I've got to say I loved this quote by Lowenstein:
Were I transported by a time machine to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, would I sit quietly while the Convention incorporated the Electoral College into the proposed Constitution? Yes. I think that upon emerging from the time machine, even I would have enough sense not to lecture the likes of Madison, Franklin, and Washington on the principles of government.

Why on Earth would a highly educated law professor today imagine that with all the empirical data at hand today, with all the theoretical models available, that some 18th century pols would have a better grasp of democracy than he? This modesty is unbecoming.

It's like a physicist today saying that he would not dare lecture a genius like Newton on physics if he were transported back in time - it would be laughable. Unless academic training in law has not advanced in 200 years? If so, we've got some other serious problems...

Or maybe political theory doesn't rest on any facts at all?
 

Again Lowenstein:
The Electoral College has produced Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan. None of us may approve of all of these without qualification, but taken together, it is a pretty big group of distinguished chief executives. Probably the only country in the world that could point to an arguably comparable set of chief executives is the United Kingdom, and they, like us, elect their executives indirectly.

What is the factual basis for this assertion? On the face of it, it is simple jingoism. They are great, because we are great. I can grab any nation's history book and come out with a list of "great leaders" just as long. Some of those guys were downright incompetent, some made a quite arguable mess of things, and a large number changed the constitution extra-legally.

It's a point I've made before: the fact that we are rich and wealthy does not necessarily imply that it's due to our wonderful leadership or our superior political system. I think a good argument can be made that we should be even wealthier and more successful. Other nations are not, in general, poorer because they are less competent or less well constituted.

And that is the underlying argument for conservatism, as opposed to incrementalism.
 

It's like a physicist today saying that he would not dare lecture a genius like Newton on physics if he were transported back in time - it would be laughable. Unless academic training in law has not advanced in 200 years? If so, we've got some other serious problems...

The Founders made a big deal about how much progress had been made in political science since ancient times. They fully expected that progress to continue.
 

Of course, the most appropriate political system in the 18th century and the most appropriate today are not always that same. That cuts both ways.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

I know this is off topic, but since one of the pro-life 'justices' in Prof. Balkin's book on Roe was a guest contributor, some might be interested in knowing another (Teresa Stanton Collett) wrote a guest piece on the ruling over at ScotusBlog in support of the new 'facial challenge' rule.

Tellingly, she mentions that the usual practice of a more lenient rule is not in place for First Amendment cases. As a matter of conscience, see Casey, abortion really is comparable.
 

RandomSequence said...

Again Lowenstein: The Electoral College has produced Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan. None of us may approve of all of these without qualification, but taken together, it is a pretty big group of distinguished chief executives. Probably the only country in the world that could point to an arguably comparable set of chief executives is the United Kingdom, and they, like us, elect their executives indirectly.

What is the factual basis for this assertion? On the face of it, it is simple jingoism. They are great, because we are great. I can grab any nation's history book and come out with a list of "great leaders" just as long.

Really? Why don't you go ahead and try.

When Washington took the Presidency, our country was economically ravaged and politically divided after a revolution. Other countries coming out of a revolution offered Napoleon, Lenin and other lesser despots.

When Lincoln was in office we plunged into a vicious 4 year civil war. When we came out, the country was unified and democratic. How many democracies around the world survive civil wars like this?

Theodore Roosevelt reformed free markets and made them stronger rather than going statist like Europe. This set the United States on the route to becoming the preeminent economic power in the 20th Century. He also transformed the US from a isolationist backwater to a major world military power.

Franklin Roosevelt was an absolutely superb leader (if a mediocre to awful domestic policy president). The United States stayed essentially free through the Great Depression when others fell to fascism and became the world's pre-eminent military power after decisively winning the first truly world war.

Reagan reestablished free markets in the face of a wave of socialism returning the United States to unchallenged economic dominance. After Reagan, the 5% of the worlds population in American went from creating 1/4 to about 1/3 of the world's wealth. Reagan also defeated the world's only other superpower and established the United States as the only preeminent military power in the world for the first time in modern history.

These men shaped their country and their times. They were not simply products of the times.

While I doubt we can attribute our amazing good fortune in leadership to only the Electoral College, I think that a reasonable argument can be made that the dispersion of power in our Republic (not democracy) caused in part by mechanisms like the Electoral College which force candidates to pay attention to smaller states make our presidents more representative of the country as a whole and able to operate with a stronger and more diverse base of support as a result.

It's a point I've made before: the fact that we are rich and wealthy does not necessarily imply that it's due to our wonderful leadership or our superior political system.

Is there another nation in history which went from a tiny and weak revolutionary state to the largest GDP and military in the world in 150 years al the while becoming a stronger and freer republic?

I think a good argument can be made that we should be even wealthier and more successful.

I agree. Trash the income tax, raise revenues with a consumption tax along the lines of the FAIR Tax proposal, freeze government spending, give everyone (not just the upper middle and rich) a piece of the ownership of America by replacing social security with investment accounts. We would be growing an average of 4-5% per year under such a plan.

Other nations are not, in general, poorer because they are less competent or less well constituted.

Actually, that is the number one reason why countries with amazingly rich resources like Africa perennially fail and why historically rich producers like Europe are stagnating.

We have no appreciation for how amazingly lucky we are to generally live long and interesting lives in one of the freest and the most prosperous nations in history. We live in paradise and do not even begin to appreciate what we have.
 

It is not an issue of what kind of Presidents the Electoral College has produced. Any system will by mere statistics produce, from time to time, exceptional figures of authority. However, in this day of age how any one can promote a system that is less than one person one vote is amazing. We need to go past the College and evolve into a more democratic, and representative system.

The thing of it is that if we do go one person one vote, then there will be a great political change that most are very afraid of. For example a black President. I say black because the term includes Caribians as well as Afrikans. Are we ready for that? Are we ready for the deep changes that will come when we actualy let the people vote? I do not think we are, and that is likely the reason why we will remain under the shackles of the College for many Presidents to come.
 

Well, it is pretty clear that the branch of western civilization represented by the last few posts deserves to die off of its own accord. The self absorption is amazing.

# posted by Bart DePalma : 3:11 PM


The retrolution must continue unimpeded.

DePalma is a Jacobin using hollow words like "freedom and liberty" as "a chrysalis for the opposite of these two things". He is an "anarchist agitator". Democracy frightens him. Everything frightens him.

In 1962, Viereck elaborated upon the differences he saw between real conservatives and what he called pseudo-conservatives, as did historian Richard Hofstadter in his essay The Paranoid Style of American Politics.

As Viereck observed"... that whole inconsistent spectrum of Goldwater intellectuals and right-radical magazines. Most of them are so muddled they don't even know when they are being 19th-century liberal individualists (in economics) and when they are being 20th-century semi-fascist thought-controllers (in politics). Logically, these two qualities are contradictory. Psychologically, they unite to make America's typical pseudo-conservative rightist.... [Russell Kirk] and perhaps half of the new conservatives are bankrupt.... How can one attribute bankruptcy to a growing concern? Indeed, this new American right seems a very successful concern. On every TV station, on every mass-circulation editorial page, the word 'conservatism' in the 1960's has acquired a fame, or at least notoriety, that it never possessed before.... Which is it, triumph or bankruptcy, when the empty shell of a name gets acclaim while serving as a chrysalis for its opposite? The historic content of conservatism stands, above all, for two things: organic unity and rooted liberty. Today the shell of the 'conservative' label has become a chrysalis for the opposite of these two things: at best for atomistic Manchester liberalism, opposite of organic unity; at worst for thought-controlling nationalism, uprooting the traditional liberties (including the 5th Amendment) planted by America's founders."

Viereck was way ahead of his time. De Palma's time came and went in the 19th century.
 

Anonymous Bosch said...

As Viereck observed"... that whole inconsistent spectrum of Goldwater intellectuals and right-radical magazines. Most of them are so muddled they don't even know when they are being 19th-century liberal individualists (in economics) and when they are being 20th-century semi-fascist thought-controllers (in politics).

Thank you for the link. Without it, I would have never been able to figure out to what this semi-coherent rant was referring.

If I understand this "argument" correctly, Viereck thinks that there is some sort of internal contradiction in supporting free markets on the one hand and opposing the "freedom" to be a traitor (ala Hiss & Co.) working for a mortal totalitarian enemy.

Opposing treason is not "semi-fascist thought-control."

Viereck stumbles upon half an acorn: The historic content of conservatism stands, above all, for two things: organic unity and rooted liberty. Today the shell of the 'conservative' label has become a chrysalis for the opposite of these two things: at best for atomistic Manchester liberalism, opposite of organic unity; at worst for thought-controlling nationalism, uprooting the traditional liberties (including the 5th Amendment) planted by America's founders."

Viereck does stumble upon a valid observation. As I have posted on more than one occasion here, modern "conservatism" carries the torch for classical liberalism and modern "liberalism" is now the de facto conservative party dedicated to preserving the welfare state created in the New Deal and Great Society.

"Thought-controlling nationalism" is a reference to the efforts to root out the variety of KGB agents in the government during the 50s. Opposition to treason was shared by traditional conservatives and liberals as well as the modern "conservative" movement. One would hope that the modern "liberal" movement would stand with everyone else in this regard.
 

Let's define a term...

An "incoherent rant" is Bart's comment at 12:26 pm above, except for the brief flashes that address the subject of the thread, the electoral college. I read a lot about "socialism" and taxes and a tax proposal he hasn't even read and doesn't even understand, and now he's wandered off into KGB agents under his bed again. But it stands in bleak contrast to his post from the other thread...

De Palma... Well, it is pretty clear that the branch of western civilization represented by the last few posts deserves to die off of its own accord. The self absorption is amazing.

And any student of Hofstadter back then, or Altemeyer today, sees it for what it is.

“Pseudoconservativism is among other things a disorder in relation to authority, characterized by an inability to find other modes for human relationship than those of more or less complete domination or submission … The pseudo-conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition … [He] sees his own country as being so weak that it is constantly about to fall victim to subversion; and yet he feels that it is so all-powerful that any failure it may experience in getting its way in the world … cannot possibly be due to its limitations but must be attributed to its having been betrayed.”
–Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays, 1965.

As Viereck would say, like Robespierre before him, some of us will never be pure enough for Bart.

The most dangerous KGB agents in our government have been patriotic, God fearing and church going American capitalists like FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen, who did it for the money, and a stripper. If I were you, Bart, I'd worry more about the Israelis. (Please tell us Fox News is anti-semitic. I dare you.) They don't do it for the money. The Soviet Union is gone, De Palma, and Reagan had absolutely nothing to do with it. They didn't sneak it across the border to Syria with Saddam's WMDs.

There were as many KGB agents in our government in the 50s as there were WMDs in Iraq in 2003. Please don't bother citing the revisionist drivel coming from Haynes and Klehr. I'm sure they will be getting the "John Lott" treatment in due course. Now, would you like to add anything germaine and relevant to the topic, Bart? If you continue pimping cheap and tired propaganda and revisionist history, I will continue to point it out. It stinks up the place like cheap perfume.
 

“Pseudoconservativism is among other things a disorder in relation to authority, characterized by an inability to find other modes for human relationship than those of more or less complete domination or submission … The pseudo-conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition … [He] sees his own country as being so weak that it is constantly about to fall victim to subversion; and yet he feels that it is so all-powerful that any failure it may experience in getting its way in the world … cannot possibly be due to its limitations but must be attributed to its having been betrayed.”

–Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays, 1965.

I have never understood the need to use 150 words to avoid saying what one sentence can say clearly. To sum up the above paragraph: "The Soviet Union is our friend and conservatives who think that it poses a danger are paranoid."

Of course, a long time communist might hold this delusion in 1964. Even Hofstadter later became disillusioned with real life communism in the Soviet Empire, but he could never muster the moral courage to reject his communist beliefs: "I hate capitalism and everything that goes with it."

With all we know now about the poverty and killing fields of communism, do you actually subscribe to this misbegotten philospohy today?
 

Anonymous Bosch said...

There were as many KGB agents in our government in the 50s as there were WMDs in Iraq in 2003. Please don't bother citing the revisionist drivel coming from Haynes and Klehr. I'm sure they will be getting the "John Lott" treatment in due course.

Good heavens, you actually still believe this, don't you? That case was shut years ago when the KGB opened up their files as did the Nazis after WWII. Are you also a holocaust denier? Maybe they will also get the "John Lott" treatment in due course.

Hear no evil, see no evil...
 

You really are a moron, aren't you?

A KGB agent is a Russian citizen. Like a CIA agent is an American citizen. They are case agents who handle "assets". Assets are not agents. Name me one KGB agent, or mole, just one, discovered in our government. Ever. You John Birch conspiracy sniffing moron. This is not mere semantics. This is precision with language, something a lawyer, even a DUI defense hack like you, should know. There were no KGB agents in our government. Ever. The number of actual KGB assets is highly debatable. If there ever were any highly placed "assets" they can be counted on the 3 fingered hand of a one armed man and you won't run out of fingers. You are as stupid as you look, De Palma. Run along now. Go keep some drunken cracker out of jail.
 

I have never understood the need to use 150 words to avoid saying what one sentence can say clearly. To sum up the above paragraph: "The Soviet Union is our friend and conservatives who think that it poses a danger are paranoid."

I don't know where you get the "Soviet Union is our friend" nonsense. Not only is it not in the paragraph above, but it isn't in the linked-to text either.
 

You are as stupid as you look, De Palma. Run along now. Go keep some drunken cracker out of jail.

I think moving from dialectics to epithets in a single thread breaks some kind of record.
 

"Bart" DePalma:

Franklin Roosevelt was an absolutely superb leader (if a mediocre to awful domestic policy president). The United States stayed essentially free through the Great Depression when others fell to fascism ...

Ummm, how many "fell to fascism"? What percentage, pray tell?

Then there was that little plot by the right wingers here to overthrow Roosevelt. Perhaps "Bart" wishes that coup attempt had taken wing....

... and became the world's pre-eminent military power after decisively winning the first truly world war.

Uuuuuhhhh ... like the Russians had nothing to do with it. "Bart" likes to ignore 'inconvenient facts'....

Reagan reestablished free markets in the face of a wave of socialism ...

Huh?!?!? "Bart" probably thinks I'm a loonytoonarian for mentioning the "Businessman's Coup" above, but this hogwash about "reestablish[ing] free markets" is a pile'o'crap; more Sir Raygun hagiography, and just as factual as any such hagiography.

... returning the United States to unchallenged economic dominance....

Another load of garbage.

... After Reagan, the 5% of the worlds population in American went from creating 1/4 to about 1/3 of the world's wealth. Reagan also defeated the world's only other superpower and established the United States as the only preeminent military power in the world for the first time in modern history.

"Bart" loves the Kool-Aid. What Reaan did if you want to look at massive changes in numbers is triple the national debt.

These men shaped their country and their times. They were not simply products of the times.

Reagan was a Hollywood actor (a B-actor at that) playing preznit. A harbinger of things to come....

Oh, yeah, and he defeated Mighty Grenada.

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DePalma:

Viereck does stumble upon a valid observation. As I have posted on more than one occasion here, modern "conservatism" carries the torch for classical liberalism.....

Uhhhh, yeah, right, I forgot. Classical liberalism was all for secrecy in gummint, torture, holding people in "black holes" without charges indefinitely, wars without end, and spending our kids' inheritance.

Silly me, I forgot what we stood for.

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DePalma:

I have never understood the need to use 150 words to avoid saying what one sentence can say clearly. To sum up the above paragraph: "The Soviet Union is our friend and conservatives who think that it poses a danger are paranoid."

Let me sum Bart's nonsense up in five words: "Straw men are easy opponents."

Cheers,
 

Anonymous Bosch said...

You really are a moron, aren't you? A KGB agent is a Russian citizen. Like a CIA agent is an American citizen. They are case agents who handle "assets".

Cute sidestep. The problem with your tap dancing is that you were using the same terminology as I. For example:

The most dangerous KGB agents in our government have been patriotic, God fearing and church going American capitalists like FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen, who did it for the money, and a stripper.

However, if you are willing to admit that the KGB had a great number of "assets" in the United States inside and outside the government like HIss which has been confirmed by KGB records, then I will be pleased to use your preferred terminology.
 

May I be permitted to say that I am disappointed that, once again, there is absolutely no discussion of the issues posed by the original posting, as, once again, the thread has turned into an acrimonious discussion between Mr. DePalma and his critics. (I note, for the record, that Mr. DePalma's initial posting was in fact about the Electoral College inasmuch as he suggested that it has done a pretty good job in providing first-rate presidents when we have been most in need of them. I disagree with him, but at least he was on topic.)
 

May I be permitted to say that I am disappointed that, once again, there is absolutely no discussion of the issues posed by the original posting

I didn't think there was much to add beyond the points you made in the debate. I thought your opposition was so weak it hardly deserved any response.
 

PMS_Chicago said...

Bart: I have never understood the need to use 150 words to avoid saying what one sentence can say clearly. To sum up the above paragraph: "The Soviet Union is our friend and conservatives who think that it poses a danger are paranoid."

I don't know where you get the "Soviet Union is our friend" nonsense. Not only is it not in the paragraph above, but it isn't in the linked-to text either.

Here is a link to the Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics.

In the 1964 election, Hofstadter was trying to tar Goldwater and the anti-communist movement with the faithful standby McCarthy brush. For daring to think that the Soviet Empire posed a threat to the United States, Hofstadter claimed that Goldwater and the rest were conspiracy theorists, fantasists and paranoids with "profoundly disturbed minds." (You know, the usual leftist namecalling.) To make this slander, Hofstadter must also argue by implication that the Soviet Empire was not a threat and was rather our friend.

I know he did not make express his feelings in this regard, which is why I posted: "I have never understood the need to use 150 words to avoid saying what one sentence can say clearly. "
 

Professor Levinson:

I apologize. In the future, I will try to avoid responding to posts which are not on topic with replies which are similarly off topic.
 

May I be permitted to say that I am disappointed that, once again, there is absolutely no discussion of the issues posed by the original posting, as, once again, the thread has turned into an acrimonious discussion between Mr. DePalma and his critics.

One of the problems in this particular post is that you've done a fair enough job of your own, in my opinion, of deflating McGinnis and Lowenstein's positions in the context of the original debate. I wrote three responses, but deleted each of them out of fear of being just another yes-man. But to sum them up...

One of the major problems I have with their side is the notion that the College serves an adaptive function of exaggerating results to make victory margins seem bigger. This exaggeration promotes "legitimacy" which in turn promotes a "the ability to lead" (presumably with a "mandate.") In the case of a narrow victory, this can perhaps be understood as an adaptive element, but in cases where the results of the election are in fact opposite to the popular will, I think it's a practice that is impossible to defend, if one takes the "everybody's vote counts" value seriously.

Additionally, the underlying assumption that people don't know how the Electoral College differs from the popular vote is bunk. We have weeks of windup and a year of campaigning in which the general public hears piece after piece on the importance of the electoral votes of swing-state X vs. solid party line voting state Y. The day of the election is a blur of maps with red and blue states, each showing how many electoral votes each candidate has earned. Commentators are brought in to provide their analysis of the election, and they always start with a description of how the electoral college works, pointing out that a candidate need not win the overall popular vote, etc. To posit that the American public is unaware of the difference between popular and electoral votes is nonsense. To claim that it reassures them and lets them have confidence in their new leader is probably another fine example of the paternalism referred to in other threads.

At one point, McGinnis warns us, through Professor Dillinger, that "third party participation in a popular vote may give third parties greater leverage to distort the results." To which I can only respond: "Good!"

Third parties that are kept out of office mainly by fears that the preferred major party will lose an election otherwise should have their shot at recognition. For example, Democrats were very upset at the Nader campaign in 2000 for spoiling the election, because they assumed that if Nader's supporters had to choose Republican or Democratic, they would always vote Democratic. However, if that assumption held true, they should have examined why people felt compelled to vote for Nader in the first place, rather than blame him for spoiling the election. How could they have changed their platform to attract those people?

As for the general proposition of how we should change the system, my concern still remains at the level of action. We have ideas of how to repair the system--even McGinnis and Lowenstein suggest that legislative changes should be made. What then do we do about it? It's all well and good to discuss the problems and recommend changes. When can we speak of implementation? Who must we convince to take action? What would be the most effective way to do so?
 

I have never understood the need to use 150 words to avoid saying...

My bad, read that wrong.

However, I still don't think that denying a threat exists (or downplaying the level of its threat) necessitates that you've accepted the threat as a friend.

That's silly logic, better left to Diederich Hessling of "You are either for me or against me. If you are against me, I will smash!" fame.
 

Prof. Levinson:

May I be permitted to say that I am disappointed that, once again, there is absolutely no discussion of the issues posed by the original posting, as, once again, the thread has turned into an acrimonious discussion between Mr. DePalma and his critics. (I note, for the record, that Mr. DePalma's initial posting was in fact about the Electoral College inasmuch as he suggested that it has done a pretty good job in providing first-rate presidents when we have been most in need of them. I disagree with him, but at least he was on topic.)

The thread was stuck on 4 posts for a couple of days, IIRC.

Was "Bart" "on topic"? I guess we can agree to disagree, but I don't think "Bart" contributed a thing towards discussing the relative merits of the electoral college (that would have had to include discussion of the merits of Hayes and Dubya to be minimally comprehensive). Instead, "Bart" (and not RandomSeqence) launched into a tirade on the worth of a number of worthies, all of whom would have won under a popular election as well. I will agree that RandomSequence's quote of Lowenstein, and questioning thereof, may have precipitated "Bart"'s outburst, all RandomSequence did was complain of the logic of citing "leaders" for the wisdom (or at least tolerability) of the electoral college without more.

So while I agree that the thread's gotten dragged "off topic", I don't think much was lost from a quite dormant thread, and I think it fair to say the first instigator (as usual) was "Bart" with a bunch of OT sniping (not who was good, but why they were "good", not to mention a conspicuous silence n those that weren't ... uh ... quite so "good").

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DePalma:

To make this slander, Hofstadter must also argue by implication that the Soviet Empire was not a threat and was rather our friend.

OIC. To make someone else out to be a slander, you must say someone said something that they didn't say.

Kind of like "Bart" saying the other day, "I like to eat little children's brains and viscera for breakfast"?

Cheers,
 

Prof. Levinson:

Just to make clear my views on comments, etc.: If you want a productive comment thread, you should discourage dishonest argument first and foremost. Mistakes should be called out, "facts" countered with facts, logical and rhetorical fallacies pointed out, and miscites and mistakes should be acknowledged with the perp then restating their argument sans the material that was wrong. We should encourage more supporting materials (links, quotes), and discourage blanket assertions, particularly on things that are not conceded by the rhetorical opponents.

If we could all agree to that, I think we'd have a more productive discussion section.

Cheers,
 

Sandy Levinson... May I be permitted to say that I am disappointed that, once again, there is absolutely no discussion of the issues posed by the original posting

This is precisely why Glenn Greenwald (a first amendment attorney, mind you) switched to Haloscan for comments at his blogspot blog, so he could specifically ban "this incorrigible person". I kid you not.

The "quotes" are so important because without them, "some person" might come away with the notion that some or all "KGB agents" are "patriotic, God fearing and church going American capitalist citizens" who do it for the money, and a stripper, rather than because they are Soviet citizens with a belief in communist ideology.
 

Just to get an idea of what a credible and legitimate discussion of this OT matter looks like, a thread from Slate's Book Club in 1999.

The Redhunter and The View From Alger's Window

It's just Ron Radosh, Eric Alterman and a special appearance by none other than William F. Buckley, Jr. himself, and one can see that they all, to a man, would distance themselves from this conspiracist and John Bircher, De Palma. He would not be considered a "fellow traveller" by any of them, and in Radosh's case, that quite a slap in the face to De Palma. Klehr and Hayne's "efforts in this area" are considered "crossover books" (quasi-scholarship). And as any legitimate historian (not on wingnut welfare) will tell you, "There is nothing [t]here, however, that constitutes a conspiracy to undermine the United States government."

I usually avoid threads where I have nothing to add, either from my own ignorance, or because I'm in complete agreement, as here. The electoral college is obsolete. It is a shame to allow the credibility of this blog be harmed by the ravings of a conspiracist like De Palma based on "popular" books that are only marginally considered scholarship by other academicians not on the take, like Weinstein, Haynes and Klehr.

From the American Historical Assocition

(The Professional Association for All Historians (and if you listen to the lunatic conspiracist Bart, a hotbed of "commies, commie sympathizers and commie apologists").

The case is still hotly disputed. Continuing controversies stem from the release in 1996 of the "Venona" messages—Soviet cablegrams covertly monitored by the U.S. Army during World War II. Some contend that Venona confirms Hiss's guilt; others hold that it demonstrates the opposite. Charges and countercharges of spurious translation, shoddy scholarship, data manipulation, archival distortion, and parti pris selectivity pervade the scholarly arena. Each faction views the other as "in denial," to cite the title of John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr's 2003 input to the affray. But recent statements on the Diplomatic History electronic discussion list, H-DIPLO, by Julius Kobyakov (October 16 and December 17, 2003), deputy director of the KGB's American desk during the 1980s, and by Amy Knight (January 16 and March 2, 2004), discredit the latest essay asserting Hiss's guilt.1 The debate continues.

A recent court judgment dealing with these and related issues provides a rare instance in which academic freedom has not been curtailed but, mirabile dictu, buttressed. No less incredibly, this occurred not in the United States, where the Pumpkin Papers drama riveted the entire nation, but in Britain, before a predominantly youthful English jury wholly unversed in the history of World War II Soviet espionage and in the Cold War witch-hunt hysteria that sent Hiss to jail and Nixon to the White House.

In June 2001, ex-KGB courier Alexander Vassiliev, co-author with Allen Weinstein of The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era (1999), sued the publisher, Frank Cass Ltd., for libel in Britain's High Court. Vassiliev contended he had been defamed in an essay by law professor and filmmaker John Lowenthal, "Venona and Alger Hiss," in the Cass journal, Intelligence and National Security (INS). It is much easier to win a libel suit in Britain than in America, for in British law, the defendant must produce evidence to show that the words complained of were factually true or, if matters of opinion, were "such that an honest person could express them in the light of what he knew," whereas in America it is up to the plaintiff to prove his charges. It is for this reason that David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt over her book Denying the Holocaust in Britain rather than in the United States (see Jamil Zainaldin, "The Price of Truth: History, Deborah Lipstadt, and the Libel Trial," Perspectives, January 2002, 27–30). Moreover, in the United States, a complaint concerning a published work (such as The Haunted Wood) must show that malice was premeditated. In Britain, damages may be awarded to a plaintiff even if defamation was not intended.

Lowenthal's essay had criticized The Haunted Wood, along with many other texts claiming to demonstrate Hiss's guilt, for misinterpreting sources and ignoring exculpatory evidence. In particular, Lowenthal censured Haunted Wood for selectively replacing KGB and Venona code names and cover names with those of Hiss and others, without citing any authority or source, other than FBI surmise, for doing so. Moreover, The Haunted Wood's conclusions stemmed from materials to which the coauthors (or their publisher) had purchased access. The KGB files on which they purported to rely were and remain closed to all others. In consequence, wrote Lowenthal, "the co-authors' references and their own narrative statements cannot be checked or verified by anyone else. Because they derive from excerpts 'quoted' out of context from KGB files closed to other researchers, the KGB materials they publish offer no credible support for the proposition . . . that Hiss was [an] espionage agent."2

My apologies to Prof. Levinson and others, but at least I don't try to peddle conspiracy theories here.
 

This man, Allen Weinstein, is the Archivist of the United States. He was "installed" by the "rubberstamp" GOP controlled U.S. Senate on February 16, 2005.


Similarly reluctant to release disputed material is the historian Allen Weinstein, whose book Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (1978) purported to prove Hiss's guilt partly on the basis of interviews with informants. But six of Weinstein's seemingly damning interviewees, when queried by Victor Navasky, then editor of The Nation magazine, denied they had told Weinstein what he published in Perjury; they had been misquoted, misrepresented, or misconstrued.4 One of them, Samuel Krieger, got libel damages and a public apology after Weinstein failed to produce promised tapes of his interview. In 1978 Weinstein pledged to deposit all his tapes and interview notes along with other data in the Truman presidential library within the year. A quarter century after that promise, and a decade after Jon Wiener again addressed this breach of historical ethics, many of Weinstein's most crucial and controversial source materials remain undeposited and unavailable to historians, other than those to whom Weinstein has given selective access.5 Given these circumstances, much of the evidence for Perjury's conclusions remains as unverifiable as the extracts from KGB documents in Haunted Wood, "fatally tainted," as Navasky put it, by Weinstein's "unprofessionalism."

Wiener's critique of Weinstein's ethical conduct, initially scheduled to appear in AHA Perspectives in December 1990, was delayed until February 1992 ("The Alger Hiss Case, the Archives, and Allen Weinstein," 10–12), in part to allow Weinstein an opportunity to respond, which he declined. Wiener then registered a formal complaint that Weinstein had violated the AHA's 1987 Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct. This was recused by the AHA's Professional Division on the ground that Wiener's essay in Perspectives had already made the charges public knowledge.

I'm done, except to say that the electoral college should be dispensed with like the 3/5ths compromise.
 

A proposed mathematical rationale for the electoral college:

http://discovermagazine.com/1996/nov/mathagainsttyran914/?searchterm=electoral%20college

Reading the article reminds me again why I went to law school and not into the maths/sciences, but I think it is an interesting point. Our whole system of government is not setup to be particularly efficient or even necessarily representative of the will of the people all the time, but rather to avoid the "tyranny of the majority".
Of course, even if you agree with the substance of the article, a big question exists as to whether the current distribution of electoral votes is warranted . . .
 

Bart: Really? Why don't you go ahead and try.

You know, I went to look at British Prime Ministers, and I couldn't decide who to pick, between Disraeli, Churchill, William Pitt the Younger, and so on and so forth. Then again, I went to Chilean history, and call (within context) a similar list of heroic national leaders who saved Chile from Spain, avoided ruinous civil war, managed to bring Chile back from the Great Depression, and so on and so forth.

Really, anyone who honestly believes that our history is so specially blessed by geniuses is deluded beyond the point of discussion. It's just jingoist nonsense to such a degree, it's hard to know where to start with someone who lacks the ability to see the inherent hagiography of leadership within any society.

Bart, let me suggest that you grab a Frenchman and debate this. Then a Russian. Then someone British. Then a Brazilian, Argentinean, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and on...

You'll get the same damn story, about how so-and-so is such a genius of historic proportions. About how their political leadership is "objectively" superior, given their political conditions. Damn, I hear this from Cubans, and they only have about five national leaders in all.
 

Bart, I think you may not understand the functional purpose of democracy. It is explicitly not to produce genius. It has two parts - 1: gain the consent of the governed, thereby increasing stability, and 2: to eliminate absolute morons from political office (which makes me wonder about the functioning of democracy).

It's been known for millennia that democracy is unlikely to produce genius, great leaders, but instead is more modest in its aims, to avoid the complete incompetence and rank corruption that occurs under other systems. For example, the Roman Emperors gave us Aurelius; unfortunately, they also gave us Caligula. Hereditary systems, oligarchies, gerentocracies and such are much more likely to produce brilliant leadership. They are also much more likely to produce feeble-minded loons at the helm.

Where we want genius, we avoid democratic processes. No one would suggest that scientific grants be given on the basis of a popular vote, for example. But there, the danger of incompetence is much less.

If you are correct, and we are producing a disproportionate fraction of great leaders, then we really need to wonder if our democracy is functional. If it is succeeding in its primary duty of weeding out the buffoons, the aristocratic losers, the oligarchic fools; in a word, if it is functioning as a democracy. It is hard to see how any system that aims to eliminate the latter could avoid eliminating the former as well.

As Churchill said: It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.