The Stupid 365 Project, Day 45: Just Say Ixnay
November 14th, 2010
No more professional policiticians. Ever.
When the United States was founded, the vision was of a republic governed literally by the people, for the people. By the people meant that that private citizens, feeling a need to serve the nation, would declare themselves for office and, if elected, would serve and then return to private life. This was consistent with the example of George Washington, whose return home after two terms as president, followed by a peaceful transition of power to John Adams, electrified the Western world.
The strength of such a system was that leaders were free to lead. They could make difficult or unpopular decisions because their priority was to govern well and then say goodbye to politics. Even the relatively early rise of political parties didn’t mess up the model too much: in those days, the parties actually stood for conflicting philosophies about how the country should work.
The nation’s downfall has been predicted many times: secession would end it, the Civil War would end it, the abandonment of the gold standard would end it, Communism would end it. And all the while, the thing that might really end it was happening right before our eyes.
The rise of the professional politician.
We are governed now by a completely unforeseen class of people who clamp on to the public trough — at all levels — and feed there. The primary objective of American politicians now is not to lead, not to solve the nation’s problems, not to make the country better, stronger, more solvent, more just. The primary objective of American politicians now is to get re-elected.
Instead of implementing sound policies, American politicians now poll ceaselessly to identify popular policies. Whatever you do, don’t lose a vote. The average senator or congressperson devotes much of his or her time in office to creating federal budget deficits by diverting pork — federal dollars — to the folks back home. State legislators do the same thing, creating state deficits, and for the same reason: to buy votes. Result: deficits at every level.
Campaigning has become prohibitively expensive, so candidates and the parties who select them have made unholy deals with corporations and unions alike. Politics is now all money; the politicians buy their constituents’ votes and then sell their own votes — in Congress, in state legislatures — to the highest bidders.
The system is rotten from top to bottom.
We need a new party, and I’ve got one in mind: The Ixnaycrats.
It’s easy to be an Ixnaycrat. Here are the rules:
Just say Ixnay. Vote against all incumbents.
Vote for the candidate with the least political experience.
Vote for people you’d like to sit next to on an airplane: schoolteachers, massage therapists, landscape gardeners, college professors, violinists, dog trainers.
Organize for term limits. Two terms is the maximum for all offices.
Just say Ixnay. Vote against all new taxes, no matter how they’re sold. The government has too much money as it is. It’s overpaying itself, it’s bloated, it’s wasteful, it has three times more employees than it needs. It spends enormous amount of money on programs designed to buy votes.
The Ixnaycrats’ ultimate goal is government by amateurs, each amateur capped at two terms. A secondary goal is the destruction of all the current political parties. It would be very difficult for corporations and unions to preserve the sweetheart deals they have now, where, year after year, the Republican or Democratic party structure can just accept their bribes and funnel them to a slate of candidates. One of the primary Ixnaycrat objectives is to break that unholy alliance.
But what about experience? Two points. First, experience got us into this mess, where the laws don’t make sense and aren’t enforced half of the time anyway, where we’re trillions of dollars in the hole, where the average citizen’s voice counts for nothing. Second, that’s what cabinets are for. That’s what staff is for. That’s what the judicial branch is for.
But won’t it be chaos? Maybe. But it might be a creative chaos, as opposed to the bone-wearying, repetitive, cynical, hypocritical, uninspired, deeply larcenous chaos we’re living in now.
Just say Ixnay.
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22 Responses to “The Stupid 365 Project, Day 45: Just Say Ixnay” -
Robb Royer Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 12:35 am
Okay you finally got me. I’ve been reading all your blogs and pretty much all the comments without saying anything; feel pretty much like one of the kids in Porky’s… but this subject brings me out of my wormhole. I don’t know if voting for a new idiot at the expense of a current idiot is a practical or even a serious suggestion but I understand exactly where you’re coming from. By the way, let me introduce myself to your posse, I’m Tim’s college roommate, and since, longtime friend. At the time my politics were pretty much Tom Wolfe and his,somewhere in the vicinity of the Ohio SDS,(at least it seemed to me) but we seemed somewhere along the line to have merged like…(I’ll skip the metaphor).
Anyway, Tim, my own particular variation on your point is… I’m looking for just one politico who wants to balance the budget AND take on the Wall Street trough feeders. Can’t find one! Seems like all we have is Dems who throw borrowed money around like water or Repubs who are running interference for the beleaguered billionaires.
On the budget-balancing side are these tea partyers who think we can reach solvency by throwing grandma off her food stamps but don’t seem to mind the hogs who took bonus billions out of the public bailout money… 2.4 billion just for the Merrill Lynch execs who were rewarding themselves for destroying a 150 year old financial company cause they’re so indispensable and all …sputter sputter… and I wasn’t going to go off on a rant.
Anyway Id be happy to join the ixnays. I haven’t been able to vote for a major party candidate in 20 years, so might as well try something.
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philip coggan Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 12:36 am
But why have a judicial branch? Every American has a gun, let them shoot it out between them.
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Rachel Brady Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 7:14 am
Brilliant. Where do I register?
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Bonnie Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 8:27 am
One of the key roadblocks to this kind of solution is the entrenched bureaucracy that does the actual work of government. A humorous depiction of this that I used to enjoy was a (BBC?) show called Yes, Minister.
Sometimes I could almost prefer the frank avarice of the old-time Soviet era officials: just grab as much power and as many goodies for yourself and your supporters while you’ve got the chance, while speaking the empty words. Whereas we not only get f*cked over, we have to listen to self-righteous rhetoric and have our patriotism (a questionable virtue in any event) questioned when we dare protest.
Carrying the model further, the same sort of short-term gratification (of stockholders) is what keeps the big corporations (who in the end constitute at least one of the villains of the piece) from making tough but necessary decisions, either for their own or god forbid for the common good.
Believe it or not, this takes us back full circle to the speculation I indulged in a couple of weeks ago on DorothyL about how an honest “hero” can approach justice when he (Poke Rafferty, Guido Brunetti, Lisbeth Salander) know that the system one should be able to depend on to mete it out has long gone over to the dark side.
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EverettK Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 9:32 am
First three planks of the Ixnay Party:
1) NEVER vote for an incumbent until the U.S. Constitution has been amended to limit ALL persons from serving more than two terms at local, state and federal levels.
2) Amend the U.S. Constitution to limit ALL persons from serving more than two terms at local, state and federal levels.
3) Amend the U.S. Constitution to declare that spending money is not speech protected by the First Amendment when the amount exceeds one-tenth of the current poverty level in the U.S.
Get rid of career politicians.
Get rid of big-money in politics.
Long live King Tim! Long live King Tim!
Err…umm…wait a minute…
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Suzanna Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 10:08 am
Ixnay to the lobbyists and the Ixnaycrats might have a chance.
Campaign Finance Reform has been all but nullified by the Supreme Court decision to allow corporations “freedom of speech” so now they can get into the act with unlimited amounts of cash for campaign advertising.
You gotta dig out the corruption at the root. New representatives to replace the more experienced ones may only go so far if you don’t figure out how to throw the lobbyists out.
Something like 65 lobbyists to every representative are hounded and plied with cash and prizes and in return the more weak minded reps spew out whatever rhetoric they’re handed and vote like they’re told to. Probably many without even reading the legislation they are trying to shove through.
Where do over half of our government officials head when they leave office?
They become lobbyists. It’s a never ending feeding frenzy.
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EverettK Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 10:24 am
I should add that plank #3 needs VERY careful thought and some amendment itself, in order to be VERY clear that we’re only talking about elections. Crafting this type of amendment needs VERY careful thought, to prevent abuse of the electoral and legal systems while not allowing abuse of all other forms of free speech. It’s one of those “walking talking duck” scenarios, very difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it.
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Suzanna Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Oh, no, egg on my face!
I meant to say…
There are something like 65 lobbyists for every representative. Representatives are hounded and plied with cash and prizes…
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Helen Simonson Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 11:22 am
What is this – the I-would-join-the-tea-party-but-I-don’t-wear-appliquéd-sweaters party? Just lay off government workers people – they get less than their private sector peers and occasionally people fly small planes into them and nobody even cares. Government work has provided a route of minority upward mobility that no private sector business can match. Oh – I’m English so I’m a subject of a constitutional monarchy. Wanna trade?
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Phil Hanson Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
What the country needs is not smaller government, but better government–you know, government of the corporations, by the people, for the planet (or something like that). Never gonna happen until corporate money is removed from the political process. Sorry, Tim, starving government won’t solve any of our nation’s problems; however, punishing bad behavior will. Those who wield political power must be held accountable for their bad acts.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Hi, Robb — Exactly right. All the pros are in various pockets, and the Democrats are no more likely to take down the fat cats than the Republicans, as President Obama, a/k/a Captain Disappointment, has proved. The only difference is that the Dems want to throw money at ineffective short-term social programs (vote buyers) while the Repugs want to throw money at the military (vote buying by pandering to “terror”). Neither side is willing to stand up for fiscal responsibility because it’ll lose votes, on the one hand, and corporate bucks on the other. We really need to start from scratch while preserving the basic outline of our government, and the way to do that is to elect people who aren’t in anyone’s pockets, who won’t be in office long enough to get bought, and who won’t be pandering for votes because they can’t be re-elected. So, yeah, I’m more than three-quarters serious. I really do believe that expertise is overrated, especially when it’s bound to mendacity and cynicism.
Easy for you to say, Philip, about letting us shoot it out, since you’re in Australia.
Rachel, I wish I knew. I’m thinking about a website, but not really sure I’m the guy to do any of this. Thinking about the whole thing.
Bonnie, I agree about the entrenched bureaucracy, and thinning it is a priority of any plan to reduce government spending. I’d do it through a hiring freeze across the board for, say four years — as people leave their jobs, they can’t be replaced. Then look at the way things are/aren’t working and extend it, or not. Gradually, over time, as people stop passing legislation tooled specifically to win votes, but which requires new public workers to carry out the new regulations, we’ll see a shrinkage there, too. Here in California the city of Los Angeles, which is deeeeeeeeply in the hole, has one-quarter as many employees as the entire state of California, which is also billions in the hole and has twice as many employees as it needs. (I’m probably going to write about this tomorrow.)
Everett, I’m for planks one and two, but plank three needs thought. Obviously, we need to elect nonprofessionals before enacting term limits because pros will never, ever vote for term limits. But absolutely — Get rid of professional politicians and get rid of big money in politics.
Suzanna, lobbyists will always be a problem, but their job would be a lot harder if they had to deal with a changing cast all the time and if the central money funnels, by which I mean the Democratic and Repuglican parties, weren’t in charge. Also, lobbyists are investing in what they think of as longterm alliances, which would be much more difficult if people just weren’t going to be in office for the long term.
Helen, you and I are just on completely different sides. First, I think it’s specious to say that a call for a smaller, nimbler, more accountable, more solvent, more efficient, and less corrupt government is “conservative.” In fact, I think the old “conservative” and “liberal” labels are hopelessly out of date. Nixon expanded the federal government, introduced wage and price controls, and oversaw the setup of the Environmental Protection Agency; Reagan and both Bushes expanded the size of the federal government. Bush signed the prescription drugs for seniors legislation, the biggest expansion of government health care since Medicare. The last time we had a balanced budget (and that was the first time in many years) or a re-evaluation of entitlement programs was under Clinton. who’s the liberal and who were the conservatives? What we need are leaders who are not in the pockets of big money, who won’t prostitute themselves for votes, who believe that nations need to be fiscally responsible, and who CAN’T turn elective office into a lifelong career. In other words, American government as it was originally envisioned back in the 18th century. And while I will agree that many government workers are, as individuals, delightful and meritorious people, there are waaayyyyy too many of them, and in most cases I would dispute the contention that they earn less than their private-sector counterparts, and certainly that their pension and health programs are superior to those of most workers in the private sector.
Maybe I should go back to to writing for fan magazines.
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Bonnie Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Also, just to play devil’s advocate some more, we kind of got our “nonprofessional” politician in the Gubernator, and though he didn’t bomb as completely as I expected, and even pleasantly surprised me sometimes, on the whole it wasn’t a big improvement. (Must say I do like the commercials he and Maria do for the state tourism board or whoever puts those on, though).
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Suzanna Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
I see what you’re saying, Tim, but I am probably a lot more cynical than you are. I think anyone can fall prey to the seemingly unstoppable lobby machine no matter how short a time they hold office.
Helen, I would much rather wear an appliqued sweater, and a doily on my head than have anything at all to do with the Tea Party.
Pretty sure I wouldn’t want to have a monarchy sapping the US treasury instead, but a nice extended time in Britain seems VERY appealing to me after almost every election we have here.
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Sharai Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Sigh!!!! I was expecting something much more humorous from the Ixnaycrats. I prefer to get my political analysis from the Stewart/Colbert camp. But since you started it. . . you’ll have to do better than “people you’d like to sit next to on an airplane”! They have to be really, really smart. And I don’t mean Trickie Dick type smart. I’m talking Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Clinton, Obama type smart. Yes let’s get rid of all the labels. Suzanna and I get to shoot all the lobbyists. But the bottom line is we have to start nurturing and mentoring our kids to be problem solvers who can’t be swayed by the money when their ray of hope begins to dim. My final fantasy is a world of young critical thinkers schooled by elders who have studied history and lived through many changes during their own lives. Their the ones who will lead us to something beyond capitalism, socialism, or communism. And you, Professor Hallinan, would be on that council!
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Sharai Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Wait! Please let me take Clinton off that list!
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Suzanna Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Sharai, I like your vision for creating critical thinkers, but please, I’m a non-violent type!
I’m sure we could revisit some of Tim’s very amusing punitive measures which he wrote about a week or so ago when he addressed the benefits of hell.
Or one suggestion I have that you might consider instead of gun violence, make the lobbyists wear, as Homer Simpson once said, tight “Stupid itchy church pants” on a hot arduous hike through the Amazon forest for several weeks with no mosquito repellent and a useless map.
Clinton may have been a failure on some of his policies and had some pretty embarrassing personal behavior but if you’re looking for smart, I think he is a very smart man.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 15th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Hi, Phil — I think “starving” the government is not an apt way of putting it. For decades, the government has been fiscally irresponsible, operating on the assumption that (a) more tax money was always available, and (b) that deficits didn’t matter. Well, the one thing I agree with the Tea Party about is that taxation is way out of line and that the government (at all levels) needs to prioritize its spending, to stop pork and wastage, to guard against duplication and massive billion-dollar investments in (for example) weapons systems that are never even taken to final. Governments at all levels need to be put on a fiscal diet, and I think that voters across the conventional liberal/conservative spectrum are concerned about the way our governments spend.
Hey, Soooz, i’m with you, and actually I’ve always secretly wanted to wear an appliqued sweater, although I can dispense with the doily. I don’t actually think the Ixnaycrats line up tidily either as liberals or consevatives, and in fact I think the whole thing of conservatives claiming “fiscal responsibility” as their exclusive trait has been a brilliant piece of Orwellian Newspeak, since it effectively categorizes liberals as “fiscally irresponsible.” We’re not about liberalism or conservatism — we’re about breaking the professional politicians’ stranglehold on governance and eliminating big-money politics, returning government to real people, not an aloof professional elite whose members have often never held a real job in their lives.
Hi, Sharai — I’m sorry it wasn’t funnier, but there’s no way I’m going to compete with Steward and Colbert on that front. I don’t even thing absolutely everyone elected to office has to be really, really smart. I’d settle for modestly smart and highly principled, who could contribute something, even if it’s small, to the building of a new approach (which is actually the old approach) to American governance. And I agree that the ultimate goal of any nation should be to create the best possible environment for its young to grow and flourish, since they’re going to be the next ones in the engine room anyway.
Suzanna, stupid itchy church pants for all lobbyists, all oily, dishonest pols, tor example, Charles Rangel, walking out of his own hearing today, finding it hard to believe that his years of privilege and greed may be ending. These crooks and demagogues are on both ends of the political spectrum, and some are in the middle. And we have to find a way to clear them out, regardless of party affiliation or where they stand on the old index. The old index is increasingly meaningless, since the only thing these people actually care about is getting re-elected.
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Larissa Says:
November 16th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Wow. I wish that we could come up with a sort of “Etch-E-Sketch” political policy that allows us to backpedal to a time right before it all got hosed…but that’s not realistic. We can’t unlearn all the things that have happened to the point where people will stop caring about money and votes and all the superfluous metrics that we use to measure “success” and “values”. I have a similar plea for going against devils like Technolgoy as a whole and the de-evolution of the human ability to think for themselves instead of letting google do it for them.
Ahem. Before that pot gets boiling, however, we’ll trade it for this one: (legal or not…hehe.)
I agree that we need to raise critical thinkers who can sort through their moral conflicts with some mental deftness so as to make a better decision. There is no such thing as the purist idealistic thinker out there right now because, well, frankly, those people can’t afford to be heard let alone fed or clothed or housed.
If we have to play along with a certain amount of fucked up rules (really no other way to say it) then so be it-we can at least live the rest of our lives that aren’t dicated by those rules (humor me in thinking that Big Brother really isn’t out there in full force just yet) with the integrity we’re prescribing for our politicians-that’s how you end up with better politics-by changing the PH balance of the cesspool they come from.
Breed a better society starting with ourselves and we’ll breed better politicians. Period.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 16th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Hi, Riss — I certainly applaud your optimism, although I think we’re farther down the road to Big Brother (and Sister) than you seem to. But I love the image of changing the pH balance of the political cesspool. In fact, I want a T-shirt that says that on the front, and on the back says, JUST SAY IXNAY.
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Larissa Says:
November 16th, 2010 at 9:26 am
lol. I could make that happen. Speaking of happenings-where’s yesterday’s post hmm?
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Maria Yolanda Aguayo Says:
November 16th, 2010 at 11:53 am
IXnay! IXnay! Certainly a worthy pondering. The sleek and offending politicos have been the norm and acceptable for so long. The genuine and courageous generally hide or are scared to participate in the obviously doomed experience that is a quagmire of non-action. I only wish IXnay could be the emerging sanity to the chaos. If a bright new star is in the horizon, should he wear an armored body suit. Bucking the greatly entrenched political mafia is a dangerous undertaking.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 16th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
I’m witchoo, Riss. We need to turn this boat around somehow.
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