I am not a Party Goer

I have never been a party person. I can't say anything original about why the party system ruins our politics. No, the two-party system does not ruin it: the party system ruins it. They may be a natural growth of the connections and deals politicians will make to push their agendas. I can't associate with any party. I want to point out that I hate writing this, because while this may be a "rant" blog, I do intend to mean something with what I say and this is very hard to write without sounding like regurgitated echos.

I'm scrambling to describe my thoughts about this. I don't like not being able to pour the words into the <textarea> and just keep rambling on with at least some feeling that I'm keeping coherent thoughts.

I associate mostly with democrats, but its a deal made good by volume more than quality. I see benefits in ideals of democrats, republicans, libertarians, socialists, communists, etc. I suppose conservatives are the only group I can't find a shred of understanding with. Is The Right fighting the bailouts and government expansion in a weak attempt to push themselves back in power? I don't know. I do know that I see some merit. I want to socialize a lot of services, but I don't want to support the failing banks. The problem is not just the usual situation of no one party doing everything I like, but not even doing the few things I like for the reasons that I would. I don't want to let the banks and insurance companies fail because it is capitalism at its finest. I don't believe in loans and insurance and want to see them abolished, and if the free market has done that, so be it. If it won't, I support making them illegal and that is content for another post.

Obama has really disappointed me, sort of. I expected it, so i guess its not a disappointed to get the same frustrations you already expected. I did think that the support of Lessig would mean he gives a fairer chance to free software and the end of copyright chaos, but his RIAA friends are just going to run wild now. More later.

Bachmann is a crazy lunatic, but she's right about one thing: Orderly Revolution is good every now and then. Is it a revolution if you do it legally, within the powers of democracy?

The Return of the Rant

There is too much going on in the world not to rant anymore, and this is the place for me to do it. Will more come of this or do I simply need to vent? I neither nor or care, because at this exact moment there is simply the need to rant.

I don't know if the bailout was the savior or damnation of our society and I'm just going to come out and say that I don't care either way. The issues at hand are too complicated for any one or few people to really understand, and beyond the few people it is too complicated to coordinate them to do anything about it. The companies are not too big to fail, but any sufficiently large group of people is. What is being "too big to fail"? If you're one person and you loose your job or small business, you look for another job. Simple. A small company might look for acquisition and a non-profit for donations. International corporations and giant governments aren't too big to fail, we just have no idea how to go about it. They are giant complex beasts.

If our government "crumbled", what would happen?

The military would not go home, and without the budget and resource pipelines they would follow existing or spontaneous plans to secure the means to keep the armed forces active, because that is their job. Even if the people controlling them lost power, they can't just disband.

The post office operates under its own revenue, some years being more profitable than others. Without a federal government telling it what to do, there is no reason they would stop doing what they already do.

Regulatory bodies like the FCC and FDA would continue to exist, striking deals with the corporations they regulate to pay fees that keep their doors open, in exchange for an authority to rule in cases against their competitors. This is no different than industry groups that corporations form and use to make deals with one another for even playing fields. Well, even for the competitors you let in...

The same is largely true for corporations. People are going to try to keep doing what they do every day and the people "in charge" are going to be proven largely irrelevant, until there are disputes and we put new people "in charge" and forget all about everything and pretend like they have real authority again. In the end, the greatest authority is habit.