Even the most logical and intelligent people can be really dumb at times. Yes, even me. Those of you who have some knowledge of my one marriage are free to say, "Especially [me]!"
A man named William Poundstone has written a book called Gaming The Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair. A key point for Mr. Poundstone is that Abraham Lincoln was one of the biggest beneficiaries of a glitch in our system whereby a spoiler (modern example: Ralph Nader in 2000) gets enough votes to throw victory to someone other than the candidate who actually won the majority of the popular vote.
He's correct . . . but so what? In Lincoln's case, the entire nation ultimately benefited from "the spoiler effect," and I for one don't think it's a shame that Lincoln took office. I doubt the United States would be here at all today if Lincoln had not been "selected" (since Mr. Poundstone asserts he wasn't truly "elected").
Mr. Poundstone cites as his chief support the economist Kenneth Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, which claims that our entire election system is "fundamentally flawed on a mathematical level" (as quoted from the anonymous History Book Club reviewer's synopsis).
What we have here is a failure to communicate (apologies to Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke). What a classic example of not seeing the forest for the trees! Mr. Arrow and Mr. Poundstone may very well be correct, but again, I say, "So what?" Without this "flaw," Lincoln never would have taken office. Yes, with it, you also run the risk of what happened in 2000, but you still have the chance to get another Lincoln. So let the system be. It has in general served us well. Besides, I can't think of anything else that would eliminate the "flaws" in the present system without in turn producing massive flaws of its own. Remember the Law of Unintended Consequences!
I must ask however: if we do tend to get the government we deserve, why did our nineteenth century forebears get Lincoln while we got Dubya? I have a hypothesis about that, too [big surprise--Ed.]. I blame a lot of our current troubles on my fellow Baby Boomers. We did just about everything wrong that we could do wrong.
We raised our kids to be our friends, not our children . . . as they in turn have done with their children, leading to a country populated by a bunch of selfish, narcissistic brats instead of civil and responsible grown-ups.
We got so hung up on having our cake and eating it, too, that we have neglected basic things like our transportation infrastructure in favor of wasting gargantuan sums of money we don't have on stupid adventures like the war in Iraq.
We embraced the concept of individuality and self-empowerment so much that we've lost the art of political compromise and of giving a little to get more. Compromise is the essence of the genius of the American Constitution. Throw that out, and you eviscerate what makes America "America."
We have allowed the pro-religious-fundamentalist, anti-intelligence (note that I did not say "anti-intellectual") crowd to poison our children's minds and pollute our schools with a load of crap about "intelligent design" while at the same time demanding that our schools produce the finest and most-forward-thinking scientists in the world in order to maintain our position as the world leader in everything--without spending money to give our schools the tools they need to accomplish this goal. There's your real Impossibility Theorem!
We have been so consumed by our guilt about the way we treated the draftees who returned from Vietnam that we no longer question our country's use of military force. That's not "America." We don't strike first. Ever. [Except when Dubya says it's OK to do so, that is.--Sarcastic Ed.]
I also blame a lot of it on lawyers--and I can say this because I am one (a truth I don't usually admit in polite company). Why do you think I quit practicing as soon as I could? People file the craziest lawsuits nearly every day, "cases" I'd never consider taking on because they are absurd on their faces. The less ethical amongst us have twisted their ethical obligation to represent their clients "zealously" (as per the Canon of Legal Ethics) into the idea of suing everyone for everything. Economic cost-benefit analysis ensures the ones being sued will pay at least something just to make the suits against them go away. Lawyers call this "nuisance value." I call it abhorrent.
But then again, that's the end-game logic of basing our entire ethos on a free market economy. The only criterion is money. Nothing else matters. For my part, I will never stop speaking out against it. There are much higher and more important social values we can impart to our succeeding generations than the veneration of greed. You know, weird and antique things like fairness, equity, doing the right thing just because it's the right thing to do . . .
Or not. I just saw a letter to the editor in the Omaha World-Herald suggesting that we pay organ donors. The writer's motivation is good, it seems--making an apparently practical suggestion to ease the crisis in organ donation, where the need for donated organs is about 100 times greater than the number of organs available for donation. Reading that letter, however, made me want to hurl. Chunks. Paying for organs is wrong on a literally visceral level. The writer didn't even suggest who should do the paying. I daresay no one will accept a government-sponsored payment system. That leaves the private sector. If you shift the system from the basis of filling the direst need first to satisfying the needs of those with the ability to pay the most, you're eventually going to wind up with auctions of people in permanent vegetative states. What was that you were saying about the sanctity of life?
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