally (below 0.0015 mg/m3 (0.001 ppm). Peak concentrations as high as 0.20 mg/m3 (0.13 ppm) have been reported in the neighbourhood of point sources. In a geothermal area, 1-h mean concentrations of up to 2 mg/m3 (1.4 ppm) have been observed. When hydrogen sulfide was accidentally released in an incident in Poza Rica, Mexico, in 1950, the number of deaths that followed indicated that exposure levels probably exceeded 1500-3000 mg/m3 (1000-2000 ppm).

(Yes that's a factor of 10,000 from peak concentrations in neighborhoods and point sources (1,000 from geothermal areas) and the incident in Roza Rica, Mexico.)

EVERYTHING IS DEADLY IN ENOUGH QUANTITIES. EVEN WATER. ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING THAT THE EPA HAS THE AUTHORITY TO REGULATE THE ENTIRE FUCKING UNIVERSE?

Because you can die from too much water, we are limiting the size of your water bottle from 6 ounces to 5 ounces. Really, Frank said we could do this.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Just a minor nit pick, I wasn't "born into wealth." My father was a WWII veteran (Ex-POW - DAV) who upgraded his middle class job at the Long Island Ice and Fuel Company to the water cooling systems of the synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory. I never knew the ghetto, but I wasn't "born into wealth" either.

I guess that's fair enough, but middle class is still "wealth beyond my imagination".

[CatharzGodfoot]

EVERYTHING IS DEADLY IN ENOUGH QUANTITIES. EVEN WATER. ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING THAT THE EPA HAS THE AUTHORITY TO REGULATE THE ENTIRE FUCKING UNIVERSE?

That's certainly what you seemed to be implying when you worried that Obama would make the EPA regulate water. Which, by the way, they do (though not as a pollutant).

[violence in the media]

EVERYTHING IS DEADLY IN ENOUGH QUANTITIES. EVEN WATER. ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING THAT THE EPA HAS THE AUTHORITY TO REGULATE THE ENTIRE FUCKING UNIVERSE?

Fucking christ, Tzor. I hope someone is regulating the goddamn water. I don't want any band of corner-cutting dipshits to be able to come along and legally dump whatever the fuck they want in the water supply.

[RobbyPants]

EVERYTHING IS DEADLY IN ENOUGH QUANTITIES. EVEN WATER. ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING THAT THE EPA HAS THE AUTHORITY TO REGULATE THE ENTIRE FUCKING UNIVERSE?

Because you can die from too much water, we are limiting the size of your water bottle from 6 ounces to 5 ounces. Really, Frank said we could do this.

Frank's talking about regulating things that we do not want in excess in our air or water. The difference here, Tzor, is that we're not worried about getting too much water in our atmosphere, or too much water in our water. That's an intellectually dishonest comparison, and I think you know it.