"[A] Central Paradox of American Politics."

I do know one individual who is contemplating such a third party, and I do have some other persons in mind whom I think would be honest, intelligent candidates would be a breath of fresh air. All one can say is, we shall see. Meanwhile one is not overly hopeful lest there be the equivalent of what somebody called A promise to the ear, broken to the heart.

There also needs to be a vast change in our election system, partly so that a third party could have at least some success and partly just to have a better system wholly aside from any third party. In most states and for much or most of our history the election system has been run on a winner take all basis. Whoever gets the most votes for President in a particular state gets all of the state's votes in the Electoral College. Whoever gets the most votes in a congressional district wins the congressional seat, so that the entire congressional delegation of a state, or virtually the entire delegation, can come from one party -- can be all Republicans or all Democrats -- even though, if one simply counted up all the votes in the state for one party and all the votes for the other, they might come out 55% to 45% or 60/40 or 52/48.

Over the course of time the Electoral College and the winner take all system that we follow has been vigorously, even unanimously, defended by politicians, political scientists, the media, and so forth. It is time for it to be changed. There are nascent movements to change the Electoral College and to create a partially or wholly proportional representation system at many levels of government, right down to city elections. Proposed changes have been written about a fair amount (e.g., by Steven Hill), and I shall not canvass the pros and cons here (with one exception). Generally speaking, suffice to say that changes will be bitterly opposed, and opponents will make the age old claim that changes would destabilize the country. But we have seen the kind of pass the nation has now come to (and came to in the Gilded Age and the Depression) because of a calcified two-party system.

I have read that ofttimes scientific controversies are not settled, they merely become superannuated because they are irrelevant to and ignored by the next generation. Something like that seems to me in order today with regard to our rigid, calcified, unresponsive two-party system. Its apologists can offer all of their traditional defenses, but we have seen that in its unalloyed form it doesn't work well. There must be at least some admixture of proportional representation (the exception that I said would be mentioned) so that good people who are honest, thoughtful, and interested in getting a substantive job done competently can have a chance to be elected, can by being elected serve as models who can push for what ought to be done, and, by pushing for what ought to be done, can make it happen, and happen far earlier than otherwise.

Let me frankly say in this regard that there is a point of view in this country which holds that what has occurred in politics is that good people have become trapped in a bad system. Al Gore apparently says this. I disagree with it. One concedes, one proclaims, that the system has gotten bad, but one does not concede that the people in it are good, that supposedly "good" people have become trapped in the bad system. A person should be judged by what he or she does (not just by what he or she says). Judging by what our politicians do -- judging by their dishonesty, their failures to support good policies or achieve desirable goals, by their selling out to campaign contributors (viz. Hillary Clinton -- big time), our politicians are not good people trapped in a bad system, they are bad people. They are bad people making use of, taking advantage of, a bad system. We need to create a system in which at least some good persons can have a chance to be elected in order to show the way to better policies and a better society. Some form of admixture of proportional representation into our otherwise entirely winner take all system might well achieve this.

All of this leads to yet another point, by the way. Today a lot of good people, intelligent people who are driven to actually accomplish things rather than to just talk, wouldn't spit on politics let alone practice politics by running for office and having to do all the horrible things one must do in a campaign and in politics in our calcified two-party system. Since admixture of proportional representation might enable good people, accomplishment oriented people, to practice politics outside the now almost entirely corrupt two-party system, it might succeed in bringing the good people, honest, thoughtful, accomplishment-oriented people, into politics.

Finally, let me mention one of the most fundamental changes that is needed, a change in the philosophy under which this nation operates. We are a nation more given to secrets and secrecy than almost anyone wants to admit. We like to consider ourselves an open country, not a secretive one. But it is not true. Secrecy exists at every level of activity. It exists in government at every level, in corporations, in universities, in medicine, in law in certifying bodies, everywhere. The subject is way, way too huge to get into very deeply here, but more is now being written on it, most recently in a new book by Ted Gup called A Nation Of Secrets.

Secrecy is defended on a host of bases: individual, privacy, national security, corporate confidentiality, the need for doctors to have private case discussions in order to improve care, the sensationalistic writing and broadcasts of most of the media when it learns of things that were secret, and a score of other reasons. But the problem is that secrecy is the progenitor of evil. And while not everything that is secret spawns evil, all evil is spawned in secret. This writer is insuperably pressed to think of a single humanly caused disaster in his own lifetime that did not have its origins in matters that were at first secret. That, of course, is only logical. If potential evil is not kept secret, if it is a matter of public information from the get-go, it is likely to meet strong opposition from the get-go and is far less likely to succeed. (Hitler did tell us his views in Mein Kampf long before he had power. But would the world have stood idly by after he got control of the German state and military in the 1930s if he had then openly announced that he intended to take over all of Europe and to murder the Jews, Gypsies, and others. Somehow one thinks the French might have gone into the Rhineland, which they easily could have done, instead of letting Hitler walk into it unopposed. Nor does one think pacifism, and failure to rearm, would have continued to carry the day in England. Hitler would have been stopped before he began.)

Because secrecy is the progenitor of evil, ways must be found to greatly lessen it in this country, to lessen it at every level and walk of life. For as Brandeis said, sunlight is the best disinfectant. What was said above with regard to scientific controversies and proportional representation applies here too. All the long propagated reasons for secrecy will continue to be put forward, but they are superannuated, and should be ignored, because they have been enablers of evil. No doubt some secrecy, some confidentiality, will have to be maintained. But we must greatly lessen it. And, in this connection, there is an old saw which provides a good general rule for people to follow so that a lessening of secrecy would not harm them (or even if secrecy is not lessened): if you wouldn't want to see something mentioned on the front page of The New York Times the next morning, then don't do it.

Finally, one word about the mass media, an especial bete noire of this writer. Lincoln recognized that what the media says is vital to the ability to govern. That has not changed. And, as often discussed here, the mainstream media is a threat to good governing in this country today. The media should change, and the change should begin in schools of journalism, whose graduates too often are nothing but trained hacks who know little substance and rarely discuss substance. As was discussed with Glenn Greenwald on the radio interview mentioned earlier, perhaps the impact of the mass media in impoverishing our knowledge and our discourse will ultimately be far less consequential because of the rise of the blogosphere and other internet phenomena, which give so many more people an opportunity to put ideas before the public. One hopes so. Yet, unless and until the blogosphere and other internet phenomena completely take over for the media, it would still seem desirable for the mass media to improve dramatically in its understanding and presentation of substance.*

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