uspol / Dune
“Power attracts those easily corrupted” is one of the many themes present in Frank Herbert’s Dune series, particularly in several of the later books. A re-examination of the more usual idiom “Power corrupts”; he suggests that it is not so much that those who end up in power get corrupted by it, but rather that those who seek out power are also easily corrupted by it (implying that they were perhaps always corrupt to some degree). While Dune was finished decades ago, many of Herbert’s themes and observations are just as relevant today, if not more so than when Dune was first written. This observation about power corruption, in the context of government and leadership, really stuck out to during a recent read-through of the series. The recently unveiled blatant corruption of several members of the supreme court of the United States, tax cuts and loopholes for large corporations and the wealthy, along with renewed attacks on women’s and minority’s rights have all shown one of the ugly sides of current US politics: people in power abusing their power in order to benefit themselves and insulate their position, at whatever and any cost to those below them. In retrospect, sadly, this is probably not much worse than the usual status quo. Realistically, no system of government will ever be perfect, but it is so disheartening to see how much worse the US handles so many things related to the well-being of it citizens, compared to pretty much any other first-world country. Too much of the “American Dream” is just “Do whatever you need to do to get Yours; fuck everyone and everything else”. There is so little sense of community and doing what is right for everyone, not just for your benefit. As an aside, I wholeheartedly recommend and think that more people from the US should spend an extended period of time abroad (like a year or two at least) in another country; I spent about seven years living in Japan, and the perspective I gained from that experience was incredibly enlightening. Unfortunately, short of Russia or China dropping a few bombs on Washington D.C. or another civil war, I don’t really see the situation changing much in the short term, because so many issues are deeply rooted. But even then, what is there to prevent these blatant abuses of power from simply happening again, continuing the same cycles and repeating the same histories?
These issues led me to think about ways that “anti-corruption” could be built into a political system. Short of everyone suddenly becoming perfect moralists, I think it would be better to have a system which actively prevents and avoids situations which could lead to conflicts of interest and personal corruption. My idea was quite simple; the basis already exists and is used in the judicial system. For criminal trials where “unbiased” judgment is warranted, we select a (well, ideally) random panel of jurors to evaluate the available data and make a judgment on its implications. Would not a very similar system work for the main arms of the US political system? For example, the representatives for the House and Senate (both state and federal) are selected by a lottery, with terms of just a few years for each person, with no extension or re-election. Pay the representative a standard wage, ensure they can return to their usual employment without disruption, and strictly forbid gifts during their service. Anyone registered to vote should be entered into the lottery. Similar to serving on a jury, there should be acceptable exclusions, for example due to health, childcare, possible conflicts of interest, or for essential work that can’t easily be interrupted by service (e.g., a doctor could elect out if it would interfere too much with patient care). In this way, the People would hopefully be represented by the People. You cannot make a “career” out of high-level public service, nor can representatives be easily bankrolled by corporations. Representatives spend their service judging if bills are improving the well-being and livelihood of the public. Likely, this requires that legislation be strictly written and communicated in simple language; it must be clearly understandable by everyone, not just the elite few who went to law school. And as a another guard against lobbying and conflicts of interest, it would probably be beneficial to strictly forbid any and all political parties; allowing for such concentrations of power is one of the reasons that the current bipartisan US system struggles to function over even basic issues. Does this system have it’s flaws? Probably; it’s not like I know anything at all about “politics” or law. These are just random thoughts and opinions on a complicated matter. But, I cannot help but see so many of the shortcomings in the current system, how out of touch and too focused upon itself it is, to really do the damn job that it should be doing: making it so that every person, without prejudice, oppression, or fear, can have “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”.