Policies from a pragmatic, non-ideological point of view

Applying the simple pragmatic, non-ideological framework described before, some policy positions on important issues tend to reveal themselves. The massive differences in perceptions of reality between left and right should shrink, at least somewhat for most open minded people. Of course, that only works if you can set aside your political and religious ideological beliefs and apply logic to unspun facts while not losing sight of the public interest.

For the most part, hard core ideologues on the left and the right cannot try this little experiment. They are hopelessly locked into their version of reality and nothing will change that. For them it is a matter of pure faith. Those aren't the people that will change much of anything in politics. They aren't the audience for this kind of thinking. Ideologues are the ones who got us here and they don't have the courage to face that reality or their obvious failures.

U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook

Camp Marmal Afghanistan - September 9, 2012

The war in Afghanistan started October 7, 2001

and no one knows how it will ultimately turn out

The best political framework (ideology?)

The four point political framework described previously:
1. Serve the public interest before serving special interests, which include politicians, political parties,  private sector entities and government itself

The public interest defined: An optimum balance between serving American national domestic and foreign interests, defending its economy and the American standard of living, defending personal freedoms and protecting the environment (a reasonable, intelligent balance between special interests and everyone else, preferably focused on win-win scenarios)

2. Consciously try to limit the distorting influence of political and religious ideology on perceptions of reality and flawed policy that flows from distorted reality

3. Understand that the constitution is the highest and best source of authority for the law, political action and society's well-being

4. Understand that there is a role for government in society and it can be very effective and efficient in serving the public interest or, if you mess it up, it can be a detriment; That depends on how it functions or fails to function

That framework will not suit everyone, e.g., most ideologues maybe including most average liberals and conservatives will reject this out of hand. Despite that, this is a reasonable starting point if you have an open mind. This framework cannot be far off of the theoretically best way to do politics and solve problems.

 U.S. marine gets a high five from a smiling Afghan boy

Sangin district, Helmand provice, September 6, 2012

What will he grow up to be? Friend, neutral or foe?

U.S. embassies are burning right now (September 12, 2012), our diplomats are dying 

and hundreds of millions hate the U.S. for its middle east policies

Thanks democrats and republicans for another bad job poorly done

The key step: Framing the issues without bias or ideology

Tax changes as an example

The easiest and maybe only way to reduce the powerful but subtle influence of ideology is to frame every issue in about the same way. This helps reduce, to varying degrees with varying issues, the corrosive effect of ideology. Ideology is so subtle that its existence and influence on thinking is often subconscious. As an example, I propose several major changes to the tax code. Those changes are meant to increase tax revenues and to decrease opportunities and/or incentives for special interests to buy votes from legislators while serving the public interest defined above.

Framing the example: One change I propose is to make the flat 15% tax on capital gains and interest income graduated or progressive. My bias, i.e., ideology or belief, is that making it progressive makes sense and should be done. To reduce the influence of that unsupported ideology and come to a different conclusion on this specific issue if UNSPUN facts and UNBIASED analysis points to a different conclusion, I would frame the inquiry like this: "What evidence/facts shows that making the 15% flat tax progressive would serve the public interest, including the protecting the U.S. economy and the American standard of living? What are the most persuasive arguments and data pro and con, particularly including that from non-ideologues? Who are the winners and who loses? Can there be a win-win way to effect the change if doing that makes sense? If no win-win solution can be crafted, then what if anything can be done to limit economic or other damage to the losers without overly compromising benefits to the public interest?"

By framing it that way, my ideology is forced to confront reality and it has to win the argument on the merits. By contrast, most or all republicans would ideologically frame the issue this way: "It is insane to raise taxes on the job creators. That's a job killer. I am going to filibuster this to death. We are already taxed far too much. I hate government." That's pure ideology doing the speaker's thinking for him or her. That's a stupid way to do politics. Facts, analysis and conclusions that undermine or contradict that ideology will simply be swept away by the powerful need (irrational emotion) to defend the ideology.

 U.S.S. New York - amphibious transport dock ship

Gulf of Aden

September 11, 2012 remembrance ceremony for the 9/11 attacks

Bin Ladn's motives for attacking the U.S.:

Sanctions against Iraq

U.S. support of Israel (what did we get in return for all of our  endless and

generous support and the blood we shed? A kick in the pants, that's what)

U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia

Thanks democrats and republicans for another bad job poorly done

Many or most Democrats would ideologically frame the issue about like this: "A flat 15% tax on billionaires' income is outrageous and needs to be immediately stopped. We cannot afford to continue with this idiotic policy. Our social safety net is fraying and we need more revenue right now." That is an equally stupid way to do politics for the same reason.

Why do hard core democrats and republicans do politics that way? Because they know that their (i) ideology and (ii) way of doing politics (self-service and service to special interests) can't stand up to honest, unbiased scrutiny. As argued here before, political and religious ideologues lack the moral courage needed to test their beliefs against unspun reality. They know, subconsciously or not, that their ideology will usually lose in a fair contest of ideas.

There will of course be issues, maybe most, where, once the "best" solution or policy is found, the person whose ideology is offended will simply reject the best solution as not the best. But, if they were forced to go through this pragmatic non-ideological ("PNI") exercise for every issue, every time, they would at least be forced to confront the disconnect between their ideology and the PNI reality. And, when the ideologue rejects PNI reality in defense of the reality that ideology spins into existence, they will be forced to either rationalize the difference away or simply ignore the discrepancies and dismiss the PNI approach and solution as nonsense. Sooner or later the sheer number of times they have to face the disconnect, will lead some (most?) people to begin to soften their opposition to a neutral approach to political issues. The PNI method has to be neutral, unbiased and transparent for this have much chance of success. Otherwise, ideologues will simply dismiss it without any concern.

 President Obama, September 12, 2012

Statement condemning the attack on our consulate in

Benghazi, Lybia

Neither democrats nor republicans know how to conduct foreign policy

they are out of ideas and out of touch

Thanks democrats and republicans for another bad job poorly done

(Hillary doesn't look so good - she needs a rest)  

Can you see it?: Either you can see the difference in how PNI politics could work or you can't. You can accept this as something that could work or you can reject it as unrealistic nonsense based on someone's personal bias (ideology). However, based on the irrational blither I routinely hear from the two parties, it strikes me that trying a PNI method like this could only help. Of course, hard core ideologues on both sides will instantly reject all of this out of hand. That's why California Moderates has no illusion that hard cores can be impacted any time soon or maybe ever. California Moderates is speaking to the few people out there who still have open minds. All of this will be completely lost on mainstream ideologues stuck in and limited to their old, failed ways of thinking. Sadly, the hard cores are a lost cause. However, maybe neutrals and soft core ideology can sometimes be spoken to. That's the hope at least.

Policies from the best political framework

Assuming the facts and reality accord with the following, the PNI framework and approach could lead to policies that might look something like this:

1. Realign political incentives to reward service to the public interest before service to special interests by implementing
  - Vicious public financing of political campaigns or some effective variant thereof;
  - Aggressive, unrelenting transparency regarding campaign contributions, the legislative process and executive functions to (i) find and (ii) publicize any connections, real or imagined, between special interest money and legislation and/or executive or agency action that flows from that money; and/or
  - Other mechanisms that punish service to special interests before service to the public interest

That is simple garden variety capitalism. It rewards service to the public interest and penalizes service to special interests, unless serving a special interest is ultimately in the public interest. No rocket science about it. Serving the public interest is front and center.

2. Develop and implement intelligent, coordinated national economic policies, especially trade, energy and foreign policies that serve the public interest by
  - Playing international trade games on the same terms as our competitors, e.g., when our competitors cheat on trade agreements or game the system, we cheat or game them more because our markets are bigger than theirs (leverage America's market size to its maximum advantage);
  - Reducing energy costs by putting tax dollars into publicly-owned, low carbon utilities, preferably nuclear, and forcing private sector utilities to actually compete (energy is a critical infrastructure need and it appears that the private sector does not serving the public interest as effectively as it can because it is serving the interests of shareholders, not the public);
  - Reconsidering policies that affect trade such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (bribery) and bring those policies into line with international norms if that is needed to balance the playing field;
  - Implementing some form of state capitalism to compete with the shrewd tactics of China in accumulating natural resources and manipulating markets;
  - Elevating internet security as one of the nations top two national security and economic vulnerabilities and fix the problems, including ignoring industry attempts to thwart fixes they dislike for their own self-serving reasons whenever that reasonably serves the public interest; and/or
  - Realign tax incentives to reward job creation in the U.S.

3. Address the federal deficit by a reasonably balanced approach including
  - Reassessing the tax code to phase out tax breaks that don't have a defensible cost-benefit profile for the public interest, e.g. phase out home mortgage deduction over 20-30 years if that makes sense or various accelerated depreciation schemes over 4-6 years when that makes sense (overnight changes can be unduly disruptive and painful, so phasing may often make sense);
  - Forcing increased transparency into the tax legislation process to shine a light on the corruption;
  - Requiring publication (on pain of a felony conviction and some mandatory jail time) of donors of more than about $200 to any politically related organization, including contributors to political parties, 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) groups, SuperPACs and the like (sunlight will help to disinfect the rot and jail gives the miscreants some peaceful quite time to contemplate the sleaziness of their weaseling ways)
  - Increase IRS enforcement by hiring more employees dedicated to chasing down tax cheats (goal: decrease owed but uncollected taxes from about $385 billion/year (in 2006) to $20 billion/year; or set a goal of getting a tax compliance rate of at least 95%; the IRS is intentionally understaffed by congress to allow tax cheats to get away with it);
  - Simplifying the tax code over time, e.g., by (i) limiting the size of any piece of tax code legislation to some reasonable limit (~ 4,000 words?), (ii) for every word of new tax code, eliminate about 1.1 or 1.2 words of existing code until some reasonable lower limit is reached and/or (iii) require the level of tax code and regulation language to drop to about the 13th or 14th grade level at most (complexity is the home of ambiguity and ambiguity is the hiding place for special interest payback for campaign contributions and tax cheats);
  - Assuming it does not inflict undue damage and from a fair and reasonable cost-benefit context, making the fixed 15% capital gains tax rate graduated, e.g., tax at 15% for the first $2 million/year, 19% for the next 2-6 million/year and 26% for amounts above that (an alt min tax for the wealthy who get this kind of income) and then leave it alone to provide certainty for conceiving and executing business plans;
  - Graduating the estate (death) tax, e.g., 0% for the first $3 million of an estate, 5% for the next $2-4 million, 15% for the next $5 million and 25% for amounts above that (this avoids any estate tax on about 99.9% of all estates) - once that is done, leave it alone so that people can plan their estates in peace and with some certainty;
  - With some exceptions and when it makes sense, cut the size of the federal government spending by some reasonable amount, e.g., 15%, probably by blunt across the board cuts (intelligent surgical cuts are not possible because each imperiled entity will resist and congress will capitulate to the pressure; dumb as across the board cuts are, that appears to be the only possible way to do it, given the profound dysfunction of a congress dominated by inept, corrupt democrats and republicans);
  - Converting public sector employees to 401k retirement plans and phase out fixed benefit plans to help make public sector spending sustainable at about current levels;
  - Phase in taxation of non-profits based on a fair and neutral cost-benefit analysis, e.g., impose:

(1) regular income, property and other taxes that are now waived if (i) the charity spends more than 30% of its income on operating "administrative and overhead" costs or (ii) it provides a tangible, real value to society (e.g., in helping the poor or providing tangible public services) of less than 70% of its income;
(2) a lower tax rate if (i) its operating costs are less than 30% of its income or the value provided to society is more than 70% of its income, or
(3) no taxes if (i) its operating costs are less than 10% of its income or the value provided to society is more than 90% of its income (this encourages efficiency and reduces waste and fraud) and require all information reported to the IRS to put online so that the public can see who is efficient, who isn't and exactly how much money flows into charities (Charity Navigator on steroids); and/or
  - Phase out tax exemptions for non-profit political organizations, which are now just ordinary business enterprises with no net benefit to the public interest (they are a detriment, actually)
  - Converting U.S. health care to a single government system or at least set up competing government entities in some states (as a test) to force the private sector to compete at delivering lower costs (the U.S. pays more for health care and gets less, which says the private sector has failed, e.g., exactly what value do insurance companies add? - the cost is about 10-15% of each dollar (maybe more), but the benefit to the public interest just isn't clear)

The list could go on, but it is an example of political thinking without ideological constraint. The list is just one person's opinion. It would no doubt differ some or maybe a lot if a group of pragmatic non-ideologues were to come up with a similar list, but it too would not look like anything the democrats or republicans would come up with. That difference is the main point of CM arguments about the bad influence of ideology on politics. Ideologues usually can't honestly face reality when it undercuts their ideology nor can they impartially assess policy options that undercuts their ideology. Ideologues are limited in their perceptions and thinking. Pragmatic non-ideologues are not nearly as limited.

 UH-60 Black hawk - special operations forces

Uruzgan province, Afghanistan - August 29, 2012

How this ends is anyone's guess

The top priority - kill the special interest beast

Of those issues, CM would argue that the first, realigning incentives to reward service to the public interest, is the most important. Without that sort of an attempt to blunt this pervasive political problem, progress on most of all other things is essentially impossible. For example, lobbyists backed by campaign contributions will kill any effort to fix the tax code in any meaningful way, even if the facts and unbiased analysis say that it should be done. Except when it is coincidental, special interest money serves special interests and not the public interest.

Compassionate pragmatism

Some of that may look liberal, some conservative and some may look like nothing you have seen before. That is correct, some does fit liberal ideology, some fits conservative and some probably fits no identifiable ideology. That is what you can get when you ignore ideology and just look at problems and potential solutions from the point of view of the public interest and within the simple framework. However, if it is true that there is a way to get the most efficiency and efficacy by ignoring ideology, then intelligent pragmatism is the best compassionate and sustainable way to do politics and run the country. Everything else will fail sooner or later, regardless of good intentions at the start.

Cruel reality

Since reality doesn't care what anyone's ideology is, the best solutions to problems won't care either because they are also a part of reality. In other words, there really is only one best solution to any problem from the point of view of the public interest. That's why neither the liberals nor the conservatives will never get it right most of the time. Only non-ideological pragmatism looking at undistorted reality can even come close to that ideal. Obviously, the devil is in the details, e.g., how one interprets the definition of the public interest given above, assuming one accepts it at all.

Some of this may sound harsh, but this is a result of the reality we have got ourselves into with the connivance of the two parties now in power. Wishful thinking isn't going to make our problems go away. Neither will the two parties, unfortunately. It is long past time for those dinosaurs to amble off the stage and just go away.