Amendments: Election Reform

I like to start these articles by identifying problems, but when it comes to elections, it's such a list!

• Congress with single-digit approval ratings and 90%+ re-election rates
• Entrenched political class
• No response to the desires of the people as a whole
• Winner-take-all electoral vote distribution
• Disenfranchises the minority in the state, who have no effect on the election outcome
• Heavily-gerrymandered single-winner congressional districts
• Again, disenfranchises the minority, who get no representation
• Since the minority party has no effect, candidates pander to the extreme of the majority party
• High barriers to ballot access
•  Locked-in two-party system with no chance of competition (and thus improvement!)
• Ballot design gives advantages to some candidates
• Order has an effect on odds of winning
• Party recognition on ballot further entrenches party-based politics
• No paper trail
• Reduces voter confidence in the system
• Can't effectively recount votes
• Dominance of money in elections
• Distorts system; some people have more influence than others

 Let's address the ballot issues first, as they're relatively straightforward.

1) All votes cast in elections for offices federal, state, or local, shall be recorded in a written, durable form readable by a healthy human without mechanical assistance. This record shall be presented to the voter for verification before the vote is cast, whereupon that voter shall have the option to recast their vote. The federal government shall define standards for this process, and fund the acquisition of necessary equipment.

2) Ballots shall not indicate the party affiliation of any candidate.

3) In the event that voters are presented with a ballot listing the names of candidates, the order of those names shall be randomized on each ballot.

4) In no case shall the signatures of more than 100 registered voters be required for a candidate to be listed on the ballot for any election, nor shall fees be charged for such listing.

I believe the emphasis on how Presidential elections operate is unfortunate, as there are tens of thousands of other elections in this country every year, all of which have very similar problems. However, any list of proposed amendments for the people to consider would be incomplete without one eliminating the electoral college.

5a) The President shall be elected by popular vote. The electoral college is nullified.

If not that, I'd suggest an alternative:

5b) The electoral votes of each state shall be distributed proportionally to each candidate according to the popular vote within that state.

Nor would the list be complete without mention of term limits. Incumbents clearly have tremendous advantage when seeking reelection, meaning the election is not a level playing field. However, we also are not well-served to throw out years of governing experience without hope of recovery. There are a few possible approaches to this, which I list in order of my increasing preference:

6a) No person shall hold the office of Senator more than twice, or of Representative more than six times.

6b) States shall have the right to set term limits for their Representatives or Senators.

6c) No person shall hold the office of Senator, Representative, or President twice in succession, but may otherwise serve as many times as elected.

Now, the fun ones! 

Gerrymandering is essentially a problem of incentives. There is an inherent conflict of interest, with power on one hand, and fairness of elections on the other. Power always wins. This leads to single-party districts, causing candidates in those districts to pander to the extreme wing of the majority party, effectively disenfranchising the minority party.

If you let politicians redraw their own districts, then obviously they'll use that power to benefit themselves. The only solution is to take that power away.

7) All electoral districts shall be drawn by a politically-neutral group of at least five people, none of whom are elected officials. This body shall be politically neutral. The states shall have the power to define the selection process for this group.

Personally, I'm a big fan of multi-member districts and proportional representation, which could eliminate gerrymandering concerns entirely. I would hold that use of such is something that's best decided on a state level. However, states presently do not have that option. Federal law prevents states from having multi-member districts.

8) States shall have the right to determine whether to use single-member or multi-member House districts, so long as each voter's weight is approximately equal.

I also hold that states should have more control over their legislators.

9) States shall have the right to hold recall elections for their Representatives or Senators, and to determine processes to fill vacancies between elections.

The influence of money over our elections is undeniable, and undeniably undemocratic. The very idea that one person or group should be able to influence the outcome of an election more than another, simply because one of them has more money than the other, is an indisputable distortion of how any democracy should work. And with the Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court has gutted what few restrictions there were on the problem. Either Congress should have the power to regulate campaign contributions, or election campaigns should be publicly funded. See Move to Amend for more.

10a) Congress shall have the power to regulate donations and spending on federal election campaigns. The states shall have such power over election campaigns for all other offices.

10b) All elections shall be publicly funded; spending private money on an election, unless that money is equally shared among all candidates for that office, shall be forbidden by law.

Finally, and most fundamentally, the entire concept of plurality voting is flawed. If there are more than two candidates, you get vote-splitting, which throws the election to an unpopular candidate. That's ultimately why we have a two-party system, and why we have primaries and runoffs. There is no law that says plurality voting must be used. Nobody ever chose it as the best voting system; we simply use it because we always have. Switching to approval voting would be cheaper, simpler, more democratic, and give vastly better results in every measurable way.

(While there are other voting systems to choose from, the only one that could be argued to be better than approval voting is range voting, and it's far more complicated and expensive to implement. IRV is more commonly suggested, but harder to implement, more complex to execute, and technically inferior on a number of counts. IRV isn't even monotone!)

11) All public elections at any level of government shall be held using approval voting.

Amendments: Self-Defense Rights

Self defense is also a fundamental right, even more so than property rights. What weapons one may have to assist in that defense is a subject of much debate, and many contradictory court rulings. Much of this argument is about the exact wording of the constitution. I suggest that instead of arguing about what the constitution means now, we instead determine what it would be best for it to say. So put the second amendment aside, and start from first principles.

Much of the function of government is to handle situations where two individuals' interests conflict. Let's make up an extreme situation: say I have an interest in having a weapon that would let me blow up the sun with no effort. (I don't, just for the record.) But my neighbor also has an interest in me not having such a weapon, because it makes me a threat to him. Our interests are in conflict, so government balancing those interests is appropriate. And given that one person having that much power totally destabilizes the entirety of civilization, I'd say they'd be right to come down against my interests entirely. So we can conclude that it is right for us to allow government to keep people from having weapons of infinite power.

On the other hand, I have fists. (On both hands, if I'm so inclined.) My neighbor would be safer if I didn't. But obviously you can't go around cutting everyone's hands off, because (shockingly) that actually makes everyone less safe. So it is not correct for us to allow government to regulate all possible weapons.

Somewhere between fists and nova bombs is a balance point. So how do we identify that point? At what point does a weapon's nature as a threat to my neighbor (all three hundred million of them) outweigh its value to me for self defense, or for whatever other purpose I may have in mind?

I would say we can divide weapons into three classes. Please note that I am proposing this scheme as a suggestion, and not saying that I definitely believe that each weapon I list in a class must belong there. I'm trying to start a conversation, not hand down wisdom from on high!

A) Trivial weapons. These are weapons that the government can not and should not try to regulate, if only because the side-effects of trying would be absurd. Things like fists, rocks, sticks, most knives, maybe  swords, possibly some guns.
B) Peaceful-use weapons. These are weapons that can be used to kill in small numbers, but have other legitimate uses, like hunting, sport, or self-defense. They may be regulated in some way, but should not be outlawed or made overly onerous to own. Things like shotguns, hunting rifles, swords, possibly small explosives.
C) Killing weapons. These are weapons which can kill large numbers of people easily, and have very limited application otherwise. As we do not live in a society where one's ability to kill large numbers of people quickly is of any significant benefit to law-abiding citizens, these weapons definitely should be regulated, and possibly outlawed entirely. These include automatic rifles, high-capacity magazines, and large explosives.

If we accept this scheme, the next step is to define which weapons fit into what class, and then to decide if and how to regulate those for which it is appropriate. However, those matters are entirely variable with time. As such, they are not appropriate material for an amendment to the constitution. We should set up the framework, at let the details of the law vary by time and location.

1) Weapons which convey the ability to kill large numbers of people rapidly are subject to regulation or ban by federal or state governments.

2) Weapons which are useful for purposes including (but not limited to) sport and self-defense, but are not useful for killing large numbers of people quickly, are subject to regulation by state and federal governments. However, their ownership shall not be barred to any adult person except for conviction of a felony or declaration of mental incompetence by a court of law. Regulation may include limits on the manner and locations allowable for carrying and storing such weapons, so long as such regulations do not interfere with the right of ownership and legitimate use.

Admittedly, this leaves the possibility for laws to be passed which limit weapons beyond the intent of this text. "Large" and "quickly" are vague. Those laws would then have to be challenged in court, as is often the case. In this case perhaps that is best. However, I am always open to better wording.

On the subject of self defense, when is one allowed to exercise force against another person? One reasonable standard is set by if you have a legitimate fear for your safety. If someone breaks down your door, you can be reasonably confident you are in danger and should defend yourself.

Except not so much.

No knock warrants are simple: they put civilians in danger, they put police in danger, and they diminish public trust in the police an the justice system. All that, for the ability to catch an occasional drug dealer in the act. This is not an acceptable tradeoff!

3) When executing warrants, arrests, or otherwise issuing legally binding instructions, law enforcement officers shall in all cases clearly identify themselves, their intent, and their duties, before execution of same.

Amendments: Property Rights

There's a lot of confusion about constitutional rights. A lot of people will tell you they're God-given and immutable. I don't agree with that. (I'd argue that the entire concept of defending your own rights is, to a great degree, antithetical to Christianity. But that's not today's post.) Arguments about rights descended from on high are for philosophy and religion; while those topics are fascinating and useful, they're not what you use to build a functional government.

What we're talking about are rights that people need to have for society to function. The Constitution is not holy writ, to any degree. It works amazingly well because it's a well-crafted work of man. But that's also why it's flawed, and why it can be improved.

Even though it's flawed (as all works of man must be), the Constitution is brilliant, so let's start from what we've got. Most or all of the rights listed in the Constitution are there in response to specific issues the founders saw in their time. They saw problems, and fixed them! But there are problems they couldn't anticipate. So let's look at what they gave us, see what problems we have today, and go from there.

I'd argue that the rights listed in the Constitution are great in concept, but sometimes they're stated in too narrow a fashion. Our government often completely bypasses the spirit of the law, focusing entirely on the letter of it. (And sometimes on a very bizarre interpretation of that!) If we clarify the rights in the Constitution, the government will no longer has such end-runs available.

Let's start with property rights. There's a concept called civil forfeiture. The concept is that if property is used in a crime, the government can take it from its rightful owner, even if the owner wasn't involved in the crime. A person can be punished for crimes they did not commit. This is clearly an un-American practice and needs to end, immediately. Read more at fear.org.

1) Property shall only be taken from its owner without consent if that owner is convicted of a crime, or if just compensation is given. No other takings are permitted.

And while we're on the topic of just compensation, how about eminent domain? The constitution allows the government to take your property for public use, but only if you are justly compensated for it. However, what qualifies as "just compensation" is not stated clearly, and so we end up with injustice. The typical standard is "market value", but what's actually offered by the condemning agency is often far less than that. On the occasion a citizen goes to court to demand a higher price, they often get one.

The fundamental problem is that the condemning agency benefits from low-balling the estimated value of the property. The agency determining the value of the property can't be the same as the one paying for it. Instead, all eminent domain cases should have their prices set by a court, eliminating conflict of interest. This may clog the courts, but if the people aren't getting justice for lack of courts, you need more courts.

2) In cases where private property is taken for public use, what qualifies as just compensation for that property shall be determined by a judge.

Some people take issue with the use of eminent domain for uses that are not public. At this point, I'm not addressing that. From the perspective of the person losing their property, it's all the same, and for this immediate post I'm focusing on that person's rights. I may discuss that at a later time.

Amendments: Congressional Process

After watching the joke that our Congress has become over the last few years, it's clearly time to redefine how Congress operates. Again, let's start with the problems we see today, and go from there.

How about bills that cover more than one topic? Riders are often used to either advance an unpopular bill, or kill a popular one. This happens all the time; the recent shutdown was one obvious example. Regardless of which side you may deride more for what went on, the simple fact is that a bill that couldn't otherwise pass both houses was attached to an important but unrelated spending bill. Bills should pass or fail on their own merits; we should remove this constantly abused avenue for political games. Bills should be limited to a single subject, as they are in 43 states already. I'll just borrow language from one of those constitutions.

1) Each bill, except general appropriation bills and bills for the codification and general revision of the laws, shall contain only one subject, clearly expressed in its title. If any subject is embraced in any act and is not expressed in the title, only so much of the act not so expressed is void.

Still looking at the shutdown, let's look at how Congress spends money. Right now there's a two-step process: first Congress orders money to be spent (the budget resolution), then Congress allows money to be borrowed to pay for that spending (raising the debt ceiling). The system is essentially letting Congress spend money, and then asking them again later if they really meant it. Having two separate steps is absurd; it creates no good, and just asks for more brinksmanship

2) If Congress passes a law authorizing spending, that law shall also be construed to authorize any borrowing necessary to execute such spending.

The fact that a government shutdown can result in so much damage, and yet the Congress responsible is not in any way penalized, is unacceptable. Some have suggested cutting their pay, but that only hurts the poorer members. If you want a real disincentive, it needs to be applied across the board, and it needs to be something no member of Congress can ignore: in the event of government shutdown, we should hold new elections, immediately. I guarantee you, we won't see a shutdown again for a long, long time.

3) In the event of a failure of the Congress to pass a bill funding ongoing government operations, all congresspersons shall be immediately subject to election, to be held within three weeks of the end of the previous spending law. If the Congress passes a bill funding government operations, and the President fails to sign said bill, the President shall also be subject to election. If the Congress overrides a Presidential veto of such a bill, only the President shall be subject to election.

In any interim between laws authorizing spending, the funding levels from the previous spending law shall continue to apply.

Finally, we see cases where a bill would clearly pass if brought to a vote, but procedural games prevent that vote from occurring. Congress presently has the power to set its own rules of order, but those rules are being used to prevent important work from occurring. I proposed that there should be a means of ratifying amendments bypassing Congress and convention; I now suggest something similar for Congress.

4) Any other rules of order notwithstanding, in the event that a majority the members of either chamber of Congress officially declares their approval of a bill, by sponsorship or other means, that bill shall be deemed to have been passed by that chamber.

I have one additional point, which has bothered me for some years now. The Palm Sunday Compromise (I here refrain from comment on its contents or effects) was passed by the US Senate on a vote of 3-0, 97 not present. This is simply an undemocratic way to do business.

5) Neither chamber of Congress shall conduct business without a majority of its members participating.

Amendments: Civil Law

If I have a dispute with someone, or they with me, we should be able to go before a court of law and present our case. The case should be decided on the merits thereof, with no partiality in outcome based on race, belief, gender, or economic status. No matter who you are, no matter how much money you have, no matter who you have a problem with, you can go to court and have justice.

We all know that's not so. How do we fix it?

Let's start with cost of access, with court costs and fees of various kinds. How can we justify forcing someone to pay for access to what's supposed to be a universally accessible system of justice? Some people genuinely can't afford those fees! That's little different than a poll tax: "it's a fundamental right, now pay for it." And if the rich (of whom I'm admittedly one, by most standards) have to pay higher taxes so the poor have access to justice, I'm fine with that. That's part of having a civilization.

1) No fees shall be charged for access to the courts.

But court fees aren't the only thing making justice inaccessible to the poor. The cost of lawyers is also an issue. If the poor sue the rich, the rich may win simply by weight of lawyers. And if the rich sue the poor, the poor may settle to avoid legal costs. Neither of these is justice. The depth of one's pocketbook should not make you more (or less) likely to win in court.

One common solution proposed is "loser-pays". But that will just have the tendency to reduce suits by the poor, who can't afford to pay if they lose. Our goal isn't the reduce the number of lawsuits, it's to make a system of justice that works equally for everyone.

Instead, I propose looking at how real estate agents get paid. (There may be variations, obviously, but this is how I've seen things done.) When a house changes hands, 6% of the sale price goes to the agents involved. If there's one agent, they get all 6%. If there are two agents, they split it between them. This means that if one party has an agent, it costs the other party nothing to have one as well!

Imagine we did something similar with lawsuits. Say all legal fees for a case were put into one pot, and divided evenly among all parties to the suit. Now, every party has exactly as much money for legal representation as every other party. If Sony sues me, they pay for my representation. They can spend ten million dollars attacking me, but I get just as much to defend myself with. They no longer have an incentive to hit me with a huge hammer just to scare me into settling. Extortion lawsuits are now much harder.

Consider the other way around. Say I sue BP. If my suit has merit, they may want to defend themselves with ten million dollars of lawyerage. But in that case, I get that too. If my suit is frivolous, BP may choose to defend themselves with a much cheaper legal team, knowing it will also deprive me of resources. Either way, the playing field is leveled, and set at the level both parties "agree" is appropriate to the charge.

Of course, there are other side-effect situations that could come up. Say I have ten million dollars to defend myself from an extortion suit, but I manage to negotiate myself a cheaper deal, or get pro bono representation? I can't be allowed to keep that money, or now I have an incentive to file suits than I don't mean to win. The unused money has to go somewhere. I propose the most effective place is funding the legal system itself, perhaps in the form of pro bono representation, or public defenders. However, I'm not sure if this provides some incentive for the court to alter rulings in order to get more money. This could be a flaw; advice on this matter from a lawyer would be appreciated.

2) In all lawsuits, money contributed to legal representation shall be divided evenly among all parties. Money submitted for legal representation that goes unused by any party shall be used to fund attorneys for the public defense.
 
And how about binding arbitration clauses in contracts? These are everywhere, probably in half a dozen contracts you've signed. If, say, AT&T were to royally screw all its customers, it's perfectly legal for them to say in the contract that you can't sue them as a group, only as individuals. For all practical purposes, they would be saying you can't sue them at all; why would AT&T care if one person sued them for $15? But a million people doing it, that's much more of a problem. Class-action suits are in some cases the only disincentive towards bad behavior on the part of large companies. If I sign a contract, and the other guy breaks it, I should be able to sue them in open court. Period. It should not be possible for a person to be legally forbidden from access to the courts, even by their own decision.

3) All persons in the US shall have full access to the US justice system at all times, including class-action suits, regardless of prior contractual obligations. Any clause of a contract which denies either party access to a court of law for redress of grievance, is hereby invalid.

Amendments: Criminal Law

Courts are our universal access to justice. No matter what you're accused of, you won't be punished unless you're found guilty. A judge and a jury will evaluate your case, and give you a fair outcome.

I'll wait until you've stopped laughing...

It obviously doesn't work that way. It should, but it doesn't. We need to fix a lot of things about our system of criminal justice.

First, being arrested or charged with a crime can do extreme damage to a person's reputation. Many people are arrested and charged, then found not-guilty. Our entire system is based on the premise of not punishing people until they're found guilty in a court of law, but that's not at all what happens. Even if the accused is never convicted, or if the arrested is never charged, there can be serious long-term consequences.

The best way to fix this is to simply not publish the names of those arrested or charged. Up until the point of conviction, the system is supposed to treat us as innocent. The public has no interest in knowing the name of an innocent person, while that innocent person is clearly and definitely harmed by the public knowing about what's going on. Only on conviction should names be published.

1) Persons arrested or charged with crimes have the right to privacy until convicted. No person accused of a crime shall have their name publicly released until and unless they are convicted. Purposeful violation of the privacy of the accused without their written consent, filed with the court, shall be punishable by law.

Second, how many times have we heard of people being freed on appeal, after years in prison? Because of that, an innocent person has had their life ruined. If the appeals process had been faster, that person might have had a normal life instead of having much of it taken away. It makes no sense to delay justice.

2) No person convicted of a crime shall be punished until all judicial appeals are exhausted. Appeals shall be conducted without undue delay.

Which raises the question, how long do you have to wait to get justice? If someone has done me wrong, and I have to wait a year for a court date, that is not justice. Justice delayed is often justice denied. The same goes for public defenders, who are overworked and underpaid, to the detriment of their clients. Both quick access to courts and easy access to defense are required for a functional system. Right now, we have neither.

If the government is going to fund anything, elections and courts should be at the top of the list. Local law clearly isn't going to fix this, or it would have already.

3) Every jurisdiction shall have sufficient judges and public defenders to ensure swift justice for all in that jurisdiction, including appeals. These positions shall be funded as necessary by the relevant jurisdiction, with a dedicated funding source.

Amendments: Introduction

As you may have gathered, I'm an engineer. It's not just my trade, it's my personality. I identify problems, and I find solutions. I'm also interested in politics. Many of the problems I observe in the American political system derive directly from the ground rules laid out in the US Constitution. To that end, I'll be posting about various amendments I'd propose.

In case anyone objects to this idea, let me point out that the Constitution is not perfect. It is not divine writ descended from the Holy Founders. It was a political compromise, hammered out to fit the needs of the time. It was a very good compromise, but if it was expected to be perfect, there would be no way to amend it.

The founders expected us to face new challenges, and meet them head-on in whatever way we decided best. Their central belief was that people didn't need a king; we can solve our own problems, thank you very much. But we treat the Constitution as if it is perfect, and the founders as if they had every answer and we need not think for ourselves. The fact that amendments aren't considered by the people on a regular basis is an insult to them!

I'm going to be covering a lot of suggestions, so I'll be breaking them up into sections. First, the amendment process itself. Presently, amendments have to go through two stages. First, an amendment must be proposed. This can be done one of two ways: 2/3 of both houses of Congress can approve an amendment; or an Article V convention can be called by the states. No Article V convention has ever been called, though we've gotten close a time or two.

A word about Article V conventions. A lot of lies are told about them by people who want to avoid one. The most common lie is that a convention could rewrite the entire Constitution. Well, I could do the same thing on the back of a napkin, and it would have just as much weight. Remember, nothing the convention does means anything on its own. Two-step process.

The second step is ratification. Once an amendment is formally proposed, either by Congress or by a convention, 3/4 of the states must ratify it. Otherwise, it has no effect. I don't propose changing the ratification process, at all. Only our methods of proposing amendments should be changed.

First, one concern about Article V conventions needs to be removed. It's presently impossible to call a convention that's limited to a specific purpose. Once called, a convention can propose amendments on any topic, regardless of the original reason. That should be changed, to reduce the (already unwarranted) fear of a convention.

Now, why should we have to hold conventions or wait on Congress? If 3/4 of the states ratify an amendment of the same text, why does it matter whether it was formally proposed or not? One potential problem is that, under article V, ratification can be either by state legislature or by popular vote in the state. Bypassing both congress and convention means that if one party were to control enough state legislatures, it could rewrite the entire constitution without popular consent. We do need a second level of checks in place to ensure the will of the people is being represented.


So I propose the following amendment:

1) Should 3/4 of states ratify identical amendments to the Constitution, and at least 1/2 of the total number of states containing at least 1/2 the total population of the US ratify that amendment by popular vote, that amendment shall be adopted, regardless of whether or not that amendment has been proposed by Congress or an Article V convention.

I'd love feedback on the numbers.

Why did Onan die?

Recall the story of Onan.

⁶ And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. ⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” ⁹ But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother's wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. ¹⁰ And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.

The long-standing tradition is that this expresses God's displeasure with non-procreative ejaculation. I tend to think that if God had such a position, it would be more directly stated. Leviticus doesn't exactly shy away from listing several hundred detailed do's and don't's. Yet nothing like this is ever mentioned, there or anywhere else. (Further, if God had a policy of killing men for such behavior, I think we'd have one serious gender imbalance.) I think we can discount the traditional view.

So what is this really about? What is special about this particular attempt at contraception that it warrants death? If not the action itself, then it must be the context and motivation. Luckily, we're expressly told Onan's motivation: he knew the child would legally be treated as being his late brother's.

Think about this. Onan's brother Er was dead. Women can't inherit in this culture (which is a discussion for a different day). Er had no children, so who stands to inherit Er's property? The nearest male relative: Onan himself! So Onan has a choice: impregnate Tamar, and give her a child that will inherit Er's property so she'll have some way to survive; or leave her destitute and keep it all for himself.

Onan chooses personal gain over helping his brother's widow. Onan is brutally selfish.

But he doesn't stop there! Onan doesn't just refuse to help this woman, as his father Judah later does. He still has sex with her! More than once! Knowing full well he intends to leave her with nothing, this man takes sexual advantage of his dead brother's desperate widow, all the while trying to look the hero. In some places today, that would be called rape by deception.

Onan was a horrible, disgusting, selfish man. God is quite consistent in inflicting punishment for abuse and neglect of the poor. If you look at the reasons Israel is punished during the time of the prophets, it's right up there with worshiping other gods.

Onan abused a poor, helpless widow. His brothers' widow, at that. The lesson of this story has nothing to do with contraception. There's no need to make up a new rule out of nowhere to explain this circumstance.

League of Women Voters

Earlier this year, I joined the League of Women Voters. To answer your first two questions, yes, they allow men, and no, I'm not the only one.

If you're interested in why I did this, check out the history of the League. For some years they sponsored the Presidential debates. They stopped in 1988, with this epic statement:

The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates...because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

—League President Nancy M. Neuman, LWV October 03, 1988

If you've ever seen a Presidential "debate" you know exactly what they're talking about. That alone was enough to get my attention.

The League is all about fair elections, human rights, and government transparency. Those are my issues, and both major parties have long since left me out in the cold. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. If you've been looking for a group that will act to support good government, regardless of political bent, this is it.

Find your local League, and sign up!

Shutdown: forget politics, how about morality?

Everyone has different beliefs about what's moral and what's not. I know what I believe, and I know other people believe differently. But there's one rule that is essential for civilization: whatever you're doing, imagine how the world would be if everyone behaved that way. If the result is bad, don't do it. ("Do unto others...")

Some examples: stealing from the grocery store; leaving your dog's waste in the neighbor's yard; assaulting someone over an old family feud; not paying your taxes. In each case, if everyone behaved that way, the result would be a much worse world for everyone. So we can declare those wrong, even if (like in America) people believe many different things.

I'm going to ask you to not read further until you decide whether you agree with me or not. You have to be willing to be wrong. Pick a position, and be willing to follow where it leads. With me so far?

Now, apply this principle to the government shutdown. Keep in mind that for this discussion, I'm referring to the parties, but describing only the elected officials. Unless you're in Congress, I'm not talking about (or insulting) you. So please don't take this personally; it's not.

Democrats won't fund government if it defunds an existing law. Republicans won't fund government if it does fund that law. Are we agreed that's what's happening?

Now, apply our standard. What if everyone behaved like the Democrats? We'd keep laws we have, until the opposition wins enough elections to change them. In other words, the system would work as designed by our founders.

And if everyone behaved like the Republicans? Some group or other would constantly be shutting down the entire government to get one law repealed. We wouldn't have a government! And if anyone thinks having no government is good, I suggest that you move to Somalia and see how that works out in practice.

Finally, what if the Democrats "compromised", and everyone behaved like that? Then you'd see more and more groups behaving like the Republicans are. Again, total systemic failure.

The Republicans aren't wrong on the shutdown because of Obamacare (though they are responsible for spreading huge numbers of lies about it). The Republicans are wrong because their actions break the entire constitutional system they claim to protect.

In other words, they're hypocrites.

You can agree with their goals, that's a whole other topic on which reasonable people can disagree. But the Republican House's means of achieving those goals are simply unamerican.