

American Nations: An attempt to hack (i.e., fix) American political gridlock - tswicegood
http://seantevis.com/american-nations/

======
jerf
A thing _is_ what it _does_. What you label it with isn't anywhere near as
important as what it _does_.

In practice, these "nations" appear to be nothing more than special interest
groups. Special interest groups already tend to expand well beyond their
original goals in the political arena. That doesn't work because the active
leadership takes over and speaks for the public; why these would avoid that, I
don't know. So, the solution to too many special interest groups is more
special interest groups.

Also, I think he uses "Tea Party" like bogeymen. To the extent the movement
involves cutting government down, it will actually increase the scope of
agreement within the government by cutting down the number of domains in which
there is disagreement. In fact, my personal prescription for where we are
right now is for a significant return of power to the states. Some things have
to be national-scale policy, but the list is much shorter than you think. We
don't need a national-scale health care plan. Many of our states are larger
than European countries that manage. State plans already exist. We don't need
national agreement on any given social issue. If we weren't centralizing all
our power, we wouldn't have to spend so much time arguing what the central
policy should be.

The other major problem these sort of idealistic ideas have is that it
basically promises everybody that it will bring the world closer to their
viewpoint, but that can't actually happen. Right now, for better or worse, our
government is more liberal than our population, so if your plan is to push our
government yet more liberal by empowering the population, err, well, you might
want to rethink that plan.

~~~
Locke1689
_In fact, my personal prescription for where we are right now is for a
significant return of power to the states. Some things have to be national-
scale policy, but the list is much shorter than you think. We don't need a
national-scale health care plan. Many of our states are larger than European
countries that manage. State plans already exist. We don't need national
agreement on any given social issue. If we weren't centralizing all our power,
we wouldn't have to spend so much time arguing what the central policy should
be._

I think you actually underestimate the complexities here. The problem isn't
number of people -- you're correct, many states are as large as European
countries. However, the states don't have nearly as much self-governing power
(as granted by the Constitution) as European countries. In things like
healthcare, this makes a big difference. For example, one of the biggest
benefits to the federal government is that it can temporarily run a budget
deficit during hard times. There are innumerable times (including now) when
that would be necessary for a large swath of public services. It would require
a rather huge change in federal law in order to make this work on the state
level. Another problem you would get is massive problems with the full-faith-
and-credit clause. All in all, it may be worth considering that, accounting
for modern high-speed transportation and intercommunication and trade, strong
states may be an antiquated idea.

 _Right now, for better or worse, our government is more liberal than our
population_

That's difficult to argue. Notably, consider that one person's vote in Wyoming
counts 67 times more than a Californian's in the US Senate and 1.264 times a
Californian's in the House of Representatives.

~~~
tomjen3
For what it is worth Denmark runs a deficit now, and I doubt there is a single
state in the US that is anywhere as tiny as Denmark.

Granted the Danish economy is more sound than, say California but still.

~~~
randomtask
The population of Denmark is 5.5 million, which if it were a US state, would
make it the 21st largest state.

------
tptacek
Instead of donating $1 to some guy on the Internet who made a cartoon, how
about running for local office in your township right now? You might be
surprised how easy it is to get involved in government at the level where most
real decisions are made (the school board, planning boards, etc). The
overwhelming majority of people in your township pay zero attention to local
governance.

Which "tipping point" is more interesting: the one where Internet cartoon guy
gets $67,000 and a long list of names on a web page, or the one where several
hundred people from Hacker News end up on school boards?

As I get older, I find myself making friends with more and more people who
have gotten off their asses and actually done this. I promise, it's easier
than starting a company, and it's a drastically lower time commitment.

~~~
canadaduane
Sean Tevis--the "some guy on the internet" I think you're talking about--ran
for State Representative (Kansas) in 2008.

~~~
tptacek
Tevis ran for the KS house, and lost, probably in part because he tried to
make a national movement out of the KS house (I followed the race somewhat
closely and his fundraising was definitely part of the negative package aimed
at him).

My point is, forget about a national political movement. Engage with local
politics, for local reasons. "Move" towards real engagement, not the feel-good
merit-badge engagement that this article alludes to, where by giving a buck
and signalling your support you might help create some sort of "tipping point"
that will fix national politics.

Anybody who's telling you that you can fix dysfunctional national politics by
giving up your credit card number online is, obviously, selling you something.
I bet a lot of people on HN could easily get themselves onto township planning
committees, where they can actually make a real difference.

~~~
kiba
So you're telling HN people to give up their time programming or doing
startups to volunteer time for government planning, politicking against
adversaries, and the like.

------
stevis
THE ROLE OF FIRST NATION

Mancur Olson suggested offering generic benefits to attract people to his
large groups.

The difficulty in that is where do these benefits come from? Small groups
don't have the resources to put that together. So we came up with First Nation
- something large and stable enough to put together core packages of benefits
for any other Nation to offer to their members.

Then there's the problem of what groups should be able to get them? A group of
10 people? 1000? 10,000? First nation would have to set some kind of criteria.

It's a non-profit. There are a dozen ways you can set it up to avoid it
becoming a king-maker.

We realized we could also use First Nation as a Watchdog group. They're not
necessary for this part of the system to work, but it could be effective.

Congress voted on a financial overhaul bill last week, for example. First
Nation would have polled the other Nations to see how they felt about what
needs to be done, what they'd like to see.

The financial industry had lots of lobbyists involved in the bill, but there
were few, if any, representatives from consumer protection groups or similar.
In this scenario, I'm pretty sure at least one or two Nations would propose
some new ideas or have some comment on what was passed.

They'd try to convince other Nations to lend support. This "encompassing
coalition" of Nations could sway the direction of financial overhaul to
something that's beneficial to the larger public rather than the bank lobby.

SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

These aren't special interest groups.

I'd join a Science Nation, for example. What's their agenda in financial
regulation? None. But I bet some of the people there might have some
interesting and good perspective on what should be done. These are "general
interest groups". If the bill being discussed were about funding a
supercollider, on the other hand, then I think you could say they're biased.
And the other Nations would know it.

GRIDLOCK

That's a terrible argument. If your car can only go 10 mph, then it might help
you avoid fatal crashes, but it also makes it difficult to go anywhere. Take
Immigration Reform. The system has been broken for 20 years. Did you see the
bit in the comic about why negative campaigning works in a winner-take-all
system? Immigration hasn't been fixed because right now all a politician needs
to do is discredit an idea instead of proposing a new one. There is no "win"
for anyone who proposes an idea.

WHAT'S THE 67,000 FOR?

Fair question. I'm running for office and using the campaign to pitch an idea
that might help fix the system a little bit. Even if you don't buy Olson's
ideas, the _worst_ that happens is that you end up with groups that offer
benefits similar to AARPs. I do need to fund my campaign. I didn't think
asking for a dollar was so onerous that it would raise suspicion of
impropriety.

TEA PARTY

Well, they really _are_ bogeymen. :-)

~~~
blahedo
I certainly _want_ something like this to work, but I still don't understand
your explanation why these aren't special interest groups. I'm a member of the
ACLU, which is already a large group that lobbies heavily to retain basic
freedoms; what benefit would there be to them becoming "ACLU Nation"? I'm a
member of NARP (Nat'l Assoc. of Rail Passengers), which is a somewhat smaller
group that lobbies for better rail policy (both Amtrak and more local commuter
rail and mass transit), AND they've negotiated a 10% discount on Amtrak
travel. What would NARP Nation be able to do that NARP can't now?

~~~
falien
>what benefit would there be to them becoming "ACLU Nation"?

I don't think there is one. The idea is to get far more people to join
something similar and get them engaged (which I see as the biggest problem.
Shallow engagement requiring no effort is easy, getting people to actually
vote is apparently incredibly difficult).

------
lucraft
Yes, it would start with lots of "Nations", each offering different benefits
and having different ideas. Sounds great.

But then over time, the "First Nation" would start to think that every Nation
should provide some obvious basic benefits. Obviously if a Nation doesn't
provide healthcare benefits that's a pretty crappy Nation, right?

So First Nation would decide that all Nations have to provide healthcare
benefits. Then there would be a big fight between the First Nationers and the
Nations-rights-ers.

Then someone would come up with some crazy idea to end disagreement between
the Nation's once and for all and ask everyone to donate a dollar.

------
camiller
note, the following is from the curmudgeonly/cynical side of my personality.

Gridlock is a feature not a defect. Gridlock is what keeps politicians from
running roughshod over the public. Have you really considered how much damage
a government unhampered by gridlock could do? I mean yes, they might slip
something good in there once in a while but really...

ask not what your country can do for you

nor ask what can you do for your country

ask instead what can you do to keep your country from "doing" to you.

vote gridlock!

~~~
euroclydon
I once heard someone say that the last thing people want is an efficient
government. Imagine if, as soon as your vehicle registration expired, a state
official drove up and put a boot on your car.

I heard someone else say, the best relationship you can have with government
is one where their attention is not focused on you.

~~~
falien
Imagine if, as soon as someone started robbing a bank, the police showed up
and stopped them.

The second one I like to an extent. Its true if you have a government whose
objective is to protect its citizens and nothing else. Democrats want a
government that actively helps people. If implemented correctly I'd want that
government's attention. As with most things, ideas are easy, good
implementation is hard.

~~~
euroclydon
Why stop there? Government could monitor all potential bank robber's
communications, or hell, even profile them, send in undercover agents to
infiltrate their circles and provide them with fake bank-robbing tools, ideal
target bank locations, and moral support.

~~~
falien
Now you're talking. Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to?

------
sp332
This loss of common ground has happened before, in the mid-1800's. Some of
these issues were resolved at the end of the Civil War (e.g. states' rights
[0]). But not all of them: when some state legislatures were unable to choose
U.S. senators, the vote had to go to the people (the 17th amendment to the
U.S. constitution) [1].

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War#States.27_ri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War#States.27_rights)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#History)

~~~
hga
His contention of "common ground" in the '60s is utterly fatuous as anyone who
lived through it or like me came of age just after it and studied it knows.

In fact, it bears more than a little resemblance to the current period: what
was pretty close to an effective super-majority due to LBJ's political skills
that resulted in the enactment of vast swathes of the liberal agenda ("The
Great Society"), the first since the time of FDR, and a fierce counter-
revolution that started inside the Republican party that resulted in
Goldwater, Nixon and finally Reagan (who as I recall did his first big thing
on the national political scene in an item he did for Goldwater's campaign).

(Not very parallel to today, but also a sign of a serious lack of "common
ground" was the foundering of the great Democratic Party crusade to "contain"
Communism, which led to the party's smashup in 1968 and its eventual
radicalization on many fronts.)

------
drx
I invoke something similar to Greenspun's Tenth Rule (any sufficiently
complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified,
bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.)

This would be an inferior implementation of a concept of 'leave everyone the
fuck alone' aka libertarianism/minarchism/what have you.

------
msluyter
I think it's sort of interesting that the solution for the problem of all of
these virtual groups splintering or again becoming polarized against each
other is essentially an autocratic one. But what's to stop "First Nation" --
our virtual group philosopher king -- from becoming biased or corrupted by
partisanship?

------
Gormo
This was on HN a couple of months ago; see
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1436101> to read the previous discussion.

------
rmc
This cartoon is loose on the details, but I think he's just suggesting
coalition governments. Lots of countries have coalition governments, and have
many problems with their politics. The UK election this year resulted in a
coalition government and the large parties badmounthed the idea of a
coalition, claiming it was weak and unstable government. Trying to make the
same thing in the USA would probably result in the same campaigning against
the idea.

~~~
Super_Jambo
Yet so far the UK coalition government has been (in my and most of my friends
view) quite alot better than either Conservatives or Labour would have been
alone.

~~~
notahacker
The advantage of a coalition between two parties that have been traditionally
opposed is that they have to try to resolve their differences rather than
simply using them as a stick to beat each other with.

The political system in the UK is somewhat different in that its tending
towards three major parties who are converging on the political centre
(complicated and fragmented further by the popular regional parties in
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Not sure it works the same when it's a
straight fight between the red corner and the blue corner.

------
slevcom
_There is no second place in the current political system._ That's where I see
the problem. The best ideas in the world don't mean squat if you don't get
elected. So if I really believed that I could make a difference I would have
to beg, borrow, steal, promise, and backroom deal my way to the finish line or
the other guy will. Highlander: There can be only one.

If I had a magic political wand, I'd make it so the top two people win with
everyone getting to vote for two different people-- double sized districts
represented by two people and the Senator races are for both at once. Make
primaries be all party inclusive with the top four moving on to battle it out
for the two winning spots.

More political hubub at once would compel voters to pay more attention.
Extremists on both sides would look ugly in comparison to the sensible ones.
And third party people with a mix of ideas might actually have a shot of
getting a word in because voting for one doesn't mean risking a complete loss
to your party of choice.

Now where did I put that magic political wand again?

------
JacobAldridge
Can I join more than one group? If not, does that force me to support either a
Science Nation _or_ a Business Nation _or_ a Coffee Nation, when all might
balance my opinion?

If I can join more than one group, does that impact the democratic principle
[1] of one person - one vote? And what's to stop this becoming like the 'Like'
feature on Facebook, where everyone has 100 pages they clicked to like but
never think about again?

[1] It's a principle, though it's tough to create a level playing field in
practice. For instance, in Presidential elections small states have a minimum
of 3 electoral college votes, so a vote in Wyoming is worth more than a vote
in Texas or New York.

------
fhars
Didn't we have a discussion on the dangers of tribalism just the other day
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1561607> ? Why should it be a good idea
this week just because your tribe comes with a cheap data plan and a fancy
credit card?

And how big should these nations be? Should each be able to keep modern
society running on its own, which according to some numbers cites here
recently would put a lower bound of 100 million on them
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1541795> .

------
nazgulnarsil
there was already a war about this.

non-geographical based governance doesn't work unless respect for property
rights is uniform...in which case the motivation to do this will be
nonexistant since that is the biggest issue.

------
archangel_one
Can someone explain why his early point about having lost common ground has
come about?

Seems likely to me that a lot of political parties might tend to come closer
together over time, because they will always have the support of the extremes
(ie. if the Republicans move a bit closer to centre, the hard-right
conservatives might grumble a bit but won't ditch them and vote Democrat) but
by shifting to more centrist policies they can potentially pick up more
middle-of-the-road voters. What is happening in the US that makes the reverse
true, that the parties are becoming more polarised?

~~~
sigstoat
they're only polarized from certain viewpoints. over here off to the side,
they're basically in lock step about everything except for a tiny handful of
issues. the amount of smoke and noise being produced by those issues keeps
going up, though.

------
kiba
So um, what 67,000 dollars actually do?

~~~
blahedo
$67K is irrelevant (to his argument). $$$ from 67K supporters is relevant---it
would mean he can claim more donors than the tea party, and hence that he is
significant.

At least, that's his argument. I'm not sure that it would work out that way;
as it stands right now, tea party rallies can get media coverage even when
they're much smaller than some other kinds of rallies that can't, for a whole
bundle of reasons that are mostly not very rational.

EDIT to make clearer where I'm restating his argument and where I'm arguing
with it.

------
anamax
Does he really think that getting 67k people to sign up makes his proposal
more significant than the tea party?

If so, he's too clueless to be allowed to vote. If not, he's another con man.

------
InclinedPlane
Gridlock is fine. It's not a bug, it's a feature. The American political
system is designed to make it difficult to get anything done. In theory it
works out to a limitation on the power of the government and on slim
majorities.

------
fleitz
In general when the gov't passes a bill it tries to maximize spending and
minimize taxation. This generally results in a) more gov't and b) higher
deficits, as long as that is the direction that congress as a whole is taking
I say that gridlock is a good thing.

"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in
session." - Gideon J. Tucker

------
binaryfinery
So far, to fight "Special Interest Groups" we have:

The Bulldawg Nation.

The No Kill Nation (human treatment of pets)

Drunk Nation

LGBTQ Nation

Netroorts Nation

Outdoor Nation

A Woman's Nation

Elevation Nation

Basically Sean has created Facebook, but you give him money for his political
campaign fund first.

That said, at least he's trying _something_.

