From: mss2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: More elections, a victory...
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 08:53:34 GMT

In article <1dfpk0INNehh@gap.caltech.edu> lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:

>That's certainly true.  Now, can you name even ONE Presidential candidate from
>either the Republican or the Democratic Party in the last 20 years who DIDN'T
>make promises that went beyound what any president has the authority to
>deliver?

	"Authority, nothing-- presidential candidates make promises
(or at least imply them) on subjects where they don't have the *power*
to deliver, even if they wadded up the constitution and declared
personal rule.  Promises to improve the economy, for example, which I
consider to be somewhere between a promise to stop pushing random
buttons on a complicated control panel and a promise to improve the
weather.  (At best.  Often it's closer to promising to take an axe to
the control panel.)"

  And not only the candidates, but the voters should have known that
>the candidates were doing so.  When Bush made his "no new taxes" campaign
>promise, my reaction was, "If he gets elected, will he include a tax increase
>in the first budget he proposes, or in the second?"  He held out longer than I
>expected.  But far too many citizens of this country believe the sanitized,
>orderly model of how the government works that they were given in their high
>school civics classes.  The concepts of pork-barrel politics and log-rolling
>seem beyond their comprehension.

	"I really think you give far too much credit to those high
school civics classes-- the evidence suggests that high school classes
in general don't take that well, and I don't expect that most people
have any better superficial understanding of government from that
source than they have of literature, science, or history.  And really,
I don't get the impression that most people have overmuch trust in
government in the abstract-- consider the general levels of approval
that the institutions and their members have.  Sure, this coexists,
often enough, with an almost touching faith in government when specific
questions are raised ("Something must be _done_ about this!") but
that's not a result of a theoretical analysis.

	"In any case, the idea of using simplified, idealized models
is not a bad one per se-- it's no different from explaining physics in
terms of frictionless surfaces and perfectly elastic surfaces.  It is
to be hoped that people understand that the idealized system doesn't
perfectly correspond to reality-- but it's impossible to explain
log-rolling and pork barrels until you understand the principles of
organization under which they happen.  (And I certainly don't recall
any recent complaints that young, inexperienced Americans are too
naive and idealistic-- cynical, jaded, ignorant and apathetic I've
heard aimed at my generation, but too trusting?  Yet those should be
the voters least likely to understand political realities from
experience and observation.)

	BTW, for whatever anecdotal evidence is worth, my teacher for
American Government (as the class was called at my high school), at
least, was probably one of the more cynical teachers I ever had-- he
certainly wasn't deliberately sanitizing the system.

Michael

-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mss2@amber.uchicago.edu		    Virginia (1784)
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