The Electoral College versus Popular Vote

     Every presidential election year the question arises whether the electoral-college system for choosing presidents should be retained.  The recommended alternative is generally a straight nation-wide popular vote with selection to be either by plurality or majority, the second involving a run-off election in most cases because of third-party candidates on the ballot.  National run-off elections, aside from being too often dangerous, would be too clumsy for most Americans and in almost all cases would be pointless.  For example, in 1992 the popular vote went; Governor Bill Clinton, 43%; President George H. W. Bush, 38%; and Ross Perot, 19%, thus excluding the possibility of a final Perot victory as a practical matter.

     These results left no doubt whatever that the race was between Bush and Clinton, yet neither had a majority.  Likewise In almost any election year one or more third-party candidates could cause a pointless run-off, one recent exception being the year 2008 when Barack Obama received 53% of the popular vote.  Therefore, even if we do some day adopt a popular-vote method, only a plurality should be required.  In every case from the election of George Washington through that of Barack Obama the result would have been the same either way and the requirement of a majority would only have been a burdensome nuisance.  (The 1800 election of Thomas Jefferson was resolved in the House of Representatives).

     A national popular vote enjoys considerable popularity as a substitute for the electoral college.  A good recent year to examine it is the year 2000.  George W. Bush was declared the winner by the Supreme Court by an electoral vote of 271 to Al Gore's 266, following a furious fight over Florida's 27 electoral votes.  While the perception is widespread that the fury centered on Florida because of its large number of electors, the fact is that a switch from Bush to Gore in any state would have caused a win for Gore.  The only reason the battle centered on Florida instead of, say, Georgia  or Utah was that the margin of victory in Florida was so slight.  And this illustrates a serious problem with selection by popular vote because if that had been the method of selection the fight would have been nation-wide.  Everyone knew that Republican Utah and Democratic Massachusetts were not contested, but with a popular vote method every state would have been in play. In fact, states would have been irrelevant. One Republican vote in Massachusetts and one Democratic vote in Utah would have been as important as one vote in any other state.  Given all the possible charges of vote fraud, mistake, etc. we might have decided that a monarchy would be better. 

     While proportional allocation within a state to reflect that state's popular vote is somewhat attractive, and probably more so than a national popular vote, it too would invite more fury and delay in some years than the people could be, or should be, expected to tolerate. 

    

    

    

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Freddieplato and Christianity

     This is a Christian site.  The topics covered here are religious, philosophical, metaphsyical (for example a discussion of the definition and meaning of time) political and miscellanious.  The editor does not necessarily agree with every viewpoint expressed here on every subject.  Some are admittedly controversial, particularly the political opinions, and some are simply inserted to be thought-provoking, though the primary purpose of the essays is to promote the Christian faith with humility and I sincerely hope that nothing here is imcompatible with that faith.  The pictures are here because the editor's male relatives (Richard and Father dear) love the sight of a beautiful babe and I always try to make people happy.  I think that the captions above the pictures are accurate.  I threw them together in a hurry.  I hope you enjoy this blog.  I certainly do.
                                                                                                                               Freddie Plato

Lessons of War

These are some of the lessons we should learn about war.  Most of them apply universally, to all war at all times:

     (1) Stay out of war if possible.  Its results can be devastating and are nearly always unpredictable.  In addition to the moral objections to war --- the destruction of property, the injuries and death it causes --- It is generally an inefficient way to achieve political ends, at best,  and frequently ineffective.  War writes its own ticket.  As General MacArthur, one of history's greatest practitioners of the arts of war, stated at the conclusion of the surrender ceremonies on the deck of the battleship Missouri in 1945, ending the conflict with Japan,  "Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always".  However, God does not withhold free will from humans and war was not closed.  It still goes on.

     (2) Understand fully the domestic political facts of a potential enemy.  How much power does a putative head of state have in his own country?  What domestic factors does he have to consider?   After the presidential election of 1860, and prior to the inauguration on March 4, 1861, the date which was set for that purpose at that time,  Abraham Lincoln dismissed the idea that the Southern states would actually secede from the Union or cause war.  He thought it was all bluff and bluster.  Had he fully understood domestic politics in the South, however, he would have realized that cotton-states politicians were beset with barely restrained rage and actually believed that Lincoln intended to oppress them and had the means and political following in the North to do so.  Here, too, had they read Lincoln's inaugural address and understood the politics of the North, they would have realized that politically speaking they were more in control of the situation than was Abraham Lincoln at that time.  There were many alternatives open to them and they could have proceeded responsibly and with discretion.  They did not, and the results were disastrous.  Lincoln and many others in the North themselves did not understand the politics of the situation.  The fact that an enemy is dilusional does not mean that he is not dangerous.  Both sides had dilusions about the other.  That might not have been true had they had television, cell phones and fast transportation, but they did not.  Furthermore, the tendency to believe one's own propaganda can be extremely dangerous.  See paragraph 5.

     (3) If war does start, a head of state owes it to his country to define its purposes clearly, and failure to do so can lead to demoralization and even defeat.  In this regard Franklin Roosevelt provides a  good example.  As American participation in the Second World War got under way FDR stated that our goal was the "unconditional surrender" of the enemies, Germany and Japan.  This told the world that we were not fooling around and told Americans of his determination to prosecute the war to the end to elicit the cooperation of the people and their institutions in that regard.  Most important, it buoyed up the morale of our armed services, its leaders and men in the field of battle. They would not have the rug pulled out from under them after so many heroic sacrifices with some phony "peace negotiations, only to render in vain their devotion to their country.  They would not be risking their lives and health for nothing.  They were not fighting for politicians but for their country, and fighting for a goal they could understand and would recognize when it had been achieved.  That was only half true in the Korean War and not at all true in Vietnam.

    (4) Use more force than you think necessary.  General Colin Powell advised "overwhelming force".  The tragic failure of the Bay of the Pigs fiasco proved that very well.  President Kennedy believed that the invasion could succeed without air power.  Perhaps it might have, but his mistake was that he assumed so and failed to provide for contingencies if events proved him wrong.
    (5) Never underestimate the tenacity, will and determination of the enemy.  Never be deceived by your own propaganda.  There is a scene in Gone With the Wind, taking place as the Civil War began to get underway.  A group of party-goers have gathered at the Wilkes mansion and the men, all Confederates, are discussing the War and the short work they intended to make of the Union army.  Gerald O'hara proclaims "The Yankees can't fight and we can".  He was wrong, as four years and 600,000 battlefield mortalilties were to prove.  Northerners made the same mistake, assuming that they would enjoy a short victory at the First Battle of Bull Run.  They were defeated.  The fact was that neither side had any monopoly on courage or fighting ability.  Both were determined to win.  And both sides had dilusions of grandeur which cost them dearly.  A good general rule is that an invading force needs three times the troop strength as the defenders have.  It is best for the invaders to have even more, and the same principle applies to naval and air power.
     (6) Finally, just as it is a mistake to underestimate the force which will be needed to succeed and the tenacity and courage of the enemy, it is also a mistake to assume that the enemy is ten feet tall and cannot be defeated.  The Korean War began with the invasion of South Korea by North Korea, as troops from the North poured over the thirty-eightth parallel into the South on June 25, 1950.  Harry Truman persuaded the UN to join us in a war to push the North Koreans back over the line.  With brilliant military maneuvers by General MacArthur, capped by an amphibious landing at Inchon on the west coast near Seoul,  MacArthur pushed the North Koreans back across the thirty-eighth parallel and up to the Yalu River which formed the Korean-Chinese border.   Truman met MacArthur at Wake Island in the mid-Pacific and asked him whether he thought the Chinese might come to the aid of the North.  MacArthur assured him that they would not, and Truman gave him permition to proceed.  But the Chinese did come in, with 1,000,000 men and Truman insisted on negotiating a peach agreement much against MacArthur's advice. 
     Years later, as the Vietnam War was heating up, Mao Tse Tung, the Communist dictator of China, visited Nikita Kruschev in Moscow.  Kruschev asked Mao why he did not help the North Vietnamese just as he had helped the North Koreans, and Mao told him that MacArthur had had the Chinese army on the ropes in North Korea and that China had still not recovered from the consequences of that.  Therefore, MacArthur could have pounded the Chinese army into retreat from all of Korea.  He was on the verge of doing so when Truman pulled him back.  If only Truman had known the facts as they were he could have made a better decision.  This is not to blame him, or blame MacArthur, but just to point out that over-estimation of an enemy is just as possible as under-estimation.  Union General George McClellan prolonged the Civil War by repeatedly over-estimating Confederate strength.  There is no pat answer as to how to avoid this except to put the greatest emphasis on good intelligence, preparation, and the willingness to take calculated risks.
     Best of all; avoid war in the first place.

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What Now in Afghanistan?

     The question 'why are we in Afghanistan' should really be 'why should we still be there with ground forces'?  Is there  even a good argument for continuing  that presence?  If not, we should get out in an orderly way which minimizes harm to the Afghans and ourselves.  If so, the question is 'to what extent' and with what force', a question with which I am not concerned here because I do not have the military expertise to discuss it and, anyway, it would require a detailed and extensive consideration of goals, timetables, etc. and this is an essay, not a five hundred page book. The practical question is how are our own national interests advanced by being there at all, if indeed they are?
    It was by any measure necessary to send the military to Afghanistan in the first instance.  The United States had been the victim of a murderous attack on September 11, 2001.  Two New York skyscrapers were bombed and destroyed, the Pentagon was damaged, a passenger jet full of people crashed in Pennsylvania and the White House and Capitol in Washington were threatened.  If there ever was an act of war this was it.  It eclipsed Pearl Harbor.  But with Pearl Harbor we knew what nation had attacked us, the Empire of Japan.  Here the enemy was an insidious extremist organization named al Qaeda, not a nation state.  However, as President Bush said, and almost everyone agreed at the time, if any nation was aiding, abetting and sheltering the guilty parties and refusing to turn them over to us that country would be held responsible for the attack and would be at war with the United States.  There was such a nation, Afghanistan, ruled by another terrorist group called the Taliban, which was closely allied with al Qaeda and was acting as its protector.  We had to react with decisive military force and we did.  Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives all agreed on that.
     The Taliban was deposed, thrown out, and our forces occupied Kabul, the capital.  Immediately women were liberated after having been reduced by the Taliban to the status of slaves.  Other benign and civilized reforms were instituted.  There was one major problem, however.  The Talliban remained alive and well in the mountains of Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, simply waiting to come back in after we had left and, for that matter, while we were still there.  Most of Afghanistan was still either a target for the Taliban or was ruled by a confusing conglomeration of warring tribes.  We set about trying to create a nation where there never had been one, a nation strong enough to fend off the Taliban and control warring tribes.  Were we successful in doing that?  Well, we're still trying, and it apprears that we have made some progress.  Should we stay until the process has been completed or until we conclude that it never will be?  Our original goal having been to bust up al Qaeda and kick it and the Taliban out, which was accomplished in large part, what is left which requires our continued presence at great cost and at a time of serious domestic economic difficulties in the United States?  We should face two salient facts:    (1)  The  fighting in Afghanistan cannot end with a peace treaty or a national surrender as did Word War ll.and (2)  It could therefore go on indefinitely, though possibly at a reduced level of combat, unless the enemy is crushed completely.
     So it comes to this.  Is there now a compelling reason to remain in Afghanistan?  It isn't nation-building.  The Afghans themselves must do that if that's what they want.  When we invaded Afhanistan we did assume some responsibility for its people, just as we once did for Germany and Japan.  We have helped the Afghans and we can perhaps continue to help them up to a point but we cannot stay there forever waiting for them to resolve their internal and external squabbles and difficulties.  Indefinite nation-building is not, I submit, a good reason for remaining in Afghanistan.  However, there is a good reason to remain there at some level of force.  It is that by remaining in a strategic location in the Middle East with air and ground fighting forces we are in a position to check, and go on checking, the progress of jihadist extremism.  If you want a WW ll analogy, the fact that we stayed in Europte gave us a barrier to Soviet expansion, just as our armed opposition to Hitler prevented him or his friends from bringing his insanity eventually to the United States.  Afghanistan is strategically located.  If it ever becomes necessary to defend Israel, which is hardly a remote possibility, we have a distinct advantage by having a presence there, and in Iraq.  Once we leave altogether, we're gone.  And remaining doesn't have to mean maintaining a presence at the current level.  It can be  reduced to suit the circumstances.
      It would be less than responsible for the United States to withdraw all military forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, including naval and air forces in that region of the world.  It would simply be an abdication of our position in the Middle East and we cannot afford that in a region of such conspicuous importance to the world and such great danger of drawing the world into ever greater dangers and complications.  I agree with Leon Panetta who recently said;  ". . . the mission [in Afghanistan] is to safeguard our country by insuring that the Taliban and al-Qaida never again find a safe haven in Afghanistan".  This principle should not be confined to Afghanistan, however.  Any region as dangerous and sensitive as the Middle East requires constant attention for our own security.  If and when we become energy independant, which we are perfectly capable of doing if politics can be swept aside, the need for vigilance in the Middle East may be reduced.  But we are now faced with the world as it is.  The whole region --- Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia --- is simply far too dangerous not to have a strong military presence there.  That does not mean that we should be everywhere in the Middle East in force.  We can't afford that for an indefinite period of time.  But force and presence on the Afghan-Pakistan border is ideal because it is in and near the major hot spots.  To leave altogether would be to court danger unreasonably.
    

Strive for Perfection

Solutions to the Poverty Problem

     Dr. Lewis Robinson (05/04) bemoans the existence of poverty in the United States.  What are his solutions? Confiscatory taxation and more big government run by Democrats? More trillions of dollars on top of the trillions already wasted on Lyndon Johnson's phony-baloney "war on poverty"?  More constraints on the free-markets?  Continued love-ins with banana-republic dictators and homicidal, brain-scrambled middle-east nut cases?  More taxpayer-funded vacations, golf outings and campaign touring by our humble, self-effacing president? 

     Actually the cure for our "poverty" falls into three broad categories:  (1) The election of a solid-majority Republican government which will take the brakes off economic growth (2) persuading the young to finish school, abandon gangs, avoid drugs and alcohol and delay sex until marriage when affordable.  (3)  Most of all, a return to the great God who gave us the freedom to develop and prosper and the firm rejection of the anti-God crusades of the left.