Comments on: Atrocious Housing Bill Illustrates the Problems of American Democracy

By: liberalamerican

liberalamerican — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:28:14 +0000

The quote actually appears on page 190 of Tom Clancy’s novel, The Bear and the Dragon, which given the American public’s reading taste’s is probably where most people found it. It appears all over the net unattributed.

As far as I know, it DOES NOT appear in Democracy in America, his major work and I could find no other source for it. So right now, maybe we can attribute it to Tom Clancy.

By: mike sanford

mike sanford — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:39:40 +0000

you quoted the following:

To quote de Tocqueville:

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.

Where does it come from, which of his writings?

By: Lori

Lori — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:37:35 +0000

Referencing entities by definition rather than name is a way of gaming the system. The more complex the system, the greater the role of “consultants” in gaming the system. The usual cynical assumptions about human nature hold that a simple and transparent set of rules will be gamed by virtually everyone, and the system will be plundered of resources in short order. This is used as an excuse for secrecy in systems that ordinary people have to deal with, like college admissions or human resources. It is assumed necessary to keep the applicants guessing as to what the institution is looking for. It is assumed that if these things are stated explicitly, the applicant portfolios will be tailored to match the specification.
I have heard it said in the progressive media that the process of drafting legislation has been fully privatized. The job of the legislature is voting on it. The job of reading it is of course impossible. Wikipedia describes the computer language APL as a ‘write-only language.’ The same could be said of modern legalese. I have long suspected that there is some kind of ‘computer aided design’ process at work in the drafting of boilerplate contracts. Logically, legislation is potentially an even higher stakes game. Interpretation of either type of document is largely a matter of implications and inferences. Convoluted systems of interlocking implications are far easier to construct than they are to analyze. We have crypto-politics, and the consultants hold the keys. If journalists manage to decipher small parts of the big picture, it may be because they have hired consultants. Insider knowledge is fungible as ‘consultancy,’ while analytical know-how is at best a blunt instrument with a little potential if used with what computer scientists call ‘brute force.’
We need the kind of revenue code simplification that will have the lion’s share of the accountants and lawyers screaming bloody murder. The ideological contention that the private sector can do no evil has been so successfully marketed that the public accepts it as a fact of life that the private sector eliminates jobs with impunity, typically rewarded with increased share prices. But legislation dare not challenge any established profession’s or industry’s niche.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:59:59 +0000

Interesting observation of the American governmental system collapsing from the inside. Especially considering the massive “loss of faith” that citizens have with our system at large due to the fallout from Pelosi’s and similar career politicians shotgun/appeasement methodology.

Speaking as a conservative and someone who follows the mass unrest as a psychological indicator, I find this election a critical juncture of changing this problem or allowing it to fester 8 more years. Obama appears to be the only person capable of changing the faulty dealings inside 495 thanks to his overwhelming popularity. If he, and his future cabinet, can harness the stored potential energy (i.e. mass unrest), Congress will be forced to change their tactics or find a new day job.