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This forum focuses on the general pros & cons of enlarging representation in the U.S. House of Representatives which are not related to the topics covered in Sections one through ten. No incivility or partisan advocacy allowed.
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Octobox
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30K is an Absurd form of Logic

Post by Octobox »

Thorton's argument in favor of 30K per 1 civilian representation is rediculous.

Voting and Lobbying are respectively an Abdication of Self-Rule and Purchasing the Authority of anothers.

---Doesn't the latter sound like Trotsky's "perpetual revolution" axiom. Voting and Lobbying are Perpetual Abdication / Theft (War / Revolution).

A meditation on Motive (profit)

Civlian: The civilian is trained to believe voting is relevant to liberty (self-rule). So, he abdicates his self-rule in the hopes that another individual (consolidator of great power - abdication) will then turn around and grant self-rule back; rather than, follow study human behavior wherein once benefitted twice returned we seek to empower another rather than ourselves in the hopes he will return our power. :arrow: [Insert Einstein's Definition of Insanity]
---Civilian Summation: A "welfarist" mode; regardless, of libertarian, democrat, or republican. If you vote/lobby you are a welfarist (abdicator / stealer of self-rule), thus you practice perpetual war and can never have liberty.

Politician: The Politician is easier to figure out. The "senior" politician (the non-term limit career politician) controls the war chest, special committee appointments, post political career in lobbying, and thus the senior contol the votes of "junior politicians."
----What makes this possible is the civilian abdicator

Increasing the size of Gov't does not eliminate that -- However, if all politicians had a one-term (2 to 4 year) term limit then all politicians would have to be lobbied equally. Instead of 40 controlling 435 you'd have 435 to lobby -- making the outcome less predictable and inifinitely more costly.

Increasing the size of Gov't only means the "40" (seniors) would control 10,233 rather than 495. Thornton's rule of 30,000 civilians per 1 representative comes to 10,233 for 307,000,000 people.

Also, the current cost of gov't, is approx. $135K per individual; plus $1,000,000 budget each -- 535 X $135K is ~ $72,000,000. Their budget is 535 X $1M is ~ $535,000,000. Total Cost of Current System: $607,000,000

With the "30K" argument Thornton advocates we are talking about 10,233 X $135K is ~ $1,380,000,000 (salary only). Their budget would be 10,233 X $1,000,000 is ~ $10,200,000,000. Total Cost of Thornton Proposed System: $11.6B.

So, the "40" Seniors would rule over the 10,233 in the exact same manner as the 495 -- It's not "literally" 40 the number might be higher or lower, but it's near accurate. Seniors represent not only career politics but upper-echelon control (wealthy demographic regions), war chest control, and special commitee apointment control.

Net Effect: Gov't Bigger means Greater Cost to Us and ZERO Increase in Self-Rule.

The simple argument is: Abdicating to more people is WORSE than Abdicating to LESS. Abdicating to NONE is optimal.

Octobox
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Paul
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Re: 30K is an Absurd form of Logic

Post by Paul »

TheTrucker
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Re: 30K is an Absurd form of Logic

Post by TheTrucker »

I am always amazed at how the Libertarians can wrap themselves around the axle to avoid the blessings of cooperation. It really gets down to the inability of Libertarian ideology to embrace the concept of insurance.

In an insurance system we send in money to the administrator and truly hope we never get anything back. We don't really _WANT_ the barn to burn down but we feel a lot better knowing that if it does burn down then the "insurance company" (which is actually the community) will help us get it rebuilt.

And so we give up some of our freedom/liberty (we give up purchasing power) to "an authority" who will "finance" the building of a new barn should a barn burn down. A "fund" need not actually exist, of course, because we have a stream of income that can finance the rebuild. We know that we are protected from the fire hazard on day one even though we haven't "earned" and "saved up" enough money to rebuild the barn. All insurance systems are socialism. And the socialism works very well. The fact is that so long as there is unemployed labor then the ability to build the barn exists. Each of the persons in the insurance "pool" will be paying for the construction as they pay their premiums.
Oxtobox wrote:The civilian is trained to believe voting is relevant to liberty (self-rule). So, he abdicates his self-rule in the hopes that another individual (consolidator of great power - abdication) will then turn around and grant self-rule back; rather than, follow study human behavior wherein once benefitted twice returned we seek to empower another rather than ourselves in the hopes he will return our power.
I hope I read this as it was intended. But it certainly seems very wrong headed in that we don't "vote" for the indicated reasons but, instead, for those who will represent us in dealing with the administrators of the insurance system. And we do this because we do not have the time to devote to watching the administrators ourselves. We have our own "pursuit of happiness" to look after. We want the administrators to insure that we have the freedom and liberty to do that through the use of force if necessary. And we want our representatives to act as our _agent_ in this matter in insuring the administrators do their job. We will be busy planting corn or whatever else we do in pursuit of our own destinies. We will not have to waste our time guarding the barn.
Oxtobox wrote:The Politician is easier to figure out. The "senior" politician (the non-term limit career politician) controls the war chest, special committee appointments, post political career in lobbying, and thus the senior contol the votes of "junior politicians."
----What makes this possible is the civilian abdicator
The "Party" currently does control the members by virtue of funding and by virtue of gerrymandering and by virtue of "plumbs" on the committees and other means as well. What we wish to do is to insure that the party cannot determine who will represent us by virtue of these sorts of controls. By making the constituencies as small as 30k people, the representative _MUST_ represent the constituents or the representative will be _EASILY_ removed in spite of all the TV ads the party can buy. In this endeavor we are assisted by technology better than ever before. We can see exactly how our supposed "representative" is comporting himself/herself on a real time basis at our convenience. The representative will stand for re-election every 2 years and woe be to the one who does not represent. The salary of $170k a year is desired by many and they will be watching like hawks for the current representative to mess up.
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JEQuidam
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Re: 30K is an Absurd form of Logic

Post by JEQuidam »

Paul, Octobox's posting is too incoherent for me to figure out what his point is, other than he apparently opposes enlarging our representation. So we'll put him down as "anti-enlargement" (which I did).
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JEQuidam
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Re: 30K is an Absurd form of Logic

Post by JEQuidam »

TheTrucker wrote:I am always amazed at how the Libertarians can wrap themselves around the axle to avoid the blessings of cooperation. It really gets down to the inability of Libertarian ideology to embrace the concept of insurance.
Mike, I know you like to rail against anyone who is not a Democrat but Ocotobox is not a Libertarian. He is, in fact, an anarchist, or advocates for some variation of anarchy. Here is a quote of his from a different forum: "I do believe after a successful transition from Corporatism to Consumer-Minarchism we can move on to a Consumer-Individualist society -- Indivdualism is the "root" of Anarchism."

Because anarchists don't form effective or sustainable organizations, they generally have to hitch a ride on other organizations' forums in order to have a platform for expressing their views. I believe that anarchism is usually found among those who are paranoid and have a profound sense of personal alienation. These people intellectualize this anarchist framework, as if it were a viable alternative, in order to mask their own dysfunctionality within the society. The irony of anarchy is how intolerant the anarchists are of conflicting points of view. Of course, that's just my opinion, and I'm sure Ocotobox could offer a lengthy and incoherent explanation of why I'm wrong.

Currently we are governed by an oligarchy (which is largely controlled by Special Interests). This video "The American Form of Government" does an excellent job of contrasting oligarchy and anarchy with the republican form of government. I encourage everyone to watch it.

Mike, most of the support for enlarging representation has, in fact, come from libertarians. I have found conservatives and liberals far more resistant to enlargement than libertarians. I believe that is because more libertarians understand the difference between governance and government.
TheTrucker
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Re: 30K is an Absurd form of Logic

Post by TheTrucker »

Octobox wrote:Thorton's argument in favor of 30K per 1 civilian representation is rediculous.

Voting and Lobbying are respectively an Abdication of Self-Rule and Purchasing the Authority of anothers.

---Doesn't the latter sound like Trotsky's "perpetual revolution" axiom. Voting and Lobbying are Perpetual Abdication / Theft (War / Revolution).

A meditation on Motive (profit)

Civlian: The civilian is trained to believe voting is relevant to liberty (self-rule). So, he abdicates his self-rule in the hopes that another individual (consolidator of great power - abdication) will then turn around and grant self-rule back; rather than, follow study human behavior wherein once benefitted twice returned we seek to empower another rather than ourselves in the hopes he will return our power. :arrow: [Insert Einstein's Definition of Insanity]
---Civilian Summation: A "welfarist" mode; regardless, of libertarian, democrat, or republican. If you vote/lobby you are a welfarist (abdicator / stealer of self-rule), thus you practice perpetual war and can never have liberty.

Politician: The Politician is easier to figure out. The "senior" politician (the non-term limit career politician) controls the war chest, special committee appointments, post political career in lobbying, and thus the senior contol the votes of "junior politicians."
----What makes this possible is the civilian abdicator

Increasing the size of Gov't does not eliminate that -- However, if all politicians had a one-term (2 to 4 year) term limit then all politicians would have to be lobbied equally. Instead of 40 controlling 435 you'd have 435 to lobby -- making the outcome less predictable and inifinitely more costly.

Increasing the size of Gov't only means the "40" (seniors) would control 10,233 rather than 495. Thornton's rule of 30,000 civilians per 1 representative comes to 10,233 for 307,000,000 people.

Also, the current cost of gov't, is approx. $135K per individual; plus $1,000,000 budget each -- 535 X $135K is ~ $72,000,000. Their budget is 535 X $1M is ~ $535,000,000. Total Cost of Current System: $607,000,000

With the "30K" argument Thornton advocates we are talking about 10,233 X $135K is ~ $1,380,000,000 (salary only). Their budget would be 10,233 X $1,000,000 is ~ $10,200,000,000. Total Cost of Thornton Proposed System: $11.6B.

So, the "40" Seniors would rule over the 10,233 in the exact same manner as the 495 -- It's not "literally" 40 the number might be higher or lower, but it's near accurate. Seniors represent not only career politics but upper-echelon control (wealthy demographic regions), war chest control, and special commitee apointment control.

Net Effect: Gov't Bigger means Greater Cost to Us and ZERO Increase in Self-Rule.

The simple argument is: Abdicating to more people is WORSE than Abdicating to LESS. Abdicating to NONE is optimal.

Octobox

You seem to utterly miss the objective. The expansion of the membership has a cost which you have attempted to identify. But you do not properly observe the benefits of much smaller electoral districts. The point is that in such small districts it is entirely possible for a candidate to run "out of pocket" and have absolutely no allegiance to any special interest other then his/her own. And it is also much easier to replace such representatives should they not comport themselves with due regard to their constituents. Money simply cannot control small districts where there is a closer relationship between the people and the representative. It will not work as it does now with televised campaign ads. The ground game will win.

Further, the benefits of office (most certainly the salary and the lifetime medical care and retirement) will be pursued by many people eagerly. The current representative will be ousted if that representative fails to meet expectations because there are many people who want the job.
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