For me, this incident is an example where the U.S. democracy failed, pure and simple. Obama made campaign promises to not do surveillance. He was elected and then did it anyway. It's frankly impossible now to change this issue in a democratic fashion.
From the outside it often looks as if American politicians are overly busy with a very expensive "game", rather than using the game for the greater good.
This problem is systemic. It has little to do with Obama or Clinton or X, Y, Z individual. Individuals are irrelevant here. What you have is a runaway state.
For better or for worse, Obama is a good symbol for the problem though in that his entire campaign was based on hope and change, only to prove that such change isn't actually possible in a couple of election cycles, if at all.
If that were his intention, he'd have to make sure to never say or write that during his campaign possibly. Yup. And I'd guess there are probably people working on deciphering true intention from merely campaign promises. Welcome to our new world. If not now, then someday... unless the good of humanity prevails in coming years and we change our course.
False dichotomy. The problem is not Democracy vs every other non-democratic system, it's in the implementation details of the current versions. We just need to refactor Democracy Version 1.0. Far from a rewrite.
And where do we begin? Upholding campaign promises, that's where. They must be watertight like contracts where the voters can sue.
There has to be some way for campaigning politicians to make non-watertight promises too. (For almost any promise you might make, there will be some circumstances in which breaking it would be the right thing.)
Given the option of making truly watertight promises and making ones with escape clauses, most politicians most of the time will make the ones that they can get out of.
So then who will make the most impressive-sounding "watertight" promises? Candidates who know they'll never actually get into power. Candidates who expect to be able to weasel out of those allegedly watertight promises somehow. (They probably will.)
This doesn't sound to me like an improvement. Am I being too cynical? Is there some way to have watertight campaign promises without these problems?
You'd have no more campaign promises. And truth be told, what you suggest is dangerous. In fact, it would create a situation worse than the one we have now.
I'd rather our politicians tell us what they want to do. Then, when they are in power, and have the means to do those things, balance it with the knowledge they've gathered from having access to all that power.
Maybe the issue is that politicians too easily make promises they cannot make. Maybe it's our problem for demanding politicians keep promises despite new information.
I'd rather our politicians tell us what they want to do. Then, when they are in power, and have the means to do those things, balance it with the knowledge they've gathered from having access to all that power.
What prevents them from sharing that knowledge, so the people who voted for them actually believe them when they say they had good reason for breaking campaign promises? Why is it always nebulous non-information like "there are threats" instead of "we are now tracking XX organizations with Y and Z capabilities and intentions, with exhibits A, B, and C proving this fact"?
If they're going to manipulate us into voting for them, I'd like them to be held accountable differently for things they told us they "intend to do" compared to things they told us they "promised to do".
Well, there is a problem with that. In searching for a "Promise" quote, I kept seeing this:
"Under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and "wiretaps without warrants,"
No mention of a promise. On top of that, warrants were issued. You can argue the merits of the warrants themselves, but it wasn't warrantless.
Now, if I missed a quote, please share. =) But, going by what little research I did, he never used the word promise, and did make sure to have warrants.
That what he did and what we wanted him to do diverged is surely an issue. But we aren't anywhere better.
I don't like any of this, but I also don't think it's as black and white as some make it out. How do you balance what you want to do with what is best for the country? Do you sacrifice your own honor to save lives? Maybe he didn't save any lives. But maybe he came into a situation where the intelligence community told him if he shut down the program like he'd intended, it would cost X dollars and cost Y years of intelligence gathering and putting us behind.
I'm not prepared to pass judgement. I don't like it, but I don't think we know the whole story yet.
> He was elected and then did it anyway. It's frankly impossible now to change this issue in a democratic fashion.
And this is an intentional feature of the system. It's in the Constitution. That's what term lengths are for. The American people never understood how to hold enough power to keep the governmental branches in check. They're too busy feeling self-righteously indignant to actually keep ahold of any power.
While I have my quibbles with the American Constitution, I do understand that politicians in a representative democracy are not bound to the will of their voters.
I still object in this instance because promises were broken, and in a significant, yet to be determined, portion of the population the spirit of the constitution was broken as well.
> I still object in this instance because promises were broken,
The fact that we ever even anticipate that a promises involving specific things ought to be made is a mistake in our civic education. It is a goddamned stupid expectation to have of elected officials. They give an oath. That oath defines their job.
Campaign promises should never be made, but no one significant can be elected without them. We ask them to lie and then are shocked when they do.
> and in a significant, yet to be determined, portion of the population the spirit of the constitution was broken as well.
But democracy, as an institution, is built to anticipate such failures. That's why there are impeachment procedures. That's why there are checks and balances. That's why there is civil disobedience. You can't call this a failure of democracy until those break down as well. (And, I concede, they probably will.)
Initial trust is always free. Candidates all compete for this initial implicitly transacted form of confidence. Then the electing public play the wait & see game. If the incumbent reneges on the promise, trust is understood to be broken, they vote someone else or soon enough become cynical of the entire system.
This system is bullshit. Promises made without accountability is the problem.
I think campaign promises should be made, but they should be made clearly with details of outcomes, timelines and plan Bs. Candidates can then compete on those detailed manifestos.
Of course it is. It's bullshit because you have no responsibility in it. You've abdicated your democratic capabilities by saying, "Promise me the world, and I'll wait and watch to see if you give it to me."
You're just a face in the audience. Why would anyone give a shit about being accountable to you?
> From the outside it often looks as if American politicians are overly busy with a very expensive "game", rather than using the game for the greater good.
This is because the players (Booz Allen, Lockheed, etc) are major campaign donors with huge lobbies). I don't like the corruption of politicians, but I like to believe that if money and lobbying were not involved, Obama (and most of Congress) would do a fine job of looking out for the best interest of Americans.
The real question is whether he is unable or unwilling to do what he promised. If the latter, he's just another disappointing politician. If the former, the US is in real trouble.
Who says it is a choice between two people? You may not have noticed, but there are more than two parties in this country.
How about all the Democrat and Republican voters who talk about choosing the lesser of two evils get over it and vote for third parties whose views they agree with? Stop being cowards and worrying about the "other side."
If anything, we will at least force the major parties to work harder to keep their power.
Winner-take-all voting systems naturally tend to produce a two-party system. There's an aversion to vote third party due to the problem of throwing your vote away. So, before you can have viable third parties in this country, you have to revamp the voting system to something like instant runoff.
We have a Parliamentary system with six parties with at least one seat. For the most part, I'd say it barely has any effect, except maybe on some important social issues (same-sex marriage and drug use decriminalization), but which could have passed without them.
The problem is that the two major parties coalesce the broad ideology-less voters, and while the others have a solid core of supporters, they can never really get a meaningful number to really force change.
I mean, even during one of our worst economical crisis, with unemployment and poverty hitting record highs, the polls barely show any increase for the other parties.
I don't believe his opponents where a lot better. As long as they didn't get president, it's easy to say they have more morals and spine, but they were sure squawking opinions I didn't like.
From the outside it often looks as if American politicians are overly busy with a very expensive "game", rather than using the game for the greater good.