Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall nannyism political challengers Regulating Protest

Irony in Spain

When I arrived at the Donostia-San Sebastián City Hall, in the beautiful Basque Country of Spain, I wondered what all the ruckus was about. There were hundreds of noisy protesters waving long, colorful banners.

My goodness, how interesting to witness acts of political agitation on the public square in another country, I thought. Then, atop the crowd some 20 feet opposite the protest, I spied Daniel Schily, a key activist, funder and cheerleading motivator of the direct democracy movement in Germany.

After greeting, he drily brought me up to date: “They’re protesting us.”

“No, really,” I asked, “what are they protesting?”

“Really,” he said, seemingly sincere. “They’re protesting the Global Forum.”

I stood there dumbstruck, for a moment, before I noticed one sign written in English: “Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy,” with a very large, black, bold question mark beside it.

Schily wasn’t kidding.

In almost no time, I met up with friends from Bulgaria, South Korea, Uruguay, Chile — fellow activists, all. We had gathered in this “cultural capital of Europe” precisely because of our belief that all people have a right to not only speak out, but effect change, through ballot initiatives and referendums.

It turned out that the protestors hailed from the Satorralaia neighborhood movement. Their beef? Even after gathering nearly 9,000 signatures on petitions requesting a public referendum on a proposed through-station for the mass-transit metro system project, the city government shrugs.

The same city council that helped organize our forum, ignoring citizens while claiming the city is “The World Capital of Democracy.”

Government. What more proof do we need that it could use more checks and balances from the people themselves?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

N.B. This is a Common Sense digest version of Paul’s weekend column. For more information, see Saturday’s and Sunday’s posts. Paul was in transit home when this entry was being prepared for the Web; he may offer further reports from his trip in the near future.


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Spain, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, initiative, democracy

 

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers

Double Bubble America

The “unexpected” Donald Trump presidential victory has put the folks at The Gray Lady a bit out of sorts.

Heather Wilhelm at the National Review pokes and prods at the absurdities of the New York Times’s cultural cluelessness. And ably enough. So I’ll stick to The Times’s recent “six views” of America’s ideological divide:

Julie Turkewitz recognizes two well-insulated informational bubbles at play. Nothing too controversial — or very deep.

Campbell Robertson muses upon the dominance of the “elites” against which Trump’s insurgents rebel, noting that “the elites are the still the ones who get to decide who gets to be elite.”

Laurie Goodstein takes on religious culture, making much of divergent spiritual outlooks, left and right.

Julia Preston peers at immigration and the prospect of sending a message by building a “wall.”

In the manner of the other five, Sheryl Gay Stolberg digs up real-world people — as does our speechifier-in-chief, Barack Obama — to lightly probe questions of assimilation versus multiculturalism.

Manny Fernandez concludes with a (yawn) discussion of giving and taking offense.

They all miss the underlying structural basis for the divide.

On one side: folks working in the private sector — or local governments and charities, or at home — who have seen the world pass them by in terms of income and security.

On the other: government workers and consultants (and other college grads) who make more, on average, than their “real world” counterparts.

The latter has advanced as a class; the former remain in stasis . . . at best.

A mystery?

No — it’s the predictable result of what Thomas Jefferson called “the parasite institutions now consuming us.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 


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Original (cc) photo by diana MĂRGĂRIT at Flickr

 

Categories
Accountability general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers term limits too much government U.S. Constitution

Fear and Freedom

“If Libertarian Gary Johnson doesn’t win the presidency,” I posted to Facebook last Monday, “I’m leaving the country.”

Well, Johnson didn’t win. And I wasn’t kidding. I’m writing this from a Parisian café.

Of course, I was also tongue-in-cheek, since — spoiler alert! — I am coming home next week.

This week, I’m speaking at the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in San Sebastián, Spain — a gathering of pro-initiative folks from all over the world. We want people’s votes to count, even if we disagree with their candidate or issue.

Which brings us back to Donald J. Trump’s surprise victory. Protests have broken out in several cities — some violent. And some folks say they’re scared of what Trump may do as president. Sure, one can snicker at these fearful responses as liberal whining. And to the extent they’re talking about university professors canceling tests and coddling “traumatized” students . . . well, no argument here.

Still, I don’t just sympathize when I hear people fear a politician with power, I empathize.

For a long time, I’ve been worried by out-of-control presidential power — from unconstitutionally making laws through executive orders to making war without any real check on that power. Scary. Whether that president is George W or Obama or Hillary or Trump.

Government is a monopoly on force. Therefore, by definition, government is frightening.

Democracy is often an antidote to tyranny, a check on power, but not always. That’s why folks who truly appreciate democracy believe in individual rights that transcend any vote-getting public decision mechanism.

Scared by President-Elect Donald Trump? Protect yourself: enact greater limits on government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

Ask the next question.

Questions Answered:

Is fear a natural byproduct of government?

Which presidential powers lack sufficient checks and balances?

What is more important: individual freedom or democratic decision-making?

Is democracy a check on power or an enhancement?

The Next Question:

How do we go about creating greater limits on political power?


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Protect Yourself, limited government, meme

 

Categories
Accountability ballot access general freedom incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Votes Without Poison

Strange election. So . . . round up the usual suspects!

Immediately after Hillary dried her tears and conceded, out came the Tweets, then the analyses: the “third parties” are to blame!

Over the weekend, I focused* on one such election post-mortem. The basic idea is not altogether wrong: minor party efforts together may have cost the Democrat her Electoral College advantage this time around, just as Nader’s Green Party run spoiled Al Gore’s bid in 2000 and several past congressional races have been spoiled for the GOP by Libertarians.

Is there a problem here? Yes. But do not blame the minor party voters. It’s the way we count their votes that is “problematic.” The current ballot-and-count system turn voters most loyal to particular policy ideas into enemies of those very same ideas.

When we minor party voters turn away from a major party — usually because said party tends to corrupt or betray our ideas, or make only small steps toward our goals — our votes aren’t so much wasted as made poisonous.

Because the candidate least preferred may prevail.

But there’s a way out: On election day, voters in Maine showed how to cut through the Gordian Knot. Voting in approval for Question 5, Maine now establishes “ranked choice voting.”

Under this system, you don’t “waste” your vote when expressing a preference for a minor party candidate. You rank your choices and, if your first choice proves unpopular, your second choice (or maybe your third) gets counted. So you don’t “poison” your cause.

Republicans and Democrats have more than enough reason, now, to adopt ranked choice voting across the country.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* See yesterday’s links page to my weekend Townhall column for the basic references. But there were many, many articles on the Minor Party Effect, including a skeptical one by Sasha Volokh’s.

 

Ask the next question.

Questions Answered:

What is the effect of minor parties on major party outcomes?

What causes those effects, voter intent or something else?

Is there a way to prevent this, short of further sewing up the ballot access system to minor parties?

The Next Question:

What might our elections look like if people spent more time discussing issues and ideas … and less about class, culture wars, and sex crimes?


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Categories
Accountability moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies political challengers too much government U.S. Constitution

Term Limits Trump

Entering his campaign’s homestretch, underdog Donald J. Trump gave an important speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He emphasized his support for term limits in what he called his “100-day action plan to Make America Great Again.”

“[R]estoring honesty, accountability and change to Washington” is the top item on Trump’s agenda, along with a pledge to begin the drive for “a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress” on his very first day in the Oval Office.

Public disgust with the corrupt status quo in Washington — and the hope that he will shake things up — drove Trump’s victory.

Yet, today, the Elections Committee of Michigan’s House of Representatives hears testimony on several bills to weaken or repeal term limits. Have the limits lost public support? Not on your life.

Politicians simply want to stay ensconced in power, reaping the many benefits they’ve bestowed upon themselves. They want to stay in power longer.

Just look to California. Back in 2012, a dishonest ballot explanation tricked voters into thinking they were tightening their term limits law. But what they were actually doing was voting to weaken it.

Now, Golden State legislators can stay in the same seat for a dozen years. And special interests have noticed. They’re “investing” more heavily than ever before.

The Los Angeles Times summarized the result in its headline: “Longer terms for California’s Legislature mean a flood of cash from interest groups . . .”

Here’s for enacting real term limits at every level of government. And if the politicians and special interests don’t like it — good!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Donald Trump, term limits, president, first, illustration

 

Categories
Accountability general freedom ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

The Wisdom of the Founders

“At a certain point, you have to let go for the democracy to work,” President Barack Obama told HBO’s Bill Maher last week, praising “the wisdom of the founders.”

“There has to be fresh legs,” he continued. “There have to be new people. And you have to have the humility to recognize that you’re a citizen and you go back to being a citizen after this office is over.”

Maher failed to ask Mr. Obama how this “fresh” viewpoint squared with his support for Mrs. Clinton. Nevertheless, let’s applaud the president’s endorsement of term limits.

Speaking of the founders, and limits on power, and this being Election Day, I’m reminded of a commentary in Forbes, back on Election Day four years ago, written by Ed Crane, the man who built the Cato Institute into one of the nation’s preeminent think tanks. Bemoaning the “interminable presidential race,” Crane wished for “a nation in which it really didn’t matter who was elected President, senator or congressman.”

“Don’t get me wrong, because I’m not saying it doesn’t,” explained Crane, “only that it shouldn’t.” He added, “I believe the Founders had a similar view.”

His point is simple: Getting to vote for your next president and senator and congressman is swell, but it’s important to have a Constitution that restrains those elected, so they “don’t have a heck of a lot of power over you or your neighbors.”

“We are a republic of limited governmental ­powers,” or should be, argued Crane. “Such a nation allows for sleep on election night.”

Instead of gnashing of teeth.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Constitution, voting, democracy, Ed Crane, fear