Instant Monkey Business (or I voted for #1 but we elected #3?!?!)

Instant Runoff Voting is an alternative way of voting for candidates versus the usual method of voting for one person.  In a nutshell, people are ranked in preference.

Sounds great in principle...but in this article by Brendan O'Neill (editor of spiked!) it really isn't that bright and shining pearl of democracy its supporters purport it to be.  I've included some parts here, and as it's written mainly in British English, I've put some words in braces {example} for an American approximation.  Anything bolded is also my emphasis.

AV is a form of super-technical majoritarianism. The way it works is through insisting that a candidate secure more than 50 per cent of votes before he is declared winner. So it asks voters to list their candidate choices in order of preference, marking them as 1, 2, 3 and so on. If after the first count no single candidate has 50 per cent of votes, then the candidate with the least number of votes is kicked out and those who voted for that candidate have their second-preference votes counted instead. This continues until one of the candidates – through a combination of his own first-preference votes and less keen voters’ second-preference votes for him – finally reaches the 50 per cent mark. So someone eventually wins, even if many of ‘his’ votes were cast very half-heartedly for him.Instead of voting for one person, you select people in terms of preference.  When the voting is closed, the person who receives over 50% of the vote wins.  If no one gets to the magic 50%, the person who has the lowest percentage is eliminated and the votes get passed around until someone hits 50%.

[AV] would make things less democratic, in two important ways: firstly through its impact on the act of voting, which would turn from being an impassioned statement into a watered-down listing of candidates you like, kind of like and dislike; and secondly through its impact on the act of deciding, which would more and more become a post-election, closed-off process of sifting through people’s preferences to try to decipher which candidate sort of represents the electorate’s desires.

AV would weaken the vote by implicitly inviting people, not to stamp their ballot paper with a heartfelt X for their party, but to scribble numbers next to various candidates, regardless of whether they feel very much for them. Voting would become less a declaration of belief and more a hedging of political bets.

The pro-AV lobby often points out that you will still be able to vote for only one candidate (or just two, or three, or four… it’s up to you). However, the knowledge that your first-preference vote might swiftly be discounted, and that second- or third-preference votes could become key in deciding the outcome of the election, will put moral pressure on voters to play the AV game, effectively to list their feelings about all the candidates rather than attach their flag to one of them. In keeping with our era of ideology-lite, where strong political convictions are seen as weird, voters will be tempted away from their so-called ‘tribal allegiances’ towards the expression of a more relativistic sentiment.

This could impact on what kinds of candidates are put forward for elections in the first place. Which political party will risk {campaigning} a hardcore individual[...]when it knows that if its candidate fails to secure 50 per cent of the vote in the first count then the views of other parties’ voters may become key? Today’s {weaker} parties rarely {campaign} risky candidates these days anyway; but with the introduction of AV we would likely see the party leaders exerting even more influence over which individuals are permitted to {campaign}, with the elbowing aside of those with possibly controversial beliefs in favour of more acceptable, politer and blander candidates who might not only pick up lots of [#]1's from said party’s traditional voters, but also some [#]2's and [#]3's from the other parties’ voters, too. AV would implicitly encourage the homogeni[z]ation of political life.

The new way of voting would also create enormous scope for {mischief}. The knowledge that second- and third-preference votes could become key will invite opportunistic lobbying between the various candidates and their minions. Under AV, the emphasis will inevitably shift from politicians appealing directly to the public for their outright political support and towards candidates cosying up to each other, striking deals, saying ‘get your people to give me their second-preference votes, and I’ll get mine to give them yours…" AV has a built-in tendency towards oligarchical relationship-building over direct, passionate, people-oriented electioneering.

Finally, AV would transform the traditional act of counting votes into a political form of tea-leaf-reading. Elections will be decided through the laborious process of sorting out preferences, expelling failing candidates one-by-one and subsequently spreading their supporters’ votes to other candidates. The people’s will would become something that is not so much clearly expressed in the election itself, in the act of voting, but rather something that is worked out after the election by officials and experts. Politics would become less open, less forged in the public realm, and more an act of elite deciphering of what ‘the people’ seemingly prefer rather than want.  We could easily end up with representatives that no one truly, passionately, wants.

In short, AV will both weaken The Vote and strengthen electoral bureaucracy. It will encourage even more candidates not to stand on a platform of ideas or policies that they are prepared to live and die by, but rather to take fewer political risks and always to keep one eye on the lowest common denominator of appealing to as many people as possible. And AV will strengthen the hand of that expert caste of middle-class negotiators and well-connected, well-educated political players who already dominate much of the modern political sphere. It will be a travesty for democracy.

Which may be the reason why some people, who despise the current, yet imperfect electoral system, would love to have IRV up and running.  Or maybe not...if IRV were active during the 2010 Mass Gubernatorial elections, and Tim Cahill and Jill Stein were eliminated, the 9% of the votes would have gone to Charlie Baker rather than Deval Patrick, and Baker would have been governor.  And, for the reasons listed above, vote pandering and dealing would dilute the very idea of voting in the first place - and dilute the votes themselves.

An analogy...

Malcolm X : The Honorable Elijah Mohammed : : Barack Obama : Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Somehow I thought of this after remembering the excellent (if long) Malcolm X by Spike Lee. At least somewhere along the line, Obama may have an epiphany.

We have met the enemy, and s/he is us (and our egos)

Pogo said it, but Jon Keller gives us an example of that very phrase: pick up with momentum of dissatisfaction with the other side of the aisle, and then bring that momentum to a screeching halt with a war surtax.

I don't think it will happen, because it will bear even more people already displeased their income taxes are going to the government for reasons they don't agree with. But if it does go through, the sacrifice should go both ways. If taxpayers are shelling out an extra 2-15% in surtax to fund the war, the senators and representatives are required to surrender 70% of their paychecks into a tax-free fund that will directly assist the soldiers' families.

At $150,000 per year, that's $56 million diverted to soldiers and their families - not chump change. With interest, this can grow into the billions, and give the families a much needed break when the savings and checking accounts are depleted. It will also call the bluff of those senators/representatives of who really does "support the troops" - literally putting a 70% tax where their mouth is, and taking note of who weasels out. With their salaries cut deeply, the senators/reps may then appreciate the value of wealth, and see the folly of socialism - through the iron gloves of income redistribution and punishing people for working hard and generating wealth.

To quote Jon Keller, they do it for "...[s]ymbolism. Grandstanding. Scoring what may well be a valid political point at the potential expense of gaining the political power to effect real change. In other words, doing what baby-boom era pols (of both parties) are notorious for doing, feeding their egos while progress goes hungry."

Jules Crittenden adds his 2-15 cents, with the money quote, "Conceptual flaw. Poor drafting skills, if you will. Lack of perspective. Dems understand that people hate taxes, because someone told them that once. But because they love taxes so much, they don’t get exactly how much people hate them, and therefore, how dumb this idea is. Nobody’s going to get, “Gee, this war costs a lot” off of this. They will get, “Those [jerks] want another 15 percent.”"

The "We Hate Opposing Viewpoints" Doctrine

That's what the Fairness Doctrine really was about: For each point, there was a mandatory counterpoint in the green room, getting prepped by the producer. Then, in 1986, the Fairness Doctrine was scrapped, giving rise to such things as talk radio.

John Gibson: Those who want the Fairness Doctrine back into law will cut off a lot of its own noses to spite faces. Each time Bill Maher comes on, Ann Coulter must follow. For every Dixie Chick, a Tobey Keith, &c, &c. In other words, Hollywood, the movie industry, et. al. must become a defacto Fox News, fair and balanced and cannot rely on the polemic of one to stand while the response of the other is left unheard. (Hannity & Colmes are already a shoo in, no further parts required.)

Jon Keller: You might like all the roses in your garden, and find one rose rotting, but does that mean you put the flame-thrower to the entire rose garden? Jon puts the smackdown on a certain rotanes from Massachusetts whose $1.50 words contain zero nutritional value - sort of like cotton candy without the flavor or the teeth-rotting sugar.

Dennis Miller also gives his two cents: advertisers like the Mr. Roarke approach ("smiles, everybody!") to radio, rather than the Marge Simpson as a blue squirrel against Itchy 'n Scratchy ("don't do that! don't do that!") or the crazy nutball who thinks George Carlin talks about doomsday from the Ms Pac Man game at the bus terminal.

To us, bringing back the Fairness Doctrine represents a temper tantrum by spoiled brats, who desperately want to be heard, but the fed up parents are walking away. It's also about MONEY - those juicy advertising dollars that businesses put out for radio shows that work hard for it, not a bunch of slackers who paste together a whole buncha nothin' (or a whole bunch of horsehockey) and call it a show. The solution? Reminds us of the story of the man who deals with screaming and naughty children, whispers something into their ears, and everything magically stops and they walk away...when the shopkeeper asks how he did it, he said, "I threatened to give them the biggest spanking of their lives."

Save for your future - unless you're poor, then you don't get any benefits

The Boston Globe (via the Consumerist) has an interesting article on how the poor are punished for saving money, either through the 401(k)/403(b) program or just by plain saving their paychecks.

Some pretty startling tidbits from the article:

"We're constantly told that we need to save early and often to prepare for retirement...[y]et government policies tell low-income families, 'If you save for the future, you won't get our help today.' "

"For example, the tax credit for saving for retirement is wiped away when the taxpayer also qualifies for the earned income tax credit."

"[E]ach $1 saved by a single mother earning $15,000 a year would cost [a person] $2.60 in higher taxes and lost government benefits."

"...[P]utting a few dollars aside in a retirement plan can disqualify families for food stamps, healthcare benefits, and assistance given to poor families with children."

"In Massachusetts, for example, anyone with assets of $2,500 or more is disqualified from receiving federal assistance to families with dependent children. That asset test includes retirement accounts and even the cash value of a life insurance policy...[a]s a result, a single parent with two children who earns $500 a month would lose $133 a month in benefits if the family saved more than a nominal amount for retirement."

Employers love to assert that not putting money into a retirement plan is like leaving "free money" on the table, in the form of employer matches. For the poor, taking that "free money" is poison, as it will reduce or end their government benefits immediately. Putting in even 1% of their paycheck towards retirement - $2 a week for the woman earning $15,000 a year, and with a company match of 100% - is enough to reduce their benefits by 26%. Even maintaining an emergency account for expenses is enough to cause benefits to cease.

Truly sickening.

Who "really hates freedom?" Control freaks, of course!

If you hate the nanny state - one in which the government, in full control freak mode, wags their fingers when you do something they don't approve of - Star Parker highlights a "woman [who] really hates freedom and has little appreciation that an ownership society and a 'we’re all in it together society' go hand in hand."

If you're a control freak, maybe the way she controls will cure you of being a control freak. Or give her some pointers.

Give Vermont back to the Vermonters, you illegal occupiers from the Upper West Side!

Native Vermonters, unite! Stand tall and oust the yuppies, hippies, socialists, members of the legislature who think Bush and Cheney should be impeached...bring your pitchforks, key the Priuses, bring dogs to Ben and Jerry's plant to add extra oomph to Chunky Monkey and a little tang to Cherry Garcia...take your wild children to break up the art galleries and antique shops...and send them back to the Upper West Side of Manhattan where they belong!

Make Income Redistribution History, Backwards Sherwood Forest edition

Boston Magazine's John Wolfson does an excellent piece on how the Massachusetts State Lottery is the ultimate redistribution scheme: it takes money from the poor - earned or paid by the government - and gives it to the government, who then distributes it to all 351 cities and towns in the form of lottery aid.

The shiny new fire engine in Weston? Thank the people in West Roxbury who shelled out $300 on a book of scratch tickets and ended up winning a mere $75-80. Newburyport gets to avoid a property tax override because the residents of Lawrence were able to spend 2/3 of their paycheck on Keno. And the city of Lynn probably financed new teachers, firemen, policemen, and other public works for Swampscott, Marblehead, and very small Western New England towns that have all but one Lottery agent, if any.

And, of course, the other people who depend on the poor's paychecks - the ones that have low if not nil Massachusetts state income taxes - is the Legislature, who will happily recoup the monies given in Medicaid, WIC payments, and other government payments in the form of Lottery revenues; if you can entice a poor person to whom you're shelling out benefits to try to become rich and get rid of welfare/debt through the path of least resistance, rather than hard work and education, chances are they'll take the bait...and continue being poor, if not penniless.

The right way to show the poor that the lottery is not the best investment scheme is to show them the real odds of some of these games, not the odds the Lottery promotes*. Treat the Lottery like the do cigarettes, drugs and alcohol - it's a vice, a stupid tax, it's legalized robbery - and make it unattractive and nasty. Reducing the prize payouts from a liberal 71% to a more realistic 52-55%, posting the real odds on the backs of tickets, and showing exactly what taxes will be taken out and how much the prizes are really worth will make the poor think twice on buying a strip of tickets, eliminating or hiding the verification codes on scratch tickets, introducing harder, more complex scratch games (Bingo is a good start), and reducing promotion and public relations may diminish that bromide "You Have to Play" to "Do You Really Want to Waste Your Money On This Scheme?"

So robbing Peter to pay Paul, and then having Paul give back all of his money and arrive in Peter's lap is an "opiate of the masses" that benefits only two people - the wealthy and the government.

*For instant tickets, the odds are calculated by taking the number of tickets and dividing them by the total number of tickets available for that game. For example, the new Red Sox $10 ticket is listed by the MSL as having odds of 1 in 3.55. This is actually correct - if you consider how the prize is paid out (e.g. for $20, you get get $20, two $10's, $10 plus two $5's, etc. and each prize has different odds; the odds of getting $20 as a single value is tougher than getting 4 $5's.) We took their odds and ran it through an Excel spreadsheet, and it indeed came out to 1 in 3.55.

Then we asked ourselves what the odds were on getting a certain prize without regards to how the prize is paid (e.g. a $50 prize, no matter how it came out). We noticed that the total odds for a certain prizes actually went down - but the total odds went up! To get any prize on this new ticket, the real odds are 1 in 74.56 - roughly 21 times more than the Lottery advertises! The Lottery also states "you have the best chance to win $100!" Not quite...the odds of winning $100 on that ticket are actually 1 in 54.84. In a book of 100 tickets, this comes out to a ticket, maybe two, giving you that magic $100.

And for the people who think they'll get that $1 million on that scratch ticket they bought all at once, tax-free, think again: 30% in taxes are taken out automatically for all winnings over $5,000, and anything over $600 - $4,999 gets 5% taken by the Commonwealth (since 2004; before then, anything under $5,000 merely had to be reported to the IRS and no mass taxes were taken out).

Lynn invades Swampscott, annexes Marblehead, film at 11

"Lynn students will be slaves to the captains of industry!" saith a pol/hack from Swampscott.

"Like, as if, grody to the max, barf me out, Mr. Bufu," retorts Lynn students, before making mustaches and missing teeth out of this pol's picture.

Lynn, for those of you who don't know Massachusetts, is a city about 15 miles northeast of downtown Boston, and is a large city in Essex County. It used to be an industrial city, but some sections are actually quite nice and verdant. But this doesn't mean people should run right out to Lynn - some sections rival Roxbury and Dorchester, and are definitely not for casual walking.

"Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin...you don't come out the way you came in." The old ditty is true, we tell you!

Stop the illegal (giggle, snort) occupation (snicker, snort) of Lichtenstein (BWAH HAH HAH HAH!)

It's a good thing the Swiss and the Lichtensteiners are on such good terms, that they called one another regarding this military gaffe:

Swiss: Mein Leibscher Fruend, Es tut uns leid... wir Ihr Land durch Unfall eindrangen...das einige unserer Soldaten dachten, daß sie noch in der Schweiz waren!
My dear friend, we're sorry for invading your country - our soldiers still thought they were in Switzerland!

Lichtensteiners: Das ist kein Problem! Selbst wenn Sie die Amerikaner waren, haben wir nichts, das hier einzudringen wertvoll ist!
That's no problem! Even if you were the Americans, we have nothing valuable here to invade!

Swiss: Das ist Recht! Und wer würde überhaupt die Schweiz eindringen? Alle für Kuckucksuhren und Toblerone?
You're right! And who would ever invade Switzerland? All for cuckoo clocks and Toblerone?

Resist the Illegal Occupation in Vermont!

Bill O'Reilly wants the public to boycott Vermont for having a lenient judge letting off a molester off with a light sentence.

The Vermont media hates Bill O'Reilly's guts, telling him he doesn't know what he'd talking about, when in fact they're afraid if there really is an O'Reilly-led boycott, the tourist and skiing money goes out the window.

Maybe we shouldn't mention that Vermont is occupied by New York City's furthest of the far left, huh?

Tale of two health schemes

If you're a supporter of government-sponsored (aka single payor or universal) health care, or an opponent of government-sponsored (aka socialized medicine or HilaryCare) healthcare, please read this article, comparing and contrasting both systems.

Hint: "free" healthcare isn't free. It might be free when you get to the desk of a hospital, but it's paid by taxes - in Britain's case, those 17.5% Value Added Taxes contribute to their "free" healthcare.

Prop 2-1/2 is already in the crosshairs!

The more and more we read into the SJC's decision to allow same-sex couples to marry, the more and more we get confused.

We were going to write a screed last night, but after reading Jon Keller's article, we pulled a Jay Severin - allow us to retract and rephrase. (And we agree with Jon Keller - Prop 2-1/2 is not just in the crosshairs, but ready to be attacked like Fort Wagner. And all couples and families will be facing much larger property tax increases should Prop 2-1/2 be repealed.)

Who, exactly, is on the wrong side of this issue? Not the couples who want to marry and have it legally in the books as Mrs. and Mrs. Smith or Mr. and Mr. Jones. The very act of betrothal is an legal act of commitment, in the books of the county seat, that if married person A dies or gets sick or divorces, married person B is not required to jump ugly with the county probate court - where children or property might be involved.

The SJC, in their wisdom, took an approach that the opponents and proponents of same-sex marriage have bent and twisted way out of proportion. It is neither "the courts have spoken and can never be voted on" nor "the courts have overstepped their boundaries and violated the Constitution." The SJC took pains to say, "This same-sex marriage law looks all right, but make sure all the bases are covered."

The bases, sadly to say, are covered - with ginned up lawyers, crooked pols, and militant activists. The real issue is for one side to convince the public that their position is right, and if they win, would they mind keeping up their winning streak with a donation or two, or perhaps a vote for me in the primaries?

What doesn't help is that the Massachusetts state legislature has become more like the Soviet Politburo, mixed in with Mafia crime family machinations for good measure. The same yahoos who are clamoring for these Legislature to defy the SJC's request to do something, other than dance and babble in front of a camera, either put too much trust in their pols, or don't have enough smarts to know they're being bamboozled.

Remember the Clean Elections Law, in which candidates would only receive public money if they accepted no contributions or private or personal funds? After the hacks got really scared that a "Clean Elections" candidate didn't have to work hard or press the flesh as often as the tried-and-true back-room dealings, where pork and committee chairmanships could be bought and sold with a glass of scotch and a handshake, Tom Finneran & Co. killed it off.

Who's to say that if same-sex marriage did come to a vote and became truly legal as the SJC intended it, the legislature wouldn't hesitate to suffocate that law too - and effectively giving the anti-same-sex crowd an unintentional victory - and immediately making same-sex marriages null and void. Caveat emptor.