Stifle the eiffel, or steal the Liberties that came her to bring the horrors out of the deeds of the French’s. Others countries or nation states have lied and wait. Great Nation’s know that these United States will never be conquered even by the Not so free press. Second buy the lobbyist with the liverpools. then control the grinds of all the gears with a slow evoking stoking shimmer of glamor. The whole time tainting the food while driving a wedge in the businesses to make two tears of a system. Last, euthanize and compartmentalize the whole time. All these things have been and used since the first ruling kind, to be animals and think the bark can ever byte the bits of good hearted men.

I ask you where did you learn your two one two? Twas, the downfall of any 411. Never bring dry ink to a wet ink fight

Where are your family ties to, how old is your blood line, and your endowment? my 911 is always the integer to any written writings in rotes of little notes feebly.. Thanks for giving me, some time to ponder om the Ezra to the pun of these cliff notes. Peace be with you always and forever. I love to have words with limited introspective tends… Thanks again, to learn in any light is best on the dark of rights of leftist pundits never relearn.. TTYL….>

An inspired typo – and, let’s hope, an accurate augury!

Not so much upstate, he retired to Bearsville and died there. That’s “Greater New York” to true upstaters (he was born in the city, went eventually to Harvard, lived around in New England, etc.)

I had forgotten about his writing, very good stuff and very influential though mostly indirectly on the following generation of science fiction and fantasy writers. I’ve not read that book. I will have to do so.

Do you know the name Edgar Pangborn? He was a writer and composer, lived in upstate New York. Years ago I read his second novel A Mirror for Observers (publ. 1954) and I just finished reading it again. I consider that fortuitous, because its plot seems to parallel our current campaign in a number of ways.

I’m going to throw a longish quote from the novel at you (from pages 111-112). But first, let me set the scene. This concerns a fictional campaign in the year 1972. The Organic Unity Party is running on a jingoistic, racial purity platform. Its nominal head is Joseph Max, a demagogue somewhat resembling Donald Trump. These are the written words of the novel’s protagonist, Elmis, describing the political situation as he sees it:

“Nobody laughs at Max. That frightens me. The public is hardened to seeing his fanatical puss on the front page, telescreens, newsreels, always a bit sallow and sweat-shiny when they catch him without makeup, a bad caricature of John C. Calhoun with nothing of Calhoun’s honesty or personal gentleness. When, last year, Max developed a flopping cowlick—damn the thing, nobody laughed. He saves his juiciest venom for the newly formed Federalist Party. I haven’t made up my mind about them. seems to be nothing disingenuous in the movement and much sense, if they’d tone down the doctrinaire certainty of their one-world members. They sometimes lose sight of their own good premise, that difference-within-union is the essence of federalism. Toward the Democrats and Republicans Max has only contempt—he says they are on the way out and that’s that. They make the mistake of paying him back in his own coin or trying to ignore him out of sight. The Republicans have been fresh out of ideas since ‘968, when the Democrat Clifford got in (and how wrong I was about ’64! Would have lost my shirt, only I’m not the type.) Rooseveltian splash followed by Wilsonian bubbles. I sometimes wonder if he knows his aspirations from his elbow.”

In fairness, I’m glossing over the backstory, which Pangborn uses to throw the larger problem — human ethical and intellectual deficiencies — into sharp relief. That backstory is the reason the Organic Unity Party does something not even Trump would ever dream of doing. But my point in quoting this is that the shortcomings you note in today’s political process were long in developing and won’t be corrected in one election cycle. However, we can certainly make a start, and campaign finance reform, if it can be accomplished, would be a great first step.

Fisher’s principle as a law will absolutely NOT amplify all majority opinions. Nothing of the kind follows from it. It amplified opinions that have more value. And, many opinions get value because they are contrary to the emerging consensus or obvious truth, because consensus and generally accepted truth are not conflict generating generating. It is not at all difficult to imagine valueless minority opinions.

Also, as I discuss briefly but at this time to not expand on a great deal, there is going to be a tendency for the number of sides of an issue to reduce to 2. This is partly due to the two party system (which is a two, not three or more, party system for other reasons). But it is probably due to the power in discourse and story making of the dialectic as a conflict generating system that can be controlled. There can be more complex systems, but they will usually emerge as combinations of dialectics.

I agree that addressing the problem of money in politics is key. That is a parallel and different issue. Interesting idea of getting money out of press. Another idea noted by Sorkin in that series: why didn’t the government insist that the one hour of information required to have air time be some how money free? Or paid for?

Thanks for the check on the estate. I always get my estates wrong!