3 posts tagged “government”
Yesterday, I posted about how a recent scientific study indicated that many people make their decisions between political candidates based on their first impressions of the person's competency, based solely on their appearance. As this logically leads to a conclusion that many people have already arrived at, namely that democracy is a highly imperfect form of government, I asked people to suggest forms of government that might be better.
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.
- Winston Churchill
This isn't to say that I would rather the nations of the world have remained as monarchies, and dictatorships and theocracies certainly are much worse systems to live under than democracies. Direct democracies can be tyrannical for anyone in the minority, and don't work well for governments larger than municipalities, anyway. To fix this the first part, you have a Constitution that guarantees the rights of minorities (and all of the citizens), protecting them from the excesses of transient majorities. To fix the second part, you make it a representative democracy, where the people elect individuals to run the government on their behalf.
So, representative democracy with constitutional protections for minorities is the best, safest system in the world. And yet, it's far from perfect. Leaders in a representative democracy, like what we have in the U.S., are based much more on the first impression, wealth, and connections of the candidates, rather than their abilities or even their stance on the issues, and lend themselves well to the politics of fearmongering and hyperbole.
Just as the Constitution was written with the idea of "checks and balances" incorporated into its structure, it's time we start building in competency and relevance as integral concepts. Here's my solution.
Meritocracy: (noun) [From WordWeb]
1. A form of social system in which power goes to those with superior intellects.
2. The belief that rulers should be chosen for their superior abilities and not because of their wealth or birth.
In a meritocracy, individuals are chosen for their ability to do a job, rather than irrelevant factors such as their wealth, connections. The first step toward this would be to include job requirements for political office. Almost seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it? Every other job in the country requires the applicant to have some sort of pre-qualifying knowledge, skills, or abilities. Why don't we set minimum requirements for political office? Did you know that in most parts of the U.S., a person can run for Sheriff without having any law enforcement background? In some counties, the position of Medical Examiner is elected, and you don't have to have any medical or forensic experience to run. The same thing goes for District Attorneys. There was a time when there wasn't much in the way of specialized knowledge necessary to do these jobs. Now there is; it's times to change it.
But how about other elected positions? How about starting with requiring high school diplomas or GEDs to be on city council? Seems reasonable to me. Bigger cities, with more candidates, may require a bachelors degree, preferably in something relevant, like political science, business, civil engineering, something to indicate that they know a little more than the average guy off the street about how to run a city.
The same applies to offices at the state or federal level. Members of congress should have at least master's degrees in something relevant to running the government or writing laws about the issues. As it is, Congressmen and Senators get almost all of their information from lobbyists, which is why they are the ones really running the country now.
The President should be one of the smartest people in the country. Doesn't that just make sense? Wouldn't you want the guy running the entire show to be in the top one or two percent? He should have to have a PhD in some relevant field.
Judges should have to have a law degree. "You mean they don't have to now?" you cry. No, they don't. It usually works out they do, but they don't have to, and local judges are often elected without any particular experience or education to get in - just a lot of friends. Obviously, the same should be true of federal judges and the Supreme Court.
The next question is, among the qualified candidates for what are now elected positions, how do we choose? Let's take a lesson from the business world - make them apply for the job. Each candidate should have to fill out an application, listing prior experience, education, and additional qualifications. Then, they should have to write essays on each of a number of major issues, saying what they would do concerning that issue if they get into office. All of this information would be available to all of the voters on line or in paper format, and then the candidates would not be allowed to campaign, at the risk of being disqualified. Since public speaking is obviously part of the job, public debates would be arranged for the final candidates. Without party-based campaigns or fund-raising, political parties would become almost irrelevant.
I also think voters would have to have some sort of minimum qualifications. I'm thinking a High School degree or GED, at least.
Now, to make all of this work, education has to be available to all Americans. It needs to be free, including the post-secondary, graduate, and doctoral levels. Otherwise, the wealthy and well-connected would still have better access to the political system. Besides, if we want to stay competitive with other industrialized countries, this is something we need to do, anyway.
Will we ever make these kinds of reforms? Probably not. I realize they would probably be viewed as elitist, but maybe someday we'll see the necessity of selecting our leaders based on more than first impressions and emotional impact.
Go.
Synopsis of a Scientific American article today, "How to Win an Election: Make a Good First Impression (in Less than 250 Milliseconds)":
A study by Princeton University researchers indicates that most voters make their candidate selections based on first impressions of a candidate's appearance of competence, and that they are forming that impression within the first 1/4th of a second of seeing them.
"All of the action goes on in the first 250 milliseconds of exposure, and then there's not much going on," said one of the researchers.
While the study still doesn't explain how George "I look like a confused monkey" Bush won in 2004 (we know how he won in 2000), it really doesn't bode well for democracy in general. I'm thinking the introduction of a new system is in order.
Looks Competent to Me
I'd sooner vote for this guy.
What would be your ideal system of government?
The American people, as a whole, have two conflicting values right now concerning access to public records. On the one hand, they tend to agree with news outlets that public records should be highly accessible. In fact, the more accessible the better, even to the point of putting them on the web and making them available to anyone who can type a URL. On the other hand, Americans are scared to death of theft identity and loss of privacy.
The problem is that most citizens don't seem to make the connection between increased access to government records and loss of privacy. A recent local example comes from our city's newspaper taking the city government to court because it refused to turn over copies of the seventy-five applications it received for the then-open City Manager position. The City argued that most people reasonably expect a modicum of privacy when they apply for a job. The newspaper countered that it was their job as the defender of the people's right to know to ensure that the good citizens of our city knew exactly who had applied for the job. Then, they added, the people could decide for themselves if the City Council selected the best candidate for the position.
But there are deeper privacy issues than inadvertantly getting a job applicant in trouble with their current employer. Job applications have social security numbers on them. If job applications for the City Manager position were open record, then all job applications are. If job applications are open record, then what's to stop someone from ordering copies of all of the applications received by the State of New Mexico in any given month and using it to harvest identities for criminal purposes?
And if job applications are open record, what about transcripts from background checks? What about credit reports?
New Mexico has one of the most liberal open records statutes in the country. Records kept by a government agency, either state or local, can be requested by anyone for any purpose. The only time an agency is allowed to withhold the document is if it is part of an ongoing criminal investigation, if it is a "matter of opinion" in a personnel file, or if it falls into one of a handful of other very obscure categories that cover almost nothing.
That sounds great, doesn't it? If asked if they support such a statute guaranteeing access to public records, most people would probably say "yes."
Now let's say you live in an apartment complex and you hear your neighbor in an argument with her very dangerous, violent boyfriend. You call 9-1-1 and report what you fear could become a life-threatening situation, and the police come. When they arrive, the police find that the argument has not yet turned physical, and both parties promise to stop arguing, so the police leave.
But the dangerous, violent boyfriend lets his anger fester. Who was the busybody who called the police? What business is it of theirs what goes on in his own apartment? Someone ought to teach them a lesson. So the next morning, he drives down to the 9-1-1 center and requests a copy of the call to 9-1-1 that led to his humiliation in front of the police. It's not part of an ongoing investigation, because no charges were filed, and it certainly doesn't fall into any other protected category, so legally, the administrator at the 9-1-1 center has no legal option but to hand the tape over. With that tape in hand, the dangerous, violent boyfriend can listen and hear exactly who turned him in. Refused to give your name to the dispatcher? That's fine, because he can olso request a copy of the information that comes across the system when you call 9-1-1, including the address, name, and telephone number of the caller.
Now he knows who called the police on him. Who do you think he's coming after next?
How about a drug dealer who wants to know who turned him in? What about a stalker that wants his girlfriend's new address? What about someone who's just nosy and wants to know why there was an ambulance at your house last week? Is this really the public's right to know? Is this really in our society's best interest?
I'm not in favor of closed government, but before we open the floodgates of information any further, let's consider being more selective in what we make public and what can stay private. If information is power, I'm not sure we want everyone armed with the informational equivalent of grenade launchers.
