The (American) Political Process

[keira]

the problem is that the issues the potus has to face are not at all similar to what a test-taker would face

 

if all of our country's issues were as simple as choose the correct answer from a-e, we wouldn't need a president. the potus faces decisions that are far from black and white. one person's "right answer" is a horrible answer for someone else, therefore any meaningful test would be hugely subjective.

 

really, much as we hate to admit it, the candidates put forward by the parties are usually competent, it's those subjective issues that tend to set them apart

[Actaeon]

Given how much I resent standardizes testing for its role in education, I'm pretty sure I don't want it anywhere near the presidency. In any case, I am much more concerned about the behavior of the Legislative branch than the Executive, lately.

 

Edit: Just looked up the Citizens United case. It didn't mean NEARLY what I'd been lead to believe.

[Callie]

Given how much I resent standardizes testing for its role in education...

Apparently the SAT's standardization method involves asking test-takers to answer the most dull and uninteresting essay prompt they could think of.

[Lilith]

Let's say that all your worst accusations are true, and that the current process of choosing a president selects for excellence in political manoeuvring, giving fancy speeches and telling lies to keep everyone happy. Are you so sure that's a bad thing? That's most of what a head of state's job entails, after all. Better to have a conniving bastard who'll lie, cheat and steal for the sake of your country than some boy scout who's going to blurt out your nuclear launch codes to the first person who asks nicely.

[Student of Trinity]

Leading today's enormous pluralistic nation states is just not at all the same job as running even a large corporation. The larger scale really changes things.

 

The fact that a few percentage points of public opinion can decide who rules and who goes home is not an anomaly. Motivating even one percent of the adult population to support some policy means, in the USA, getting a couple of million people behind you, all of whom are rich, healthy, and educated far above what has been the normal human range for most of history. That 1% of popular support is more sheer power to get things done in the world than any emperor in history has ever commanded.

 

Do those million folks actually drop whatever else they're doing and flock full-time to your banner? Normally, no. But if they somehow did — and then if ten or twenty times as many of them did — then it's almost impossible to say what they couldn't accomplish. The US government needs to find an extra trillion bucks or so each year to operate, and everybody considers that a grave problem. But that's something like $4000 dollars per US citizen. If everybody just set aside an extra $10 a day for Uncle Sam, there'd be no more fussing about the budget. Heck, it'd be worth it just for that. In fact it's not easy to find $4000 per year per citizen. $10 a day is significantly harder to find that a dollar or a dime. But it's not like fighting a world war, you know? If everybody just decided to do it, it would be no big deal.

 

The point is that modern nation states are not really limited by total resources, but by coherence. Building consensus and aligning people to work together has such an enormous multiplier, nowadays, that it is the absolutely dominant strategy for solving any problems. Political capital is the new gold. So the really important qualities in modern leaders are precisely the abilities to compromise, flip-flop, spin and cajole, to get a few more people — proportionally — onside. That's not a bug in the system. It's not even just a feature in the system. It's the killer app.

[Harehunter]

Popular election is the foundation of a democracy, whatever form it takes. Whether it be a constitutional monarchy or a federation republic of a union of states. I would not propose doing away with elections. I would just like to see the candidates vetted more carefully as to their qualifications for the job. I find it disturbing that the people to whom the electorate turn to for factual information are interjecting themselves into the process with unabashedly biased editorialization. When they speak falsehoods under cover of stating their opinion, many people accept it as fact.

 

For example, the topic of the petitions for secession. It is blatantly stated that the issue is all about race. This could not be further from the truth, but since some guy on the MSNBC "NEWS" network program HardBall stated it, this blatant lie will be accepted as truth. The fact of the matter is that is has everything to do with policy, and absolutely nothing to do with race. But this of course will not reach the ears or eyes of those people who trust MSNBC as their NEWS source.

[Kelandon]

Jewels's topics depend heavily on memorization but not at all on critical thinking. This is perhaps the least important ability for a president to have.

 

The last three presidents have all taken relatively demanding standardized tests (LSAT, GMAT) and done well enough to get into Ivy League law or business schools. I don't think any of them ever released what their scores were, but I'm pretty sure that they all did decently. (Bush's SAT scores were notoriously not stellar, but they were good; I'd guess the same was true of his GMAT score.) Test scores aren't everything, though; Elliot Spitzer got a perfect score on the LSAT. (So did I. Vote Kelandon in the mod elections!)

 

It would be nice though if the Commander In Chief of the armed forces, whose duty it is to defend the Constitution, actually understood what that document means.

I'm pretty sure that every president in the history of this country has understood, at a basic level, what the Constitution means. People don't really agree on the greater significance of the document, though (most obviously, originalism vs. living constitutionalism), so you can't really fault presidents for having a position you disagree with on that. Also, as much as I enjoy the fact that our current president was a lecturer on Constitutional Law at one of the top law schools in the country for several years, any president does have an army of lawyers available to explain pretty much any constitutional issue that might arise.

 

Understanding is not the issue. Warping and manipulating is, and no amount of testing is going to prevent that.

Let's say that all your worst accusations are true, and that the current process of choosing a president selects for excellence in political manoeuvring, giving fancy speeches and telling lies to keep everyone happy. Are you so sure that's a bad thing? That's most of what a head of state's job entails, after all.

This isn't really true. Political maneuvering, partly. Giving speeches and telling lies to keep everyone happy, only a little. People tend to underestimate what presidents do (and what the government does, generally) because so much of it happens in the background. But the president manages the vast Executive Branch, with its myriad executive agencies and ever-increasing powers. The job is, first and foremost, a management job. The president is not a do-nothing figurehead who just kind of talks about stuff sometimes.

 

If I actually believed that totally unqualified people were being elected to the presidency, I might say that we should place some roadblocks in the way. But if you list the biggest problems with the past three presidents (respectively, probably networking, judgment, and character), they didn't have a lot to do with raw intelligence or with memorization of facts. Note that someone like Sarah Palin, who was grossly unqualified even to be vice-president, scared off enough people from voting for her ticket that she lost big.

 

I do worry that some of the people we're electing to Congress are unqualified, though. Not many, but a few.

[Student of Trinity]

As Scott Adams points out, the dilemma is between management and leadership. I used to hear the distinction drawn in the military, that you can't manage people into mortal danger. A US president has people specifically to take bullets for them, but the principle is arguably still there, that the main part of the job is really leadership in case of a crisis, not day-to-day management on an even keel. Of course, if your next four years happen to sail by on a nice even keel, then you'd be better off with a competent day-to-day manager in high office for that time, and not a new Abe Lincoln waiting in harness, champing at the bit for a civil war. But having the wrong person in office if there is a crisis can be such a disaster, that you'd probably better accept some weaker average performance in management, in return for stronger insurance against getting really bad leadership in a crunch.

[Harehunter]

Understanding is not the issue. Warping and manipulating is, and no amount of testing is going to prevent that.

And this is more along the lines of what I meant. Thank you for clarifying that for me.

[Khoth]

How about this for a voting process? Instead of counting all the votes and seeing which candidate has most, let everyone vote then pick a ballot paper at random, and the person named on it becomes president.

 

No more tactical voting or voting for the lesser evil - if you don't like the main candidates, your vote is exactly as valuable used on someone you do like, or even on yourself!

[Lilith]

How about this for a voting process? Instead of counting all the votes and seeing which candidate has most, let everyone vote then pick a ballot paper at random, and the person named on it becomes president.

 

No more tactical voting or voting for the lesser evil - if you don't like the main candidates, your vote is exactly as valuable used on someone you do like, or even on yourself!

 

this has a lot of advantages from a voting-theory perspective but it'd also be incredibly difficult to conduct in a fair and transparent way that left everyone satisfied that everyone's ballot had a chance to be picked and the choice was truly random

 

there's also the question of whether, as a matter of policy, you really do want some nut that 1% of the electorate votes for to be elected president 1% of the time

[Xaiya]

this has a lot of advantages from a voting-theory perspective but it'd also be incredibly difficult to conduct in a fair and transparent way that left everyone satisfied that everyone's ballot had a chance to be picked and the choice was truly random

 

there's also the question of whether, as a matter of policy, you really do want some nut that 1% of the electorate votes for to be elected president 1% of the time

No problem.

http://xkcd.com/221/

[Aran]

One thing that amazes me is how much noise is involved in the campaigns and the election. It's practically a four-year cycle of "OMG the world will end if our guy loses", "OMG WE WON!!!"/"OMG AMERICA IS DOOMED" and "OMG VOTER FRAUD".

 

Stereotypes and all, but election days here are so quiet and orderly you can barely tell. The polls open Sunday morning at 8:00; the wait is negligible. Our last federal election had a record-low turnout of 70%, among 62 million eligible voters. The only technology the polling places use is a telephone. The polls close at 18:00; a preliminary result is usually in within an hour, the final one before midnight.

 

Obviously this stuff is more complicated when you have individual states organizing their own elections, across four timezones. But seriously, how is what happened in Florida even possible in a developed country?

[Balladeer]

Jewels's topics depend heavily on memorization but not at all on critical thinking. This is perhaps the least important ability for a president to have.

 

I don't think you understood the whole of my intent.

 

As much as I think it should be important for the president to know what the constitution says and what countries have what leaders around the world, it was not the major part of my proposal (not that it's even a real proposal, I'm just thinking out loud). The major part would be the essay questions (I said an unrealistic '1000 questions' to emphasize its importance over the others) in which the candidates express their knowledge and opinions and even their solutions on the current events around the world. There is no memorization needed to answer an essay question (past knowing what the situation is even about) and any solution to any problem presented by the current events would be entirely critical thinking.

 

Doctors have to memorize tons and tons of medical information to prove they can do the job. AFTER they memorize the information and PROVE that they know it, then comes the internship training that gives them the RL experience and critical thinking skills that makes them brilliant doctors. Knowing the constitution and the bill of rights should be BASIC knowledge required for the job. Not just the president but ANY governor, senator, or congressman. I don't think it's asking too much to have the leader of our country know what our country government is founded on.

 

Let's say that all your worst accusations are true, and that the current process of choosing a president selects for excellence in political maneuvering, giving fancy speeches and telling lies to keep everyone happy. Are you so sure that's a bad thing? That's most of what a head of state's job entails, after all.Better to have a conniving bastard who'll lie, cheat and steal for the sake of your country than some boy scout who's going to blurt out your nuclear launch codes to the first person who asks nicely.

 

That's just it, though. I don't WANT a corrupt government. I don't WANT a gov't that feels they have to lie. Running the city/state/country shouldn't be mostly about keeping people happy and in the dark about the truth. It SHOULD be about working towards a better world. The only reason keeping everyone happy is important is because of the current voting process which requires enormous amounts of money from special interest groups. If we take away the need for lying, i.e. no expensive campaigning, therefore no need to kiss butt to raise funds, AND take away the punishment for telling the truth, i.e. special interest groups' ability to deny campaign funding, we might just be able to get our politicians to do something productive with their time and pay like figuring out a national health care plan that isn't going to drive companies out of businesses because they can't afford to offer insurance to all their employees.

 

What I ultimately want is for everyone to be able to vote on the issues without worrying that the people in charge lied to them about their real stance on the issues, (If they can only give one stance/issue in an essay question, instead of varying their stance for the group of people they are talking to, then they may still lie but it would benefit them nothing by alienating those with the same views as themselves.) That's not going to happen with the status quo. Not saying I have all the answers, but I hate the current need to lie and I don't want it to stay the same.

[Lilith]

Running the city/state/country shouldn't be mostly about keeping people happy and in the dark about the truth. It SHOULD be about working towards a better world.

 

but those are often the same thing

[Randomizer]

Obviously this stuff is more complicated when you have individual states organizing their own elections, across four timezones. But seriously, how is what happened in Florida even possible in a developed country?

Arizona didn't finish the congressional races for days due to provisional ballots that require verification that the voter is properly registered and early ballots that weren't counted. I think they are still counting, but have called the results pending a final tally.

[Balladeer]

but those are often the same thing

 

yea, ur rite... my view of a perfect gov't is just a fairytale dream that'll never happen

 

doesn't mean i have to quit dreaming

[Lilith]

i recommend eating an orange. it won't do anything to fix the world but you will feel better

[Tyranicus]

 

 

I don't think you understood the whole of my intent.

 

As much as I think it should be important for the president to know what the constitution says and what countries have what leaders around the world, it was not the major part of my proposal (not that it's even a real proposal, I'm just thinking out loud). The major part would be the essay questions (I said an unrealistic '1000 questions' to emphasize its importance over the others) in which the candidates express their knowledge and opinions and even their solutions on the current events around the world. There is no memorization needed to answer an essay question (past knowing what the situation is even about) and any solution to any problem presented by the current events would be entirely critical thinking.

Who would be qualified to grade these essays, and how do we pick them?

[Balladeer]

The essays aren't graded. The essays are presented to the voting public to read and decide which candidate they want to represent them based on their answers. Essay questions are picked based on current events and issues. Things that pertain to our country today. ie. What would you do to help the economy? How important is balancing the budget to you? or Is the current government budget deficit a concern to you? Why or why not? Do you think the powers granted to the government after 9/11 are enough, not enough, or too much to help the gov't protect the country from terrorists? How would you like to see them changed or why would you keep them the same?

 

It could even be an open book test. They don't have to know the ins and outs of every situation when they sit down, but by gum they'd have decided their stances on the issues by the end.

[Lilith]

The essays aren't graded. The essays are presented to the voting public to read and decide which candidate they want to represent them based on their answers. Essay questions are picked based on current events and issues. Things that pertain to our country today. ie. What would you do to help the economy? How important is balancing the budget to you? or Is the current government budget deficit a concern to you? Why or why not? Do you think the powers granted to the government after 9/11 are enough, not enough, or too much to help the gov't protect the country from terrorists? How would you like to see them changed or why would you keep them the same?

 

It could even be an open book test. They don't have to know the ins and outs of every situation when they sit down, but by gum they'd have decided their stances on the issues by the end.

 

a: how many voters do you think will bother to read the essays instead of voting for whoever has the nicest hair in their photo? remember, the single best historical predictor of who will win a US presidential election is which candidate is taller than the other

 

b: if one of your concerns is preventing outright corruption, this won't do anything to prevent it. how will the content of an essay that someone wrote give you any information on how likely that person is to take a bribe, or to hire people to spy on political opponents? those are things that are unpopular with everybody, and so of course everyone will speak out against them regardless of how corrupt they really are. plus, any attempt to conceal the identities of candidates in order to ameliorate problem A will make problem B correspondingly worse

[Mosquito---Slayer]

i recommend eating an orange. it won't do anything to fix the world but you will feel better

I recommend not eating a sour one, that will make the world sore .

 

It could even be an open book test. They don't have to know the ins and outs of every situation when they sit down, but by gum they'd have decided their stances on the issues by the end.

Even if they are decided initially, circumstances keep changing and people can be forced to change their view , for instance another terrorist attack will probably mean heightened security even if the candidate was initially convinced that we already have too much of it, and I'd say no president would like someone calling him a liar in these situations, some aspects you might only really come to know once you have gained the post and that would be a problem too, In essence i'd say stances fixed on stones are a bad Idea.

[Student of Trinity]

If an electorate ever becomes sophisticated enough to start imposing rigorous tests for candidates for high office, then it's probably an electorate whose own scrutiny will be better than any fixed battery of tests, because it will be more flexible and responsive. So campaigning for candidate testing is like planning to hold the kid's birthday party at the Chuckie Cheese that is just the other side of Disneyland. You'll do better by stopping on the way. Just try to get a more educated population.

[Lilith]

have any of you eaten an orange yet. i was serious. why orange you taking me seriously

[Student of Trinity]

I have a crate of oranges in the basement, and another crate of apples. I'm reluctant to eat fruit because I'm afraid it will be moldy or have mushy spots. The longer I wait, the more my fears come true. Scurvy, here we come.

[Little Fyora]

Oh I don't hate oranges I just don't like having to spit out the pips.

[Aran]

 

Arizona didn't finish the congressional races for days due to provisional ballots that require verification that the voter is properly registered and early ballots that weren't counted. I think they are still counting, but have called the results pending a final tally.

 

... it's been two weeks. ;_;

 

How does the provisional thing work, anyway? Do the provisional ballots remain sealed until verification?

[keira]

wtf is arizona's deal

 

first they have that law that makes it legal to search mexicans for being mexican, and now this

 

i never thought i would say this but damn, i'd rather live in montana than arizona

Edited November 23, 2012 by صيلي
or was it new mexico that did that

[Actaeon]

Pretty sure that was Arizona. New Mexico is the liberal bastion of the SouthWest.

[Student of Trinity]

It's a place where strangers may come up to you in McDonalds to ask politely for directions to the vortex.

[Randomizer]

Scurvy, here we come.

There is always sauerkraut.

 

Arizona has a large population of kooks. It might have something to do with them being out in the hot sun for too long or not long enough.

 

Provisional ballots occur because voters move to new addresses that don't correspond to their old registration or the system doesn't get updated with the new information. Then there was this year's scandal that a Republican registration group was discarding Democratic voter registration forms mostly in Florida and a few other states.

[Harehunter]

Lilith, just for you I have eaten an orange today. In fact, it was a Mandarin orange.

That might have serious consequences.

[Lilith]

that's not even a real orange

 

but it's also an excellent fruit in its own right so i'll accept it

[Balladeer]

can i eat a grapefruit instead? me likes grapefruits.

 

Ruby Red Squirt FTW!

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I can't eat grapefruit.