Here in Thompsonville, the line was very short. I think I had one person standing in front of me, and then I had a few minutes of waiting before a voting booth was cleared. It was educational in a small but significant way. The first thing I realized is that I had absolutely no opinion about 80-90% of the candidates, either personally or in terms of their platforms (I’m including all positions, including local government). I voted on a few people that I had some opinion of, but mostly stuck to laws and propositions.

One humorous thing about our local election is that several of the positions had only one person running for them. It was like being in an old East Bloc nation where you can vote, but there is only one name on the ballot. 

There was also a section about local judges where you could actually vote against someone; that was surprising, although it may be perfectly normal (is it that way everywhere?).

On the way out I got a little “I Voted” sticker, now adorning my computer at work. It was satisfying to participate as one little pebble, adding a very tiny but important weight to the giant scales of democracy.

On October 1, 2008, President Bush deployed a brigade — which means three to four thousand warriors — somewhere in America.”

The article goes on to describe the threats of such a brigade, if used unwisely or unscrupulously, and notes:

The First Brigade is Bush’s force: they are not answerable to Congress or to the Governors of states: they are answerable to the Commander in Chief. In an Alternet posting, I interviewed Air Force Colonel (retired) David Antoon who noted that the troops must obey the president, even if he asks them to arrest Congress or fire on civilians or attack media outlets.

The article then reminds readers of recent trends in domestic “terrorist” accusations, as well as examples of domestic police brutality. These are very important examples demonstrating the dangers of living in an increasingly militarized society.

There is a link in the article to a video of a recent unaggravated mass arrest, which is quite shocking. Seeing so many police offers dressed in riot gear in a U.S. city, closing in on peaceful protesters, was a bit disconcerting.

I’ve been enjoying the audiobook version of John Adams, by David McCullough. One of the statements Adams made, in respect to British troops in the early American colonies, was that military forces stationed in a city will create three riots for every one that they stamp out.

All of this is a great reminder of the blessings of living in the country.

From Justin Kim’s Notes on Facebook:

Quote from Physicist Richard Feynman: “There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.”

Through a wholesale clearance-rate sell-off of the suns in our galaxy, the U.S. Government could gradually pull out of debt.

Regardless of whether you oppose or support, I urge you to let your representative know what you think right now.

* * *

This is just to express my concern against the bail-out. The pros and cons, which I am sure you have already considered, are nicely summarized here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7635420.stm).

In short, I think that the risks for the average American who has been making SOUND financial decisions are too high. The protections offered those who have made POOR financial decisions are too great. The benefits to be gained from the bail-out may not be fully realized, and there are huge risks that seem all too likely.

While the pressures to adopt this measure seem beyond resistance at this point, I hope that you will place your voice on the side of moderation and RESPONSIBILITY, and ensure that our futures are not jeopardized in order to make short work of what has become a big mess. Sometimes those who have created a problem need to deal with it, and face up to the consequences. That’s what I see here.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Michael Prewitt

I’m usually quite meticulous about hanging onto even the smallest receipts until I’ve accounted for the spending. I even record the 50¢ or so I pay for snacks that I bring home from work. Of course, sometimes things slip through, and so every so often I compare the cash I have with what I think I should have, and the difference goes to miscellaneous expense and/or my best guess. Because I am so careful, it really bothers me when I have a bill that I cannot account for, or when a discrepancy shows up in a balance. This doesn’t happen too often, but there’s usually one or two snurks in each year’s tax preparation.

Of course, there are also the occasional happy surprises. There have been at least two years when I found, while getting caught up on my bank reconciliations, that I had $500–1000 more than my checkbook balance contained.

And here’s a little FYI for you: Did you know that, according to IRS policy, if you make a loan to someone, and do not charge interest, or charge interest below the “applicable federal rate,” you have to pay tax on the interest you did NOT charge? It’s true! You can read all about it in Publication 525. (It’s way down the page under “Below-market loans.”) Not only that, but the borrower who did not pay the interest that you did not charge, may have to pay tax on what you didn’t charge them, depending on the circumstances. I’m not a tax expert, but my best guess is that this is based on the idea that the federal interest rate represents inflation, and inflation is the only way to rightly estimate the value of money; and if you don’t charge interest, you are effectively losing money, which is effectively the same as giving it away to the person you made the loan to. Naturally you cannot give away something you never had, so the IRS taxes you for receiving the interest (as though you received it and then gave it away). At least this is the impression left by their explanation of how this tax law works.

Also from the same IRS publication: (I hope this doesn’t apply to any of you!) “If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner.” Hmmm. What if someone returns something that they stole, but waits until the following tax year? Does it become taxable income for the person who receives it back?

This Tuesday, February 12, a representative from the North American Religious Liberty Association (NARLA) will be going before Congress to support for the Workplace Religious Freedom Act. Your support can make that effort more effective. You can do this by directly contacting your congresspeople. You can also do it very easily at www.religiousliberty.info (takes about 3-5 minutes if you write your own letter as I did, less if you use the supplied one).

NARLA has a strong track record of supporting religious liberty, and I definitely support anything that protects individuals’ freedom of religion.

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
—Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
—G. Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
—James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
—Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
—P.J. O’Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
—Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801–1850)

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
—Voltaire (1764)

No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
  —Mark Twain (1866 )

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
—Thomas Jefferson

Imagine a campaign revolving around a single platform issue, which we’ll call Issue 1. There are also platform Issues 2 and 3, but they are not as important. There are several persons running for office: Democrat A, who opposes Issue 1. Republican B, who supports Issue 1. And Independent C, who supports Issue 1.

Democrat A: Opposes
Republican B: Supports
Independent C: Supports

Say there are 1500 voters. It’s a close race. Let’s imagine the people vote like this:

Democrat A: 700 votes
Republican B: 650 votes
Independent C: 150 votes

Obviously Democrat A wins, if we were deciding the election simply by popular vote. This means that the election falls on the side opposing Issue 1. However, if you count up the votes, you will see that more people voted for a politician supporting Issue 1 (800 votes total, versus 700). When Issue 1 comes up in Congress, you can imagine the media trumpeting, “A majority of people oppose Issue 1. A majority elected a politician who opposes Issue 1.” When in reality, it’s just the opposite.

Of course, in the real world there will be people who vote for someone based on their secondary platform positions. But this will be true across all parties.

This is a very real concern, because there is this limitation in the U.S. voting system. A single vote works best when there are only two choices. In a strictly two-party government, that’s fine. But when you start adding additional parties to the mix, allowing only a single Yes vote for one candidate hobbles the ability of people to express what they want. And it’s why people are discouraged from voting for third parties, even when they strongly favor a third party. What can be done about it?

Well, mathematically you can get much more accurate results by allowing 1st, 2nd, and perhaps even 3rd choices. For example, in such a system, people might vote like this if given a 1st and 2nd choice:

Democrat A: 700 votes, 1st choice … 200, 2nd choice
Republican B: 650 votes, 1st choice … 450, 2nd choice
Independent C: 150 votes, 1st choice … 850, 2nd choice

The above second choices are based on these assumptions: People who voted first choice for Democrat A will divide their votes fairly evenly for their second choices; people who voted for Republican B will mostly choose as a second choice Independent C simply because of the platform similarity; and likewise most people who chose Independent C will mostly vote for Republican B as a second choice.

In such a simple scenario there is a somewhat high chance of ties, etc. But in the real world with many more voters, and more candidates, and more platform issues, the chance of a tie is much smaller.

If you score 1st choice votes with a value of 2, and 2nd choice with a value of 1, you get:

Democrat A: 1400 + 200 = 1600 points
Republican B: 1300 + 450 = 1750 points
Independent C: 300 + 850 = 1150 points

Not only does another candidate win, but you can see that the election more clearly represents the will of the people in regards to the issues at stake in the election. (Of course, it’s also possible that, if more people from the Republican B and Independent C camps voted for Democrat A as their second choice, Democrat A would still win. But at least it would be a more representative vote.)

There is a degree of added complexity in making multiple choices. Ranking each candidate on a score of 1 to 10, or -5 to +5, with a no opinion option, would perhaps be an even more accurate method, but would also be more difficult to administer. But I think we can all agree that even elementary school children are, generally speaking, able to understand 1st and 2nd choices. In our age of technology, tabulating the results should not be too difficult.

It can be argued that this system forces people to vote for candidates they don’t support, and consequently for platforms they don’t support. But that happens anyway.

In summary, allowing a series of choices (1st, 2nd, etc.), would increase the accuracy of the results, and allow people the freedom to vote for the person they want without fear that they are just tossing votes and thus effectively aiding a party they oppose.

My own state, Illinois, apparently has a GDP comparable to Mexico.

The page also contains a number of spin-off maps, including one comparing life expectancies of states to those of other countries. Hmmm. Illnois is comparable to … Kuwait.