Federalist Paper 3 - John Jay (President of the Continental Congress, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Governor of New York, First Chief Justice of the United States)

Quote :

"Because when once an efficient national government is established, the best men [and women] in the country will not only consent to serve, but also will generally be appointed to manage it; for, although town or country, or other contracted influence, may place men [and women] in State assemblies, or senates, or courts of justice, or executive departments, yet more general and extensive reputation for talents and other qualifications will be necessary to recommend men [and women] to offices under the national government,--especially as it will have the widest field for choice, and never experience that want of proper persons which is not uncommon in some of the States. Hence, it will result that the administration, the political counsels, and the judicial decisions of the national government will be more wise, systematical, and judicious than those of individual States, and consequently more satisfactory with respect to other nations, as well as more SAFE with respect to us."

Is that happening now?

Is our Congress populated with the best people this nation has to offer?

I'm not talking about the past, I'm talking about NOW.

1/17/2011 9:58:03 PM

There's no such thing as "best" when it comes to people. It's meaningless.

There are some very good appointees out there though.

1/17/2011 10:03:09 PM

Not only no, but hell no. It isn't entirely their fault though. The problem is, the government has grown so unwieldy that they can't be expected to be very knowledgeable in all aspects of it's workings. They can't expect to know defense, economics, environment, education, and pretty much everything the federal government has taken over.

1/17/2011 10:12:01 PM

two very good points. ^, ^^

1/17/2011 10:26:22 PM

Nothing but the very best and brightest. "the best of the best of the best", if you will.

Watch this interview if you need proof:

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/transcript/cavuto-clashes-rep-wolf-over-earmark-ban

1/17/2011 10:33:27 PM

Quote :

"Feet of clay"

LOL. Cavuto got trolled hard.

1/18/2011 6:22:48 AM

Best at having money and influence
Best at being ambitious and self-serving
Best at swaying stupid people
Best at covering your own ass

These are the qualities that our election process selects for.

1/18/2011 9:42:08 AM

Quote :

"Best at having money and influence Best at being ambitious and self-serving Best at swaying stupid people Best at covering your own ass"

That's the list of qualities that gets you to the top of anywhere in life, not just the US government.

1/18/2011 9:55:46 AM

Quote :

"Best at having money and influence Best at being ambitious and self-serving Best at swaying stupid people Best at covering your own ass"

Agreed

1/18/2011 10:27:40 AM

I mean, they're the best at what they do, which is getting elected and staying in power. The founders hoped that we'd continue to use the Constitution. Of course, we didn't, and we now live under a corporatist system fueled by perpetual war and a central bank. If it was widely understood by the public that the federal government was only authorized to perform duties outlined in the Constitution, career politicians probably wouldn't exist, and it certainly wouldn't be as lucrative a career path.

The reality is that no government can be trusted to police itself. The individuals running the government will seek to enrich themselves or their buddies at the expense of everyone else. The founders understood that a free republic could not persist without an educated voting population, since politicians would fall prey to human nature, and would invariably need to be held accountable. Education, in this case, does not refer to "book smarts," though knowledge is integral to human progress. Education means fostering respect for the virtues of liberty and individual rights. Our system is great at pumping out educated fools, who despite having a world class education in their particular field, blindly embrace the state, buying into the nationalist, pro-government view that has been instilled in them since birth.

[Edited on January 18, 2011 at 11:45 AM. Reason : ]

1/18/2011 11:43:43 AM

you get the democracy you deserve, not the one you want.

1/18/2011 4:38:19 PM

not only our politicians not only represent us, they are representative OF us: arrogant, petty, and ill-informed.

We're the smartest, cleverest most hardworking people on the planet. Don't believe it? Just ask us.

1/20/2011 6:59:02 PM

Quote :

"Best at having money"

And the Citizens United ruling only empowers this as a quality our elections select for.

1/20/2011 7:37:02 PM

citizens united was the correct, constitutional decision.

it is next to impossible to limit the impact of money in politics and limiting a few specific groups that you dont like is not the way to fix the problem. The only chance to change it would be better voter education, but thats not gonna happen. Republicans dont want to spend money educating poors and democrats wont do anything against the teachers unions and public administrators.

1/20/2011 8:20:59 PM

Hank Johnson

1/24/2011 9:24:38 PM

I suppose the question to ask is what characteristics makes a person running for Congress the "best"? Perhaps more importantly though, we should be asking whether Congressional staffs are made up of the best and brightest. As noted by Chance, there's no way a single individual can be versed in all matters before Congress. The question to ask is whether or not the people they bring into their office to handle the day-to-day matters are of top quality and provide sufficient coverage of all major issues (and of course, whether or not the Congressman is smart and clever enough to both listen to and manage them).

1/25/2011 1:43:39 PM

doesn't take much to be a member of congress, really. pretty sure the rep from say, the 8th district of Missouri, is not one of the best nor brightest in this country. may be better at fundraising and telling people what they want to hear than the 1 or 2 people running against them, but in no way necessarily a better thinker than other educated citizens.

i mean, look at some of our recent presidents - their previous track records were no more successful (or even less so) than the typical C-level exec at a fortune 500 company. they just happen to really want to be in politics, while many bright, successful people choose other paths.

1/25/2011 2:00:58 PM

The characteristics that make a good legislator are not characteristics that typically help one become a legislator.

1/25/2011 2:50:11 PM

Quote :

" As noted by Chance, there's no way a single individual can be versed in all matters before Congress."

Symptom of the larger problem. That's for a whole different topic.

1/25/2011 5:37:48 PM

no /thread

1/26/2011 4:13:20 PM

Quote :

"As noted by Chance, there's no way a single individual can be versed in all matters before Congress"

That is why a lot of work is done by committee first. Getting people who know or care about a topic together to do the ground work.

Although that can backfire too, when putting power in the hands of fewer people, especially when people starting talking about putting the republican who apologized to BP in control of energy policy or Virginia Foxx who opposes education investments in charge of an education committee. Still, anything Foxx pushes needs a majority in the GOP House and in a Dem Senate to approve it, so there are checks in place.

But knowledgeable committees getting first say, then elected representatives everywhere getting a say, at a glance seems like a reasonable way to approach a wide variety of subject matters in a representative democracy.

---

The answer to the threads question is still probably no. Well, maybe not. If the question was, are those serving in Congress beyond room for improvement? Then the answer would absolutely be no. But then I ask myself who would be better? And while there are many individuals I would like to replace in congress, I think about the thousands upon thousands of elected officials it takes to make a representative democracy work at all the local, statewide, and national positions, and I ask myself, are there that many super qualified uncorrectable people? I don't know that there are.

So yes there is definitely room for improvement, but I'm not sure there are enough "best" people to fill out all the ranks in all parts of our representative democracy. But I think the nature of democracy means there is always room for improvement.

“Our democracy is not a product but a continual process. It is preserved not by monuments but deeds. Sometimes it needs refining; sometimes it needs amending; sometimes it needs defending. Always, it needs improving.”
-Lee H. Hamilton

[Edited on January 26, 2011 at 5:10 PM. Reason : .]

1/26/2011 4:59:52 PM

Lamar Smith needs to be beat like a floor-shitting dog with a piece of rolled up legislation.

12/16/2011 7:14:10 PM

The best certainly aren't serving in government. If you ever meet really talented people, you'll see that they know their value quite well and how much they are worth and what they should be accomplishing.

So, the talent level in government actually decreases as years of experience in the government increases. Anyone who is very talented who works in government soon realizes that they are wasting their lives working with incompetents, working in a bureaucracy, and working for low pay. Thus, they leave quickly for greener pastures.

As a result, the people who left behind are those who do not think they would have better prospects elsewhere. Thus, we have an adverse selection process where they government actually selects the least talented employees and weeds out the most talented ones.

12/16/2011 7:20:20 PM

Quote :

"citizens united was the correct, constitutional decision. "

I completely disagree. Why would a corporation have the same rights as an individual? One is a multiple in terms of the other in every regard.

12/16/2011 10:43:45 PM

We have to define "best"

Congress is currently good at protecting the status quo, which is a picture of time, at this point maximum wealth inequality in America. If you think the passage of legislation is a meaningful process you have ignored the political effects of each and every bill that comes to vote.

to me best means the interests of the American people. the government we have now represents a failure to regulate the influence of power

12/16/2011 10:54:32 PM

Quote :

"They can't expect to know defense, economics, environment, education, and pretty much everything the federal government has taken over."

That's what lobbyists, committees, and staff workers are for...

but no, our representatives are also not the best at assimilating the information and making the best judgments in the best interests of the country. This is partly out of self-serving preoccupation with political maneuvering taking precedence over solid leadership and decision making, and partly because they are accountable to and elected by a bunch of ignorant dipshit constituents.

12/16/2011 11:00:56 PM

Quote :

"The first exchange involves Sheila Jackson Lee, the "meanest" member of Congress (pictured above). For an appalling 20 minutes or so, the hearing was derailed by a single tweet. Steve King, a über conservative Republican from Iowa, must have been getting hungry around lunch time, when he decided share some thoughts with his Twitter followers, "We are debating the Stop Online Piracy Act and Shiela Jackson [sic] has so bored me that I'm killing time by surfing the Internet," reads the tweet. After seeing King's statement, Jackson let the entire committee know that she did not appreciate being called boring and expressed her outrage in saying how inappropriate it was "to have a member of the Judiciary committee be so offensive." On Twitter. What followed was less frustrating than it was perplexing. Wisconsin Republican F. James Sensenbrenner asked that the word "offensive" be stricken from the record; committee chairman and SOPA champion Lamar Smith, another Texas Republican, determined that it did violate House rules. (You're not supposed to say unbefitting things on the record.) Jackson refused to formally withdraw the comment, making a big fuss of it. (It was Washington magazine that once named Jackson the "meanest" member of Congress, CNET's Declan McCullah points out in his coverage of the event.) Back and forth, back and forth, until ultimately, Jackson agreed to let the single word "offensive" to be stricken and subsituted "impolitic and unkind" in its place. Let's remind you that the entire thing was playing out as thousands watched on the live stream of the hearing and at least many took to Twitter to yell about how ridiculous the whole affair was."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/12/lawmakers-about-pass-sopa-are-bad-internet/46310/

If politics bore you, Mr. King, perhaps you will kindly fuck off back to the land of corn and let someone else have your seat. Anyone with any attention span whatsoever would be a marked improvement over you--an idiot out wandering around.

12/16/2011 11:09:43 PM

People only run for the Senate because they want a cushy job on the board of directors for the company that they are bought for.

There are maybe 7 Senators that give a damn about their constituency (as evidenced by the NDAA bill)

12/16/2011 11:12:55 PM

Quote :

"That's what lobbyists, committees, and staff workers are for..."

We can expect lobbyists to be experts in whatever it is they lobby for. But the same argument still applies to staff workers and committees. My overarching point was, the system has grown so damn large and complex that the only way to really properly manage it is to expand the bureaucracy. We'd directly elect folks with a background in whatever committee they are serving on.

You can see how ridiculous all that would be. Better to shrink the scope of government.

12/17/2011 8:32:40 AM

If the rulers and lawmakers of any country are replaced by professors, doctors, engineers, researchers and scientists of the same country, the country and its citizens would advance, possibly by leaps and bounds (Africa, Asia, South America).

With that in mind, no, the best are not in power, never have been, and never will be. And that goes for any country in the world, obviously.

12/17/2011 8:44:44 AM

^a bunch of nonsense.

Have you ever had a bunch of people from any of those backgrounds get together and vote on a decision? They will only agree on the simplest things. Any group of people voting on some crap will display the dysfunctional behavior we are seeing. The bigger the group of people, the worse. Group decision making doesn't work.

It's also foolish to think technical knowledge is the problem. Lack of the ability to effectively and efficiently marshal resources to solve big problems is the problem. Congress has all of the technical information they need. They don't know how to do anything with it.

The main point of democracy is not to solve problems. It's to keep a status quo. If you want to solve problems, switch to a benevolent dictatorship. And come up with a miraculous system that will keep the dictatorship benevolent and competent over several generations.

12/17/2011 11:37:00 AM

of course the best aren't serving, I mean we have social conservatives in there

12/17/2011 1:01:42 PM

Quote :

"It's also foolish to think technical knowledge is the problem. Lack of the ability to effectively and efficiently marshal resources to solve big problems is the problem. Congress has all of the technical information they need. They don't know how to do anything with it."

I never said technical knowledge is the problem. Problem is those with the technical knowledge are not the ones in power. The group I named, have betterment of humanity and efficient use of resources as their goals in their daily lives to begin with, without being corrupted by power or money, as much as possible, compared to any other group of people in society (unless you take environmentalists, charity workers and humanitarians, but they are lacking the key technical knowledge).

As for you first paragraph, yes of course group decision making will still be a issue, but that's always there, unless there is a one-man system, so that objection is moot. If we are talking about a democracy, that dysfunctionality will be there by default. So the best we can do is put people in power who help humans as their jobs and don't really want to be in power.

12/17/2011 1:24:24 PM

Quote :

"It's also foolish to think technical knowledge is the problem. Lack of the ability to effectively and efficiently marshal resources to solve big problems is the problem. Congress has all of the technical information they need. They don't know how to do anything with it. "

The problem is that there is too much information for law makers to process. We have the biggest economy in the world, one of the biggest land masses, and 300 million people (not that much really comparatively-- but still a lot), it's difficult for human brains to correctly analyze all this information.

The gov. should be pushing strongly towards using computers to help analyze this data. System like IBM's Watson should be pushed towards policy making to help law makers, and other systems should be used to help plot or simulate the effects of policy.

Congress has several offices that they use to fill in the numbers, but they need to go even deeper than that.

12/17/2011 2:29:26 PM

i eagerly await our algorithmic congressional overlords

12/17/2011 6:30:16 PM

That has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever read.


Clearly, the only way to run large organizations is to use computers to think for us.

[Edited on December 17, 2011 at 9:52 PM. Reason : .]

12/17/2011 9:52:03 PM

Well some of the data analysis required for effective public policy really is only feasible for computers

then again blind ideological concerns frequently win out anyway

12/17/2011 11:07:03 PM

^^
Lol get used to it. It's the future.

12/18/2011 2:12:56 AM

Quote :

"Well some of the data analysis required for effective public policy really is only feasible for computers "

Oh yeah, in Democrats heads sure. If we just get several thousands years worth of data and enough super computing power...well, we aren't sure if that will be enough but we should try right? No idea if the feasibility of this is equivalent to putting a man on mars or sending a man 50 light years away and having him report back. You know what really is effective public policy? It doesn't take supercomputers. Just leave individuals free to contract with whomever they feel and use the power of law to enforce said contracts. Thats all you need.

12/18/2011 8:45:04 AM

Quote :

"It doesn't take supercomputers. Just leave individuals free to contract with whomever they feel and use the power of law to enforce said contracts. Thats all you need."

LOL

are you joking?

history has shown this to be wrong time and time again.

Think forward to when our population reaches 1 or 2 billion... you're an idiot if you don't think our society would need an organized framework to keep sustained advancement.

Building a space elevator or a moon base or a mars base takes more resources and cooperation that just individuals contracting.

12/18/2011 3:11:27 PM

Your reading comprehension is garbage

Nothing I posted said anything about not having an organized framework.

12/18/2011 3:47:42 PM

I accept your concession.

12/18/2011 4:33:23 PM

Are you daft?

12/18/2011 4:54:09 PM

Quote :

"^^ Lol get used to it. It's the future. "

Is it? Because I haven't read anything about people giving up real power to computers.


Unless you're talking about college football.

12/20/2011 12:17:39 PM

Amazingly (for a thread in TSB) I agree with almost every single post and feel there's no point in adding anything further.

12/20/2011 1:08:02 PM