I may have to shop for some alternatives

As one who registered with the Green Party for a couple of years in response to an earlier example of Democrat spinelessness I can assure you that the Greens are a collection of hopeless ideologues with no capacity for dealing realistically with practical problems. For my sins I now live in a town with a Green majority on the City Council. Face the fact that the end of Western Civilization and the Enlightenment Experiment are near and relax into the Apocalypse. You'll feel much better.

Well if you ever get to NDSU you can look up my good buddy Wade Hannon (www.wadehannon.org) and see for yourself. He's a good guy for an academic professorial type. Wade is also the only card carrying (literally) IWW member I know.

"Anybody know anything about the Green Party here? Or are they a bunch of blithering incompetents, too?"

They want to stop research on animal subjects, but they are so incompetent that they want to replace it with research that uses animals as tools (i.e., cell culture):

http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/ecology.html#760002

I've been reg'd Dem since '84 and renew as such where ever I've moved. In '92 I voted The Natural Law Party because, at the time for me (just coming out of a New Age daze! lol!) his use of the Physics' angle was just too enticing, even though I saw Slick Willie's potential against the rack of lambs and losers he was running against.

Now my boy Hagelin (Nat Law cum Perot Lite) is shackin' up with the Maharishifishivishi somethin' or other and selling TM for Peace bumper stickers and buttons.

{shakin'head}

Still, I'd like to see another candidate take the angle that Politics isn't just somebody's opinion on how to run a government. That the laws that rule reality sans homo sapiens had best be worked out and applied to our societies scientifically.

Oh, but I guess that's cuz Science is mah ruhlidjun or sumpt'in... {headstillshakin'}

I'm tellin' ya PZ, you've got to consider runnin' for something local up there in MN. See what happens in '08 first. If things in this country still look like the fetus of fascism is gettin' towards viability, well ... Those who can, do. Right? You'd get my vote, want it or not!

(I think it was Arthur C Clarke who wrote that Presidents would be chosen by computer algorhythm, with one of the few disqualifiers being a desire for the job.)

PZ, I share your fed-upness with the Dem establishment- but they're the only opposition in town. Remember, if it weren't for Nader, Al Gore would now be in his 2nd term, and the Supreme Court would look a hell of a lot different. Don't
bail.

What I have seen of "green" parties in europe, I don't think you would feel at home. They are mostly faith based ('green' solutions, which can mean much anything) and have the damnedest ideas on some particulars. Emphasis on environmental protection would probably appeal to a biologist, of course.

Of course, it's a healthy thing that such parties exist to make discource and balance power, so it isn't a totally bad idea to help them once in a while.

If you are thinking of founding your own party, perhaps a glance on what parties are popular overseas will help with a healthy profile. For example, there are liberals of all kinds..., excuse me, species. (But please don't go christian democratic on us...)

Oy vey! Another reason for you to run for office in Minnesota PZ!!!

A friend just sent me that link. Good luck. lol

The problem here is not with Senate Dems. As the article at Liberal Oasis that you link to states, "grassroots opposition has not crystallized."

So who can we replace the ineffectual grass roots with?

The greens are as anti-science as the fundamentalists-- the only difference is that the fundies are opposed to the scientific process and reason itself while the greens are opposed on ideological grounds to actually *doing* anything with scientific knowledge. Doing things like, say, building power plants or launching space probes (they contain Plutonium, remember?). Green ideology is another form of reactionary religious fundamentalism.

What's the use in us evil Satan-worshipping heathen scientists prying into God's creation with our devil reason and scientific instruments if we can't have any fun with the stuff we learn? :)

I'm in absolute agreement with Adam. The Greens are (for the most part) neo-Puritanical anti-science fundamentalists. I'm really disturbed too by the growth of conspiratorial thinking on the left.

"The greens are as anti-science as the fundamentalists-- the only difference is that the fundies are opposed to the scientific process and reason itself while the greens are opposed on ideological grounds to actually *doing* anything with scientific knowledge"

Technology is *not* science. I don't always agree with Green opinion on technological use, but it isn't fair at all to far them with an "anti-science" brush simply because they question the *application* of science in the form of technology.

"What's the use in us evil Satan-worshipping heathen scientists prying into God's creation with our devil reason and scientific instruments if we can't have any fun with the stuff we learn?"

Humor noted, but scientists almost never "get to have the fun" with applications. That's the job of industrialists and engineers.

The Alito situation brings to mind a couple of old sayings. Capitalism will hang on a rope sold by a capitalist ... and ... Democracies perish if they vote to empower the enemies of democracy.

The second, in my opinion, is the rallying point regarding Alito. How do we know that Shrub's next transgression wont be to declare that he can run for 3 terms, or that he shouldnt leave office because we are 'at war'? Alito's standard of unitary presidency could very well hand just such control over to the president. What is to stop the unitary presidency from becoming the infinite presidency ... because the commander in chief must stand? The current SCOTUS was persuaded to appoint Bush president, what is to stop the Alitoized SCOTUS from effectively appointing him for life?

This is the argument I want to hear on the floor of the Senate. Frankly, I hope Byrd starts up a fillibuster and dares the rest of the Democrats to vote it down. Lest we forget, there are a couple of Republicans who are none too fond of Bush's power grab, and if given a chance might just do the right thing.

Boy do I wish for the days when Republicans were 'strict constructionists'.

You guys are confirming what I was afraid of. There just isn't any organized opposition to the Forces of Darkness.

I'm tempted by that IWW guy. I do love the Wobblies!

Well, it sort of depends on whether you want a winner or an ideal. I joined the Socialist Party a while back (they're big-tent types: plenty of room for anarchist/Wobblie types like me, as well as various central-planning types); I think you'd probably like most of the Party's official positions, but you'd better not be making future plans on us taking power any time soon....

Nader, schmader: if it wasn't for Katherine Harris, Jeb! Bush, and the Rehnquist 5, Al Gore would have been president in '01. Hell, if it weren't for Al Gore, Al Gore would've won in '00.

I can't tell you what to do, but the party won't get reformed unless we do the reforming. We have to agitate and make a lot of noise and not give money blindly. I'm not sure how there will be an opposition if we don't provide it.

tng wrote:

"I'm really disturbed too by the growth of conspiratorial thinking on the left."

Thank you.

Gotta repeat this quote yet again... I love it!

"... confusion and absurdity enhance conservative tendencies in society. Firstly, because clear and logical thinking leads to a cumulation of knowledge (of which the progress of the natural sciences provides the best example) and the advance of knowledge sooner or later undermines the traditional order. Confused thinking, on the other hand, leads nowhere in particular and can be indulged indefinitely without producing any impact upon the world."

- Stanislav Andreski

Read that over and over again... it's got a lot of subtilety to it. Personally, I partly blame modern liberal intellectuals for the condition we find ourselves in now. It seems to me that starting in the late 1960s and culminating in the late 1970s there was a profoundly anti-rational trend that surfaced within the academic left. I think we're seeing it bear fruit today in the form of the total intellectual irrelevance and political surrender of liberals and progressives.

You've got to hand it to the Dems, though. They have consistently and flawlessly squandered such a huge number of opportunities that it's almost like they want to lose. No wonder some of the more conspiracy-minded are starting to ask questions. "Let's just half-heartedly advocate whatever the focus groups are saying this week, making sure to stay on the defensive at all times with regard to the GOP". Nice plan, guys!

Um, who the hell else is Bush going to put up for his next nominee if Alito does, somehow, get blocked? The Democrats really are powerless in this situation. Bush is in office for another however many years (barring impeachment for, oh, I don't know, breaking federal law by circumnavigating the FISA court), so the Supreme Court will shift rightward - it's just a matter of how much it does so. I imagine there are much worse judges than Alito that could make it through on a party line vote, so it may well serve the Democrat's long term vitality to 'cut and run,' as they say in the coward biz.

If i see "spineless Joe's" name on the list for those who voted to confirm Alito, I would almost consider running against that sorry excuse of a Senator. Though part of me is becoming resigned to the fact that this country may need a knock-down drag-out conflict over the imperial presidency and state funded religion. Maybe then we can understand why the Europeans got tired of killing each other over Jesus a while ago. Gotta love that picture from Georgetown!

From my extreme leftist perspective, the problem with the democrats is not that they are spineless. The problem instead is that the difference between democrats and republicans is not all that different anymore. The democratic party inches further to the right every year, and the dem's we know today are like the republicans of yesteryear. Its a game of catch up now. Both parties are entrenched and have every reason to want to keep things more or less the way they are. Dem's can't seriously promote progressive or social policies, because, well, they aren't really democrats anymore.

The Greens ROCK! They got Dubya elected.

Reward them.

God Bless America, the best democracy money can buy.

I know that the Greens are going to be starting up again on the U of M-TC campus... just in case anyone here also feels upset at the blue invertebrates...

You want to know who got Dubya elected? John f-ing Kerry got Dubya elected. They didn't campaign in swing states because simply puy, unlike Kerry, they're not stupid.

You want to know who's a collection of hopeless ideologues? The pathetic wimps who've barely given us any reason at all to hope for progress in GWB's Amurika over the past 6 years are the hopeless ones.

The Republicans have gone to the far right; the Democrats have gone to the middle. Who else is there to fill the void on the left? There isn't going to be two-party rule forever. When the time is right, somebody has to be there to step up, or else the opportunity will be missed. And that means that those of us who are pissed off at the Democrats' utter ineffectiveness have to be willing to put our balls on the line instead of turning into keyboard kommandoes.

Oh, and Bob: the GOP already doesn't have any vocal opponents.

I'm with you on this one PZ, well, sorta. The Dems have to take a stand on SOMETHING. I can't think of very much they've done in these past six years. If they could, at the very least, stand up against the overtaking of the Supreme Court with conservatives, well that'd be something, wouldn't it.

On the other hand, if the Dems fail in this I don't think the best situation is to abandon them, because this is a two-party system and if you aren't in one of the two you're effectively ignored.

Go after the dems all you want, but I demand an end to the slime mold bashing!

The Greens are (for the most part) neo-Puritanical anti-science fundamentalists.

What a bunch of fucking bullshit.

The political landscape has shifted. An ideological gulf exists between the people and their leaders. Modern liberalism needs staunch and worthy representatives now more than ever. Clearly, the time has finally come for the formation of the Bull-Squid Party.

"If you find yourself saying: 'Politics sucks!'
and you don't know what to dooooo,
just mark the bar under Architeuthis dux
cuz he's a friend to me and you."

And with that inspiring jingle (laid upon a bedrock of sound educational policies), we shall sweep the nation.

No offense PZ, but here we part ways. Nothing useful can come of a filibuster at this point other than to further convince the country that the Democrats are assholes. Fighting the forces of darkness doesn't mean beating your head against the wall.

I'm in complete agreement with David Neiwert. Last chance, Democratic party. Show me you are going to fight for my interests, or goodbye, and you can stop asking me for donations. Anybody know anything about the Green Party here? Or are they a bunch of blithering incompetents, too?

If the Democrats show platyhelminth spine, which they probably will, I think you should respond by agitating in the '08 primary for a candidate who showed chordate spine. Let the Democrats know not that they'll lose your vote if they vote for Alito, but that in the primary you'll condition your support on voting against Alito.

I imagine there are much worse judges than Alito that could make it through on a party line vote, so it may well serve the Democrat's long term vitality to 'cut and run,' as they say in the coward biz.

Name one. Roberts was okay, and I still can't see him overrule Roe vs. Wade, but Alito is radically conservative on the one political issue that the Supreme Court decides; how much worse does it get?

I wouldn't even consider the Greens. It's unlikely that they'll ever get any real power but it's better not to even risk it. They have no clue of how to make an economy work and have no interest in finding the most efficient (=capitalist/market friendly) ways to extract scarce resources.

The Greens are anti-science, anti-progress and eco-fascists.

As much as I don't want Alito on the Supreme Court...

1) Even if Alito was somehow defeated, Bush would get someone similar to him fairly soon.

2) What's much more important than Alito is, in chronological order, the 2006 elections and the 2008 elections. Right now the Dems don't have enough votes to do anything effective except in very limited situations (basically when there are GOP divisions, or the Dems can mobilize large enough portions of those sections of the electorate that the GOP cares about against something). Do well enough in 2006 and that changes.

3) In short, what's most important about the Alito nomination isn't Alito. It's how to shape the issues linked to the nomination for maximum benefit in 2006 and later. A filibuster is certainly one strategy for doing this, whether it's the optimal strategy is another question.

Alito's the preseason. The real season is yet to come...

PZ,

I'm in complete agreement about Alito, and that the Democrats should do everything to block him. It may still happen.

I don't think going to a third party is the answer. In the US, minor parties are irrelevant and run by egomaniacs or ideologues who are not as interested in making changes than in pumping up their egos. (See Nader, Ralph.)

The answer is to transform the Democrats into a party that does what the people want. If you're depressed about what the people really want, compare Bush's approval ratings with those of Clinton's. The problem is the disconnect in the process between those running things and the actual citizenry.

Incompetence is always ultimately a suicidal approach to any endeavor, as any biologist should know. The problem we face right now is the lag time between the manifestation of incompetence and the just rewards that await the perpetrators.

I think you could do a lot of good in the Green party, Dr. Myers. While I don't think I'd call the party itself anti-science, there are definitely some strong anti-science currents in parts of the party. I know this because I used to be one of them myself - many years ago in my misspent youth.

The thing is, I think a lot of those guys are educable. I sure was. But I had to go out and get the education myself, because the other Greens I knew shared the same sort of biases that I had. We just all sort of thought that all scientists worked for Monsanto, manipulating cereal genomes for fun and profit to the detriment of humanity. (Hey, I was nineteen and a product of the American school system - don't hold it against me now!) But I think you could provide an excellent counterexample to that attitude.

Oh, and the Green Party USA is a different beastie than its European cousins, as well. It's worth looking into, at any rate - you've got nothing to lose. Check out the Socialists, as well - I have, and I think they've gotten my vote. I fear I'm in the same boat you are - I don't feel like I left the Democratic party; I feel like they left me.

Jillian
"Check out the Socialists, as well - I have, and I think they've gotten my vote."

That hurts. Scientists with even just the most basic knowledge of how an economy works should never support socialism. Socialism is just as much nonsense and factless propaganda as any religion. It's all about catchphrases, morals and values - in short - socialism is a religion. - it does not posses any real knowledge of economics, history and first-grade math.

Let's make something clear: "abandoning" the Democrats does NOT entail not voting for Democrats ever again. I certainly plan on voting for my DFL candidate for Congress because she's somewhat progressive and has a good chance of beating the incumbent Republican. And in fact, most of my votes on the next ballot will probably go to Democrats. But that doesn't exclude me from working outside the system to help bring change at the same time.

What I find most disturbing is that some people in this thread have turned begging the question into their favorite pastime. So you refuse to join a third party. Why? Because they don't have very much power. Why do they have so little power? Because people like you refuse to join them!

Incidentally, a name like PZ could surely do a lot to gain wider recognition and power for the Greens sometime not too far down that road. As for the assertion of being anti-science: certainly no one would argue that all Democrats are firmly pro-science, no? Not everybody in the party thinks the same. Of the young greens I've met, though, I can't think of any who aren't pro-science.

Again, the Green party elected George Bush. Don't give me this Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush stuff- Florida might not even have mattered without Nader (it wasn't the only state where Nader's vote exceeeded Bush's victory margin),and in any case Gore probably would have won Florida by an un-stealable margin. Hasn't that debacle taught people anything?? Like it or not (I don't- I'd love to scrap our antiquated Constitution- except for the Bill of Rights of course!- and replace it with a more sensible parliamentary system) we're stuck with a two-party system; if you don't support the least-worst of the two you're effectively supporting the Republicans. Sucks, but dealing with reality has a lot of advantages over retreating into wishful thinking.

Instead, work at the grassroots (which have already succeeeded in electing a good party chair against the wishes of the establishment)to make the Democratic party better and stronger.

Steve - there has been surprises by third party candidates in the past so it's not so completely out of the question. Only about a decade ago Perot showed that there's plenty of room for third party candidates IF they have what it takes. It's only a good thing that there's almost zero support for Greens and Socialists. I do wish there was a bit more support for Libertarians - but on the other hand there's plenty of free market advocates in the Republican party - such as the Republican Liberty Caucus. So the Republicans are not all bad.

The problem here is not with Senate Dems. As the article at Liberal Oasis that you link to states, "grassroots opposition has not crystallized."

So who can we replace the ineffectual grass roots with?

The problem absolutely IS with the Senate Dems. They have done fuck-all to motivate the grassroots OR Middle America to oppose Alito.

If they're waiting to see what the grassroots want, instead of taking a principled stand, then how is it NOT the Senate Dems' fault?

Shit, try leadership once in a while, guys. You'd be surprised what might happen.

The Democratic party is far from my ideal, but I haven't see any alternative that has a shot at winning elections. Occasionally I can muster enthusiasm for individual Democrats (the late Sen. Wellstone comes to mind now that you mention Coleman). Other than that, I see it in game theoretic terms. It is clear to me that a Democratic government is significantly closer to my ideal than a Republican one. It's also usually true that voting for any smaller party is equivalent to not voting. I don't understand the idea of voting as a matter of principle, because my core principle on voting is that a vote is worthless unless it has practical impact. Politics is the art of the possible, and if getting what I really want isn't possible, I'm neglecting my duty if I don't at least try to get something.

The key problem with always voting Democrats is that this removes any incentive for Democratic politicians to act in my interest. Actually, I think that sending letters has at least some impact. Regardless of my voting behavior, this may still suggest to them that they need to do something to regain the enthusiasm of supporters.

No offense PZ, but here we part ways. Nothing useful can come of a filibuster at this point other than to further convince the country that the Democrats are assholes. Fighting the forces of darkness doesn't mean beating your head against the wall.

No, but it does mean actually fighting once in a while.

If not now, then when? And if never, then what's the point of being a Democrat?

I agree with everyone above who warned that defecting to the Greens will simply make the Republicans more powerful.

Don't abandon the party; reform it. Look for primaries where a Democrat with a spine is running against a jellyfish (apologies to jellyfish for the comparison), and donate time or money to the one with the spine.

I think the party has improved over the past few years--Reid certainly understands better than Daschle that the leader of an opposition party has to, y'know, oppose--but perhaps they're not turning around fast enough to keep Alito off the Court.

"On the other hand, if the Dems fail in this I don't think the best situation is to abandon them, because this is a two-party system and if you aren't in one of the two you're effectively ignored."

[Slightly joking, slightly not]

Since I live in Texas, I was already effectively ignored, so I voted "none of the above."

[/Slightly]

One thing that concerns me is that if we keep the "voting for the lesser evil" mentality, both candidates will just keep getting eviler. I don't know the solution, but we should make sure we don't simply resign ourselves to accepting bad candidates.

Steve, I have to call out that BS. In 2000, less than 50% of the voting-age population voted for one of the major parties candidates. Who is more responsible: those who didn't vote at all, or those who voted their conscience? Poll analysis shows absolutely NO correlation between Nader's support and support for Gore or Bush. Less than half of his voters identified themselves as Democrats. And Gore had simply had the competence to win his home state or Clinton's home state, the Democrats would have won.

Saying "the Greens elected Bush" isn't only a crap argument on the facts, it's a right-wing-style attack that substitutes innuendo and name-calling for thought and constructive solutions.

I'd like the anti-third-party posters here to answer this: are we going to have two-party rule forever in the United States? If you think yes, I'd say that's awfully and unnecessarily pessimistic. If no, how, without your help?

And: Just how far away from your personal ideals would the Democrats have to go for you to leave them? There has to be some standard on the matter - what is it?

"That hurts. Scientists with even just the most basic knowledge of how an economy works should never support socialism. Socialism is just as much nonsense and factless propaganda as any religion."

Free marketism is equally "religious" ("invisible hand", my ass). While both socialists and freemarketeers have claimed that science was on their side, it isn't. Politics is ideology, not science.

Since there are large portions of eligible voters who simply don't vote (in both your country and mine), it would seem that there's room to explore alternatives to the well established parties. Some progressives think one should start at a more local level and coordinate when necessary with other such groups and slowly build up to national presence. In the case of the US, I understand that the population is generally far to the left of either the plutocratic party or the theocratic plutocratic party, so building support that meets at a local level and slowly upwards might work.

What amazes me although it is true that the Democrats and Republicans have slowly come together, they have been very similar in foreign policy at least for a long time and only recently have many Americans realized this. Many Americans might not remember, but the peoples of the world know that many games of chicken and political meddling and much else have been done under both party's presidents. I read posts on the political blogs now and then or here and elsewhere and see things that suggest that people think that this Democratic "spinelessness" is something new. Of course George Bush and company are an extreme case, but not in the way some seem to think.

Also, remembering Clinton fondly is understandable since Bush has been such a disaster, but real wages did fall for working class Americans under his watch too, as I recall, and it isn't as if he was free of the sometimes disasterous foreign meddling us non-Americans remember. (I also find Clinton a much more likable fellow in how he acts, and I suspect that those who remember fondly do too, but that's a subjective preference.)

I'm afraid the realistic answer is yes, we're stuck with the 2-party system for as far ahead as anyone can foresee. The US is an intensely conservative country about its basic institutions. We can't even get rid of such stupidities as English weights and measures, and lack or non-acceptance by the public of sensible currency (dollar coins, bills of different denominations being different sizes / colors). The last time there was an actual change in the lineup of major political parties, it was in the runup to a Civil War.

If people want to throw their votes away, so be it. But start bitching about what the Republicans are doing to the country, and I'll call you on your irresponsibility and hypocrisy, like it or not.

And accepting reality doesn't mean swallowing just anything the Dems dish out. I voted for Gore with pleasure because he was a good candidate. If his former running mate were to be nominated for 2008, though, I'd withhold my vote.

You won't change the electoral system, and getting hordes of non-voters to the polls is not only a fantasy but potentially something that could backfire (do we really know with any precision how many of them are actually closet Pat Robertson fans? Turnout was supposed to win for Kerry, but as it happened the Republicans beat us at that game.) If you want to play a constructive part, swallow your utopianism and work to improve the Democratic party- as the "netroots" already did in forcing Dean down its gullet as party chair.

"Free marketism is equally "religious" ("invisible hand", my ass)."

It's called a "blind watchmaker." A central authority is not required to produce adaptive order. Socialism and other forms of command economics are economic creationism.

What about what we can't foresee?

Just like you said, it's been a long time - 150 years. We're due. We don't know when something crazy is going to happen, but when it does, there needs to be an infrastructure of progressive alternatives in place. And I don't want my alternative to be Joe Lieberman or Hillary Clinton or John Kerry.

Of course, in the mean time, we should still work our asses off to bring about change on whatever level we can. To do that, we need activists who are willing to work outside what has been dicatated as the "mainstream."

That's great, all I'm saying is be careful of the law of unintended consequences. And sorry, I still say that law bit us in 2000.

To throw my two cents in.. Even if/when one of the other parties has some interesting ideas, this is offset by the fact that they all too often attract malcontents and lunatic fringe elements that would embarrass both Republicans and Democrats, though it sad how stupid or nuts some people have to be to *not* fit into the later. Being someone that is scared to death of the right and desperately wishes the left didn't intentionally jump over cliffs about half the time, I really wish some alternative did exist. :(

Adam Ierymenko:

A central authority is not required to produce adaptive order.

True, but there's no guarantee that self-organization will lead to the result that matches whatever sort of consensus we reach as a society.

Economic planning that ignores the market is like farming that ignores the weather. But expecting the market to solve all your problems likewise makes about as much sense as expecting the rain to fall exactly when and where you need it. Or, for another example, we agree that evolution works, but how many people would keep a wolf as a pet? The invisible hand/blind watchmaker is clearly adept at optimizing something or other, just not necessarily what we want.

Central planning dogmatism fails when it pretends incentives can always be overridden by fiat and are never worth harnessing for benefit. Free market dogmatism fails when it pretends that existing incentives are guaranteed to produce a "best" outcome provided you interfere as little as possible.

The truth isn't always in the middle, but it is true that an optimum lies either at a constraint boundary or an internal extremum. It's obvious (to me anyway) that neither extreme gives very good results in this case, so I rule out the constrain boundaries. Thus, the only rational solution is to adjust policies continually and test them against results to try and find that internal optimum.

Incentives are tools; regulation is a tool; "cold, heartless, bureaucracy" as much as it gets a bad rap is a much needed tool of governance (and the alternative tends to be some combination of graft and nepotism). Some combination of these tools, in competent hands, can mitigate risk while maximizing benefit. Now if somebody could just roll that up into catchy talking points (no I'm not holding my breath).

"It's called a 'blind watchmaker.' A central authority is not required to produce adaptive order. Socialism and other forms of command economics are economic creationism."

1) Natural selection (the "blind watchmaker") is a description of how the natural world came to be. It's descriptive, not prescriptive.

2) Both socialism and freemarketism are by definition prescriptive models that aim to improve society. To equate either with natural selection or creationism shows a deep confusion between "is" and "ought".

3) The flawed analogy between freemarketism and Darwinism ("Social Darwinism") has long ago been discredited. Every textbook on evolution points this out.

Again, the Green party elected George Bush. Don't give me this Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush stuff- Florida might not even have mattered without Nader (it wasn't the only state where Nader's vote exceeeded Bush's victory margin),and in any case Gore probably would have won Florida by an un-stealable margin.

The Greens were one factor out of many. If mechanical voting didn't undercount votes, Gore would have won. If American election law made it clear who could vote and who couldn't, Gore would have won. If Katherine Harris hadn't abused the fact that American election law was ambiguous, Gore would have won. If Gore weren't about the least electable Democrat since McGovern, he would have won. If the Electoral College had been scrapped in the 1820s the way it should have, Gore would have won. If the Supreme Court hadn't stopped the recount, Gore might have won.

I'd love to scrap our antiquated Constitution- except for the Bill of Rights of course!- and replace it with a more sensible parliamentary system

A parliamentary system doesn't matter one bit here. Britain and Canada have parliamentary systems with traditional two-party systems (in fact both countries' systems are in crisis right now, but in normal times their systems are two-party). Multi-party systems are encouraged by proportional representation, not by parliamentary systems.

It's called a "blind watchmaker." A central authority is not required to produce adaptive order. Socialism and other forms of command economics are economic creationism.

The only economic views that can be sensibly compared to creationism are those that rely on analogies and repudiate the use of hard data. Socialism demonstrably doesn't work, but neither does libertarianism.

If people want to throw their votes away, so be it. But start bitching about what the Republicans are doing to the country, and I'll call you on your irresponsibility and hypocrisy, like it or not.

One of the reasons I voted "none of the above" was because I was pretty confident that Bush couldn't lose here in Texas, even if I did vote Kerry. I wanted, in a small way, to express my dissatisfaction with both candidates. If I lived in a swing state, I would have given Kerry much more consideration. (And make sure to complain about any of his shortcomings. I don't want my vote to give the impression that I loved everything about him.)

BronzeDog certainly has a point wrt presidential elections because of that stupid damn electoral college (which is yet another anachronism we'll never get rid of); no doubt my thinking about presidential elections is colored by living in one of the swingiest of states (Ohio).

The American public will get what they deserve, a good shagging, the Republicrats will rule you with an iron fist as you go down in flames.

Have fun...

Michael I:

"2) What's much more important than Alito is, in chronological order, the 2006 elections and the 2008 elections. Right now the Dems don't have enough votes to do anything effective except in very limited situations (basically when there are GOP divisions, or the Dems can mobilize large enough portions of those sections of the electorate that the GOP cares about against something). Do well enough in 2006 and that changes.

3) In short, what's most important about the Alito nomination isn't Alito. It's how to shape the issues linked to the nomination for maximum benefit in 2006 and later. A filibuster is certainly one strategy for doing this, whether it's the optimal strategy is another question.

Alito's the preseason. The real season is yet to come..."

The problem is that the Democratic leadership won't fight, and so won't learn to fight. It's like some sports team saying that the season hasn't started yet, so why practice?

Remember, many of these leaders wouldn't fight against Bush even before 9/11. They wouldn't fight in 2002; they didn't fight in 2004 (they let Kerry take the hits), and they show no signs of fighting in 2006.

Back in 1992, the GOP reaction to their lose of the Presidency, and the Democratic Party holding Congress, was to fight back. They spent two years in hard opposition. Then they took Congress. Then they kept at it; they didn't beat Clinton 1996, but they did in 2000. They wore Clinton down.

In contrast, we have leadership who, with rare exceptions, figures that 'this' fight is not really worth it, so wait for the next one.

Me, I see two choices.

1) Start a grassroots campaign locally to change the methods of vote counting. The US uses a simple plurality vote, meaning that multiple parties will always harm their closest ideological allies. Worst case scenario, a region that votes 34% conservative can still win an election, as long as the remaining libral factions get 33% or less.

Since the selection of senators, representatives and presidential electors are left up to the individual states, it can be done on a local level without a constitutional amendment. Choose a vote counting method that supports multiple party ballots (Approval, Condorcet, Single Transferrable Vote), and lobby hard to get it approved locally. If it's successful in enough states, the make-up of the Senate and House would change enough to encourage such changes elsewhere, or create enough diversity to make a constitutional amendment for better represenation possible.

2) Infiltrate the party. Attend the local democratic party meetings, and make your voice heard. I've heard from a number of people who have managed to get themselves in meaningful positions within the democratic party grassroots, and get their policy suggestions heard on a wider level.

This was the exact method employed by the current crop of hard-right conservatives that changed the heart of the Republican party after the defeat of Barry Goldwater.

What I see as the problem with #2, LWF, is that the centrists in the Dem. Party aren't going anywhere. Even if we can infiltrate the party with progressives, the centrists are still going to be there (or else turn into Republicans, which I don't think we want). Any progressive agenda will be extraordinarily difficult to move forward within the party itself, not to mention achieving actual results.

Now, I should've made this clearer before, but I by no means advocate shunning the Democrats completely - there is indeed a very progressive and productive wing of the party that we can and should embrace. I do think it would be possible for the Greens, as an example, to work together with progressive Dems on the many, many issues they have in common. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation.

defecting to the Greens

I recognize that Seth is responding to PZ's wondering about, well, defecting, so don't interpret this as criticism of Seth. But the above-quoted phrase comes up often enough when discussing people - myself among them - who haven't been Democrats for decades. So I thought I'd take the opportunity to point out that Rana has one of the best rebuttals of that argument I've seen anywhere.

"there's no guarantee that self-organization will lead to the result that matches whatever sort of consensus we reach as a society."

True. But consensus isn't what we strive for, nor may it be desirable.

In a democracy the system ought to satisfy the majority will since that is what the system is said to satisfy - I don't know if it does. The consensus may be wrong or unreachable, but the result of a self-organized system isn't. It may also be undesirable of course.

Self-organised systems are rare, and has limits for the controlled domain. We must respect that.

"The only economic views that can be sensibly compared to creationism are those that rely on analogies and repudiate the use of hard data. Socialism demonstrably doesn't work, but neither does libertarianism."

I'm all for hard data and the good definitions that reaching such data demands. So I'm curious about such claims, especially about libertarianism since such claims and a lot of other negative claims have been made before on these pages, but I believe without any data or references to back it up.

Several isms have been mentioned here too, perhaps without definition. Let's see what I can clear up myself from what I think I have read lately (but without any specific references):

- Democracy works well; more and more countries adopt, and internal and external conflicts are decreasing.

- Markets works well; more and more countries adopt, and those with free markets does best and raise the standard of the poorest quickest.

- Communism doesn't work; no country succeeded in adopting it, but that is mere another argument why it sucked.

My guess is that 'freemarketing' is about adopting free markets, so according to data it should work well.

Wikipedia: "Libertarianism is a political philosophy[1] that advocate individual's liberty in all aspect including civil, political and economic matters."

Okay, if it works well for economy, it could work well in the other areas. Has it been tested?

Wikipedia: "Socialism is an ideology with the core belief that society should exist within an environment where not-for-profit popular collectives control the means of power, and therefore the means of production."

No indication that it could work, but several countries claim to be governed by socialistic parties, and several countries have stateowned military, police, and businesses like electric power or telephones. My guess is that the last
part makes them less well successful economically, which the poorest will suffer from according to the general "data" on markets. Any hard data?

Socialism is just as much nonsense and factless propaganda as any religion. It's all about catchphrases, morals and values - in short - socialism is a religion. - it does not posses any real knowledge of economics, history and first-grade math.
Sounds exactly like lassez-faire capitalism, except that socialism has values and morals.

Even though it's probably not going to be read much, there are two good points above in reply to my post about free markets that merit response:

Jonathan Badger wrote:

"3) The flawed analogy between freemarketism and Darwinism ("Social Darwinism") has long ago been discredited. Every textbook on evolution points this out."

Evolution is not "Darwinism." Evolutionary change is governed by a number of interacting factors including drift, symbiosis, sex and other gene exchange mechanisms, the evolution of evolvability, developmental constraints, etc. Selection is just one of these. What Darwin did was to identify the simplest and most fundamental mechanism of adaptive change.

Likewise, I was not saying that society should be purely selectionist by making an analogy between markets and evolutionary systems. Nor was I necessarily making a perfect equation between markets and living systems... there are differences that must be taken into account.

What I *was* saying was that evolutionary theory and complexity theory show that a central planner is not required to produce order and adaptation in a system. This is, to me, the discovery of a general principle of the universe of which living systems and their particular modes of evolution are an example.

What I personally think is this:

The 21st century will, by the time it is over, have brought us a set of scientific theories that conclusively show that central planners are not only unnecessary to produce order in complex systems but are actually an impediment to it's production. We will exit the 21st century having at least scientifically and philosophically debunked the need for both gods and central economic planners, and both for the same reason.

(But, I am sure, we will still have both due to tradition and inertia.)

... and this brings me to the second ...

PaulC writes:

"True, but there's no guarantee that self-organization will lead to the result that matches whatever sort of consensus we reach as a society. Economic planning that ignores the market is like farming that ignores the weather. But expecting the market to solve all your problems likewise makes about as much sense as expecting the rain to fall exactly when and where you need it. Or, for another example, we agree that evolution works, but how many people would keep a wolf as a pet? The invisible hand/blind watchmaker is clearly adept at optimizing something or other, just not necessarily what we want."

I sort of agree, but I think the analogy is off-kilter. Do markets ever produce results that we don't like? Yes, certainly. But, I think the important question is: are central planners likely to do better? I think the answer is no. In fact, I know of no large-scale example of a creative task that is done better by a central planner than a self-organizing market.

I suspect that a central planner is simply unable to, on average, perform better than a market.

Why? I'm not sure if anyone has even studied this, but I do have an educated guess. Most of you biologists know why we don't have giant single celled organisms, right? It doesn't scale. Well, think scaling laws and information processing. How can a central authority possibly gather and process as much information as a market when the size of the task to be done exceeds the size and cognitive horizon of the central planning authority by many orders of magnitude? An efficient central planner tackling a large creative socioeconomic task seems to me to be the sensory/cognitive equivalent of a six foot tall amoeba trying to respirate and move.

Private companies are even starting to realize this, which is why big unwieldy corporations seem to be opting for structures that give more autonomy to individual compartments and divisions. Some very large organizations, such as universities, mega-conglomerates, etc. have even started to introduce models where each division of the company or organization runs almost like a seperate entity.

Sheesh! You're an atheist and you expect to find a comfortable majority party?

Think again.

There's a reason, of course, why the parties that get 98.5% of the votes are both opposed to unilateral disarmament.

Different styles, same substance.

Most of you biologists know why we don't have giant single celled organisms, right? It doesn't scale.
You also don't have "advanced" organisms with no brain. Advocating the slime mould as the perfect model for human society seems a bit.. off.

Sounds exactly like lassez-faire capitalism, except that socialism has values and morals.

In theory, maybe. In reality, socialist values and morals include embezzling the workers in practice while championing them in rhetoric, ignoring evidence that command economies don't work, and throwing people who disagree with the system to the Gulag. It's like saying libertarians care about freedom: they may say they do, but when you apply their economic ideas in practice, you get a tyranny of rich corporations. If you let the ideologues of either individualism or egalitarianism run amok, what you get is not individualism or egalitarianism but hierarchy.

The 21st century will, by the time it is over, have brought us a set of scientific theories that conclusively show that central planners are not only unnecessary to produce order in complex systems but are actually an impediment to it's production. We will exit the 21st century having at least scientifically and philosophically debunked the need for both gods and central economic planners, and both for the same reason.

There are no central economic planners outside Cuba, North Korea, China, and the utterly irrelevant Socialist parties. There are plenty of critics of unfettered capitalism, but these support mixed economies, not command systems. In fact, the greatest proponent of big government in the 20th century, J. K. Galbraith, wasn't as much of a central planner as you seem to think he is.

I sort of agree, but I think the analogy is off-kilter. Do markets ever produce results that we don't like? Yes, certainly. But, I think the important question is: are central planners likely to do better? I think the answer is no.

It's a false dichotomy to choose between a pure market system and "central planning." Market failures occur predictably, and we often do better when the government does something to fix them. This is what I mean by acknowledging the market exists, like the weather, and working within its constraints and harnessing it when possible, but not expecting it to solve all your problems.

Conventional wisdom says that the free market did an inadequate job insuring food and drug safety and that the Pure Food and Drug Act was a huge improvement. I agree with that view, although it's not obvious why the market should be inadequate in that case. You'd think consumers would be smart enough to avoid products that are making them sick, right?

Or, take federally insured bank accounts. This has apparently (admittedly there is no controlled experiment to show it) prevented the kinds of bank runs seen after the 1929 crash. On the other hand, the savings and loan collapse of the the 1980s may have been an unintended consequence of federal insurance, since it created what insurers call "moral hazard", encouraging S&Ls to take higher risks than they should, expecting a bailout. Of course, I'd probably call that a failure of deregulation, since the S&Ls had already been insured for decades but only started to crash as a result of being allowed to invest in riskier ways than they had. So that's a case where I would say that a combination of regulations and government funding is an improvement over an unregulated market.

As for true central planning, I'm not a big advocate for most things, but it seems useful for public works. If we had unregulated highway builders or water utilities, we'd inevitably have duplication in some places and lack of availability in others. These have such a large footprint on the commons that we cannot afford to let the market sort things out.

In theory, maybe.

Capitalism is a solely economic theory, it has absolutely nothing to say about morals. You missed my point entierly (although I admit I could have explicated it more).. socialism has a moral basis, wheither you agree with those morals or not. Capitalism is completely amoral.

Both fail in pure practice, all ideologies fail in pure practice. Plato was a wanker.

The problem with capitalism is that it permits economic (i.e. distribution) matters to become the overwhelming influence in societies. As for other normative economic policies, there are many which have scarcely been tried. "Socialism" is also a term of abuse in the US, being a sort of negative euphemism for Soviet-style authoritarian communism.

"It's like saying libertarians care about freedom: they may say they do, but when you apply their economic ideas in practice, you get a tyranny of rich corporations."

Is this what all the fuzz about libertarians comes down to? I still believe it hasn't been tested. Rich corporations isn't unique but expected: it is inevitable that a market will result in a few very succesful players. The market will still work, with or without antitrust laws.

I can't see that it will be a tyranny since there is still a government (but a small one), police and military (but hired by the government).

"There are no central economic planners outside Cuba, North Korea, China, and the utterly irrelevant Socialist parties."

But you still have imposed constraints (taxes, rates, tariffs, antitrust laws, ...) and government central planning of taxes to roads, power lines, ...

BTW, I live in a country that is governed by an "utterly irrelevant Socialist" (social democratic) party. Can you explain that?

"Capitalism is a solely economic theory, it has absolutely nothing to say about morals."

Morality is relative.

Capitalism (market systems) say that it is correct ('good') to have working distribution and resource handling systems (which is what a market provide), unregulated ownership of those (so the market mechanism works), and to optimise usage of resources and distribution (which is what a market do).

Socialism (very restriced or nonmarket systems) says that it is correct to sacrifice part or all of a working market system for preferentially use of reasources. There is no guarantee that those uses are beneficial ('good') for their intended purpose, but there is a guarantee that resources will not be optimally used, as adam says. It would be a challenge to claim that the beneficial uses outweighs the drawbacks.

Especially since statistics show that free markets and democracy makes the poorest fewer, I think. Perhaps those restrictions in practise is made to provide the majority of people with benefits but prevents some of those resources to reach the poorest? It certainly seems so.

Keith I wouldn't have guessed you were a closet neoPlatonist.

Socialism is what Socialism is, or was. The idea that a kinder, gentler socialism is lurking out there does not have much empirical evidence to support it.

I have a friend who argues that Marxism (of various sorts) is a religion. I don't like his terminology, preferring to save 'religion' for belief in an imaginary Big Spook, but constructively he has a point.

In practice, the various Socialisms seem to devolve into something not importantly different from religious despotisms.

Capitalism is a solely economic theory, it has absolutely nothing to say about morals. You missed my point entierly (although I admit I could have explicated it more).. socialism has a moral basis, wheither you agree with those morals or not. Capitalism is completely amoral.

On the contrary, Adam Smith based capitalism on a very strong liberal moral philosophy. Before capitalism changed from a radical anti-mercantile idea to the ruling class's dominant paradigm, it was also strongly opposed to monopolies and unrestrained corporate power - as was communism, until it became dominant.