0003 Dalera 22: Censor

As some of you may know, I run an IRC server dedicated—in theory—to writers and readers of "transformation fiction," a fancy way of dressing up various ideas such as age-regression, furry and animal transformation, sex and gender alteration, and the like all under a common banner. The history of how I ended up the administrator of this service is long and varied, and by and large it's unimportant. What matters at this point is that the service sits on my server.

I bring this up not because I want to talk about the details of the service. I'm not interested—right now—in talking about the people who inhabit the place. I'm not bringing this up to talk up the quality of the writers and other artists who visit. I'm not even interested in tooting my own horn as an administrator, because Connie knows what a shitty job I've done of that. No, I mention the IRC server because I have a question to my friends regarding political philosophy.

This may not seem like an obvious connection, so let me try to draw in some of the missing lines. I like to think of myself as a pretty leftist sort. If you click on over to Political Compass, I'm somewhere around a (-7,-7) based on their quick test, and I've got no real reason to think this is that far off from true. This puts me somewhere to the "left" of Dennis Kucinich, who is routinely disregarded as a laughable nutjob for his "dangerously liberal" political views. In fact, it puts me around Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama, quite far away from the political center and nigh-uncrossable oceans removed from what is considered "the center" in American politics.

What this means, as related to the above, is that I regard the IRC server that I run as a service. I don't expect recompense for my work. I do it because I believe that it needs to be done. I'm not now asking to be showered with praise, nor am I asking for money. I'm pointing out that I've kept this thing running for five years over three moves and multiple hardware upgrades. I kept the service going even in the depths of The Bad when I really couldn't afford to pay for internet connectivity, because I felt it was important to maintain the server for the folks who used it. This is my fandom, too, and this is how I support it.

Now, all this might by itself be happy backpatting, if not for the real meat of this post. I have a number of users who are, for lack of a better descriptor, bootstrap-libertarians. They, like everyone, connect to the server because they are members of the transformation fandom. They enjoy a good story as much as the next person, and they all do their parts to support the "scene," as it were. However, they—like any other normal human being—have interests that extend beyond the one single topic that unites us, and this means that on a fairly regular basis, I have a small but devoted crowd of people spouting ideology that is utter anathema to my own.

Now, I want to reiterate here, just in case it's been missed. I don't hate these people. I don't reject the basic humanity of these people. I don't think these people are bad people. I think they're dangerously misguided. I think that their ideas are broken because they're based on logical fallacies and untrue assumptions about the basic human condition. However, I've attempted more than once to "agree to disagree" and yet the topics seem to come back time and again, and I'm frankly getting sick of having to deal with the subject matter.

To make matters more... challenging... I find myself thinking of them all, collectively, as hypocrites. The users who understand the idea of a service willingly provided because of the betterment of the commons as a result, I accept and gladly. I wouldn't expect money from them, because they all know why I do what I do, and they in turn don't get on my case for not being the best admin money can buy, because I'm not doing this for profit. The BSLs, on the other hand, all spout at length about the elimination of government handouts, the evils of taxation, and the general stupidity of "liberals," and yet not one of these people has ever once offered to pay for zir bandwidth, nor has a one of them recognized that they're receiving a "handout" and left in protest, or set up a competing paid service.

Is it really so difficult to understand, that if I agreed with their ideals I would have shut down the server long ago as unprofitable?

One of the cornerstones of my philosophy, and one I don't think I've ever really gotten to state here, is that of the "transitivity of tolerance." That is, I am tolerant of any philosophy which is itself tolerant of other philosophies. I am likewise intolerant and rejecting of any philosophy which claims to be the One True Way. It is in this fashion that I lay claim to the mantle of open-mindedness while actively telling those who insist that they have a monopoly on truth that they're unreservedly wrong.

So, now we come full circle, and I get to the question I originally wanted to ask. Would I be out of line in telling the libertarians who inhabit my server that they're welcome to take their business elsewhere? Am I committing some error of judgment or knowledge towards that political system that would bring it back into the realm of "welcoming of other views?"

On the one hand, I see this both as memetic health and cultural health. I believe in a healthy state of political debate, but there has to be some agreement on basics before that debate can happen, and with these people I feel that there's no way to have that. Just as I couldn't have a discussion on the minutae of biology with a creationist, I simply have no means to have a policy debate on the extent of government assistance with someone who says that the government has no business offering it.

On the other, this is censorship, after a fashion. It may be healthy censorship, as any successful forum moderator has had to apply at some point but I don't want to paint a pretty face on it and pretend it's something that it's not. This is the elimination of a certain set of ideas from the public discourse. I'm not stopping them from forming their own forum. I'm not telling them they have no right to be heard. I am, however, saying that they no longer have a right to use my server to further their ideals. As much as I can tell myself over and over again that this is utterly consistent not only with my ideals but my rivals' as well, I feel like I need a second pair of eyes on this before I pull the trigger.

0001 Lakera 11: Requiescat

Resquiescat In Pacem: Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

In her final column, Molly Ivins said, "we are the people who run this country," and she's right. We are a government of the people, by the people, for the people. It is in our power to decide how this country will be run, and by whom. The politicians may be the ones who make the laws, but we make the politicians. It does not matter how many lobbyists spend their time greasing pockets and palms. It does not matter how much money they spend. What matters is for whom we vote, and why.

They know this. It is we, as a people, who have forgotten.

Right now, we have so many problems facing us as a society that I literally do not know where to begin. Utterly removed from any policy decision, the very process by which people take and keep office, and the abilities that people have once there, are so removed from the sane and rational that we cannot trust our current elected government to ever fix the problems. This is not a complaint about the direction we are headed, though I do have plenty of vitriol to spill on that front. No, this is anger directed at the very process by which we decide who gets to have a say in picking a new direction.

The Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo has ruled that political contributions equal free speech, meaning that more money equals more speech. This precedent is thirty years old and has almost no chance of revisitation and repudiation given our current political climate. Research abounds to suggest that the amount of money available to a candidate has a direct influence on the likelihood of a candidate getting elected above and beyond any message the candidate carries during the campaign. Until you have billions to spend, your voice will not be heard.

A patchwork of ballot access laws across the country make minor parties an afterthought to our political spectrum. The laws that govern who can get on the ballot in one state may be so different from the laws in the next that it is, I think, not unfair or misleading to characterize the process of registering as a national third-party candidate as "nigh impossible". It has been done, and it can be done, but the opportunity cost of doing so is egregious bordering on absurd.

To add insult to injury, the plurality voting system in place in most of this country's elections means that any third-party candidate that actually gets to on a sufficient number of ballots as to be treated with any modicum of seriousness becomes a threat. These people are not hailed as masters of navigating a rotten system. They are not praised for their dilligence and hard work. They are not recognized as serious contenders for the title of whatever office they seek. No, they are repudiated as spoilers to the party they most closely resemble. A serious Green candidate will become the biggest enemy of the Democrats, a Libertarian the victim of the Republicans, simply out of fear that any attempt at genuine candidacy will steal votes away from the "real" candidate.

What does all of this mean? It means that despite falling interest in the two major parties and rising dissatisfaction with the electoral process in this country, a wealthy elite representing a narrow band of political thought continue to dominate the electoral process. It means that unless you have a seven-figure salary or a major-party endorsement, your election campaign will be at best a fluke and at worst a joke. It means that if you have a viewpoint that deviates too far from the prescribed range of orthodoxy, you have virtually no chance of being elected.

I have not forgotten Bernie Sanders, but I think he's a one-off success story, not a trend.

I don't know where to start fixing things. I don't know if things can be fixed. I have ideas, but they seem huge and I feel very small in comparison. Looking at the laundry list of things that need correction, I still can't shake the sense that the easiest solution is to leave and let somebody else sort out the mess, but here, in no particular order, are my current ideas:

Do vote

This one seems obvious, but I still know people who say that their votes don't count. I can't argue my way out of that, because it's true that any given individual's vote doesn't make a direct difference on the outcome, but the aggregate effect of people not voting is a disaster.

Don't vote for any candidate that rejects public funding

This one may be a dying form of protest, but it's the only form of protest that really comes to mind for this point. The law will not save us here; the only thing we can do is save ourselves. I am prepared to limit my vote choices to those candidates who abide by public campaign limits. Hillary's not getting my vote even if she does win the nomination. I'll write-in if I'm forced into it, but I won't support any candidate that doesn't try to bring some sanity back to campaign financing.

Do look into third-party alternatives

Right now, at this precise moment in time, I care less whether you subscribe to the Libertarian, Green, Reform, Socialist, Workers', Communist, Constitution, or Independent Party. I care that we have a huge range of values and viewpoints that aren't being heard because the financial oligarchy that has been established finds it in its own best interest to keep those choices from being heard. I'll still dun you if you say something stupid, but I'd rather you say it and be heard than say it and be silenced.

Don't give them money

Yes, I am crazy. The last thing we want to do is shoot ourselves in the foot by transfering our political spending from two candidates to three or four. Give of your time, give of your support, but don't give of your pocketbook. If you believe in it, volunteer to help.

Do support organizations working for campaign reform

Here's a quick, but by no means exhaustive, list of groups trying to make the process of picking a winner more fair:

• FairVote
• The Coalition for Free and Open Elections
• ReformElections.org
• Public Campaigns

Don't partake of the election hysteria

Right now, just about every campaign that can go negative will do so. We as an electorate need to show that we're not going to buy into it. If a candidate goes negative, take your vote elsewhere and don't be afraid to contact the election office and tell them that their decision to run a negative campaign has cost them a vote.

Do talk to others

This is not a one-person effort. It can't be. It's not a work of dozens or hundreds or even thousands. This won't work if it's not some significant percentage of people who all recognize that this is something that needs to be done, and then actually does it. If you agree, then find someone and tell them. If you don't agree, tell me why. Explain to me what I've overlooked that makes these a bad plan.

Don't give up.

This probably isn't going to make a hill of beans in 2008. It might not even help us by 2010. However, if we don't start taking steps now, we'll never get where we want to go, and maybe if we start working now, by 2012 or 2014 we might start seeing some results.

The longest journey starts with a single step.