Corruption, cynicism, and corporations

With the recent developments in the "corruption" cases of Bill Richardson, Rod Blagojevich, Manny Aragon, and many, many other political figures, I think it's high time to ask "should we really elect someone if they want to be elected?"

If that seems completely backwards, it's because it is, in comparison with the present way of doing things.  Right now, people have to stand for office.  Well, if someone wants the job, then it's fairly safe to say that they want it, at least in part, for some personal gain.  After all, the cynical part in our society is always quick to deride the politician as self-serving scum, and current events have done nothing but reinforce that notion.

If, then, all candidates for elected office who put themselves forward can be dismissed as too vested in the outcome and the powers of the office, how do we select candidates?

At first glance, one might think that a sort of middle-school-esque "nomination system" might work.  That is, until one realises that this isn't middle school and that open nominations encourage just as much, if not more, corruption and inside dealing as self-nomination.  The only advantage I see to nominating people is that we know who their allies will be.

No, I believe that we have the best system for nominations as we can get right now.  The best way to decrease the amount of corruption in politics is to provide for more oversight.  "What if the overseers are corrupt?"  Well, we'll just have to trust to the law of averages that if we have a large enough oversight board, at least one person on it will not be corrupt.  Now that is cynicism.  Trusting the fidelity of a nation's political system not to people, but to a statistical law.

Post-election politics, part II of several: Isn't this a bit premature?

I can't believe this.

Maybe I should have foreseen massive resistance to the election of the first black President in history, but I never thought people would be advocating impeachment before he's even taken office.

Two things about this bother me more than anything else: 

1) Impeachment is a serious thing.  It should not be thrown about or used to enforce "family values," lest it degenerate into something that the Congress is loathe to touch when it is actually needed.  I don't think we would be seeing this had McCain been elected.  Yes, we would see protest and anger, but not calls for legal impeachment.

2) This man is our President-Elect in a time that is perhaps the darkest in America's history since WWII or the Great Depression.  Obama hasn't even had a chance to do anything yet, and I think that when he is tested, he will show the world that he is the President that America needs.

[/partisanship]

The US votes and the rest of the world watches

The World wants Barack Obama to win this Tuesday.  By "The World," of course, I mean the citizens of other countries who can't vote in the upcoming US elections.  Don't believe me?  US News and World Report says reported that

If the foreign diplomats in New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly late last month could [vote], they'd go for Sen. Barack Obama.

BBC News's poll of 22,500 people in 22 countries confirmed that Obama is "favoured by a four-to-one margin."  The Guardian, in association with eight other newspapers, including Le Monde (France), Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan), La Presse (Canada), and Reforma (Mexico), corroborates these results.  Gallup polls conducted in 73 countries have shown a 3-1 margin of support for Obama.  I think the evidence speaks for itself, but at the risk of being redundant I shall say again that the World wants Barack Obama to win.  

Why do they want him to win?  What is so different about Americans that we are don't have these huge polling margins for Obama?  Perhaps we see something, a darker side to Obama, or a lighter side to McCain, that the rest of the world doesn't see.  Perhaps the polls were rigged by communists.  Plausible theories, all.  However, I think that these polls reflect a fundamental difference in values between American and the rest of the world.  We've seen this kind of split before - on climate change, on the International Crminal Court, on Iraq, on the United Nations, ad infinitum - but we have never seen it on a "domestic" issue.

We've never seen the world so interested in a domestic American issue before because the President of the United States has never been the position it is now - the election of a President is now an international issue because of the power weilded by the office-holder.  The President apparently has the authority to violate national sovereignty, dismiss members of international border councils, and break US soldiers out of international jails.  The title "the President of the United States" is barely adequate nowadays, as it implies both parity with the heads of state of other nations and a limitation of power to American soil - neither is true.

Yes, you can call the occupant of the office of the President "the Leader of the Free World," as they have been since the Cold War, and it's true that the President weilded an immense amount of international clout in the '50s through the '90s, but in the post-9/11, post-Bush world where "the US sneezes and the rest of the world catches cold," the rest of the world is just as invested, and perhaps more so, as America is in this election.

P.S.  Sometime I want to do a big post or a series of posts analyzing this campaign.  Maybe I'll get to it after Tuesday.

P.P.S. Tomorrow I'll be doing another post exchange with Kelsey over at Plastic Manzikert.  It's something different, but I think it's really quite interesting, so do tell me what you think, all three of you.

P.P.P.S.  This post was inspired by a very good article by Andrew Rawnsley of the Observer (UK) about Barack Obama and his rather surprising campaign.  I encourage you to read it, not just because it's damned good, but because it gives another perspective on the American race for the White House.  Speaking of new perspectives, if you haven't already, check out the Onion's coverage of "The War for the White House," it's very entertaining and truthy.

Provincialism in America

Beginning in the mid 19th century and extending to the modern day, I think there has been a trend of provincialism, that is, regionalism and divisions between different geographical areas, in the United States. It is becoming such a factor in America that one can be readily identified by their region of the country, and often fiercely identifies with that area.

Increasingly, Easterners are not knowledgeable with or unable to identify with the American West, and, if anecdotal evidence is to be believed, vice-versa. Our country is now divided into "red" and "blue," mostly along geographical lines. If you have ever been to both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the US, you will find them to be very different places. The same is true if one were to compare either coast to the interior of the country. Regional stereotypes and differences are nothing new for any country (take France, for example), but in a country the size of the United States, is it really correct, sane even, to think that Americans are so homogeneous as to be lumped into a single category?

I believe that this trend of regionalism began, as have many things American, with the railroad. I find the railroad fascinating. It was the railroad that standardized time and eventually led to synchronising time, it was the railroad that sparked, quite literally, the forest fires of the early 1900s and the subsequent policy of fire-suppression in the American West, and it was the railroad (actually, a train) that gave Einstein the idea of relativity and has shaped so much of modern physics. The railroad connected America, so one might expect that it would have the opposite effect of provincialism, that America would become more of a coherent entity. However, the railroad allowed greater and faster expansion of the US's borders. It formed the American West as we know it today.

The East and the West are certainly the most well-known and most talked about regions of the United States, but regions that are also significant include the South (let us not forget that the feeling of provincialism and independence in the South led to a war over whether or not the South could govern itself), the North/North East, Absaroka, and last but not least, the 800-pound gorilla of Alaska, nestled up with Yukon, Canada and geographically closer to Russia than it is to the contiguous 48 (it also has a "major" political party called Alaskan Independence, whose gubernatorial candidate was actually top snow dog from 1990-1994).

Certainly, then, there are many ways that this country can be divided, but does that mean that we should treat them as anything else than geographic or cultural areas that together make up one, single country, indivisible and under God? No.

Now just bear with me for a moment. I've been talking this whole post about how America is nothing but divisions, so wouldn't it make sense to divide it into separate, smaller countries with their own, admittedly regional interests at heart? Well, yes and no.

I agree that the idea of a single government that manages everything all over the country is ridiculous. That's why we have state governments. That system works well enough until you start running into the grey areas in juristiction between the different levels of government. States rights issues come into play and it all devolves into an overly complicated legal mess that you would need a crew of lawyers larger than the crew of most ships to navigate.

I believe that a much better system would be to divide the states into regions - say Alaska; the West Coast, including most of the Rocky Mountains; the Plains; the North East; and the South East. Then, make each of these regions into their own country. Then, set up an umbrella organization, much like the European Union, an American Union, if you like, to handle international affairs. One advantage to this system is that, while they are still mostly connected and joined by this American Union, the regions retain a degree of autonomy impossible to guarantee with the system of states under a single federal government. They are free to make their own decisions and decide what is best for their people, because that is what a government should be most concerned with: providing for its citizens. The American Union can present a united front, but regions are free to dissent or to disagree with the policies of the other members. Think of it as representative democracy on a continental scale.

Obviously, this model has its downsides. America would not be as strong militarily (which could be percieved as a good thing - no more policing, just defense of itself), and some Americans would feel that their country has been irrevocable destroyed. It is true that America has at its roots a very strong tradition of unity, and that the concept of an American People was originally one of the driving forces behind the formation of the country. However, I do not believe that an American People, as it was in the 1700s and 1800s, exists today. Perhaps it is time to chalk up the Great Expirement as mostly a success, and move on to something potentially greater.