In Australia a governement could (unlikely, but constitutionally possible) establish a body that informed voters at election time, on the ballot, about how to vote in a way that best serves their interests. Leave aside the complex problem of making that advice accurate, and dwell on the effect it would likely have on the media.

Some proportion of voters would likely take the advice. These voters would probably not be party loyal, they would be the people elections are actually fought over. If this proportion was say half or more of these non-aligned voters then it would be a game-changer for campaing strategists because winning the contest in the media would no longer deliver victory.

If this “accurate voting advice” was incorruptible, or at least as hard to corrupt as say a Supreme court ruling, then the way to win for an incumbent and challengers alike would be to do whatever would make the advice a vote for them. Lets assume that is sound long term planning in the national interest.

As it happens, the ABC that interviewed you is a government funded body and arguably founded as a reliable voter information service. It has grown to more or less mimic the commercial media with hype and presentation style replacing the sober more fact based reporting it did a few decades ago, but there was a notion of the right of a voter to get reliable information about in the early years of Australia’s federation, and it manifested itself in the ABC in a dull colourless, but reliable sort of way, for several decades.

The notion that uninformed choice is no choice at all is logically a fundamental of democracy, but we somehow got diverted into believing that liberty provides a right to misinform, in the interests of selling stuff mostly. In the closely interdependent dance that politics and the media play, the consequences for either partner dancing to a different tune will be highly likely to be career limiting; except that is if you happen to work for a government owned media organisation like the ABC that has legislated to provide you that independence.

Come down-under more often Mr Rosen, we like you.

It’s a private corporation. The shareholders are secret. It is an unconstitutional entity brought into existence through chicanery, deceit and a corrupt political process not unlike the POTUS’s newfound ability to wage war without a declaration from Congress. Lawrence Lessig’s bete noir is in full bloom viz. the Fed, War Powers act, and many others too numerous to list. We live in a corporate fascist state where media conglomerates in tandem with financial entities manipulate the content, the viewers and the media through which the interact. Until such time as the ticks are removed from the apparatus of the body politic we will get a lot more of the same.

I know this comes across as less than kind, but can a person objectively deemed “mentally incompetent” make a sound decision? Legally, no. As long as a plurality of uninformed, misinformed, or willfully untethered to reality {NOTW} individuals get to decide my fate, then there’s a problem. Is this system better than the alternative? Resoundingly yes, but it doesn’t make the core issue disappear just because it’s impolite to note the deficiencies of others. I’m a big believer in the progressive ethos of education and intellectual freedom, but that is grounded in the correct supposition that people are ignorant. Smarter people than me have labored over this situation and I offer no solutions; only the observation that the mass media is by definition a tool to find the LCD of the audience and hence places like your blog is where smart stuff is published. The Internet is both focused and mass simultaneously.

I would put more emphasis on “he said, she said” journalism, and intimidation by the chorus shouting about liberal bias within the cluster of factors that made this possible. But the causes are not fundamentally journalistic; they are political. They have to do with the drift of Republican party politics since Goldwater, since Agnew, since W. Bush, since Palin and now with Perry.

I do wish, however, than in the standard journalist roundtable it was acknowledged that when it comes to what the majority of the Republican electorate believes, journalism is simply superfluous and has been for a number of years. Good on you for stating that clearly here. I think a majority of political reporters think it but dare not say it.

Is the Federal Reserve System part of the United States Government?

That is a trick question, I suppose. Wikipedia cannot answer that question one way or another, and neither could I: “The Federal Reserve System has both private and public components, and was designed to serve the interests of both the general public and private bankers.”

Speaking as a PhD, I have to say I could not agree less with this part of your comment.

But thanks for commenting and for being a fan of my writing. I appreciate that part.

I was very impressed by this piece and agree with the analysis with one exception: “insiders” make the viewer be NOT one of the sheeple and hence there is no cognitive dissonance via the insider/outsider dichotomy. The thing most are unwilling to admit is that stupid people drive election outcomes and stupid people are easily swayed. Democracy is flawed because a “birther” has the same vote as a PhD. All of our problems as a society originate with universal suffrage. Here’s a test: ask the non-political people you know whether the Fed is part of the USG and ask the political people you know the same question.

Best regards and keep up the posts as I am an avid fan.