Is Your Congressman (or woman) a Big, Fat, Hairy Liar?

Well, they're not all big. Some are definitely not hairy. Who is really to say anything about fat one way or the other? Really, people come on. People may take offense at being called big, fat, or hairy. That sort of talk just isn't nice.

Did I say liar? For some of you, that one is harder to ignore isn't it? All you have to do is watch your favorite entertainment news source (you get that concept, right?) and hear the blather coming from these folks to get a sense that many of them have a tenuous grasp of the facts. The truth may be something they flirt with, but are unwilling to commit to in any meaningful type of relationship. They do this despite the ability of a 3rd grader with Internet access to debunk almost everything they say.

So, why do they do it? Are they really liars? Voters value the truth. Voters shun liars all the time. Lie to us and we'll vote you out or never vote you in to begin with. Just tell us the truth and you'll be richly rewarded at the ballot box. As they say in New Jersey, "Yeah, right."

Hold on a minute. Maybe those aren't actual lies. Maybe they're just specialized versions of the truth. Maybe they just view issues through magical prisms that the rest of us don't have. You can rest assured of one thing: there is always more to the story than what you're hearing from the speaker.

First, a principle. Reasonable, intelligent people can examine the same set of facts and arrive at different conclusions. It happens everyday. Hardly anything within human understanding is so binary, discrete, or black and white as to escape this principle. I'll leave finding examples that prove the rule to you. Tech may be digital, but life is analog.

Another principle. People usually tell you what they think you want to hear. Congress-people are good at this one. It is mostly how they got the job to begin with, and key to helping keep it. Entertainment news perpetuates this because of time and format constraints and because the business model feeds on it. (Entertainment news is about making money, not about having an informed public. If that's lost on you, most of the stuff I talk about will be completely meaningless to you.) The structure of the electoral system perpetuates it. (See yesterday's post.)

Third principle. Complexity drives us to seek simplicity. It happens for all of us. We seek to deconstruct the complex in an effort to better understand and cope. Very few of us can be immersed in complexity for very long or very well. Humans have a way of creating complexity and then striving to make simplicity. We talk about living a simple life. We enjoy having simple solutions to big problems. We want to walk on a straight, clear path, not a twisty one. We undo knots. K.I.S.S.

Applying these three principles, we see that even when we think we're right, someone else disagrees; if we want the whole story, we need to seek additional sources or hear other perspectives; and, we expect and need to keep it simple.

Cutting to the chase. Is your Representative a liar? In all likelihood, yes. Can he/she help it? Probably not. Can you change them? Doubtful. Can you replace them and do better? Again, doubtful unless you think hearing different lies is an improvement.

What's a person to do? Unfortunately, these days, most people just tune it out. Turn it off. Hit the delete key or the ignore button. Too many lies. Too much BS. Too much complexity.

Here's something that might help. First, eliminate all opinion-based sources of electronic "newsattainment". You need hard news, not fantasy-based talk from people trying to sway you. Gather facts. Real facts. And, do this from a wide variety of sources.

Second, compare those facts. You'll begin to see that sometimes they conflict. You will discover that some are un-factual. You'll learn to be very efficient in fact-gathering and fact sorting. You'll develop trustworthy sources for gathering them. You'll find that they can be checked and measured reliably and consistently.

Third, develop an ear for "spin". When you hear someone spouting off facts, listen for what is really being said. Understand that they aren't telling you the whole story. They probably don't know the whole story themselves.

Simplify, but avoid "dumbing down". There is a difference between simple and simple-minded. You can respect intelligence and still demand clarity and simplicity. Things can be simplified, but that doesn't mean that they will become easy.

You will be better informed. You will learn to recognize BS almost instantly. You'll become a better citizen. You probably won't get taller, slimmer, or more physically fit...but you will feel better about coping with the noise around you.

Unhappy with Congress?

You could do something about it, but chances are, you won't. Why? Well, because you're probably not unhappy about your Congress-man or -woman. Why? Well, because for decades both parties have used and abused a little trick called gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is the process by which Congressional districts are drawn (and re-drawn) in an attempt to ensure the re-election of the incumbent. Once someone is in, their party wants to make sure they stay there. There are several reasons for desiring seniority - better committee assignments, more appropriations, more donations, and so on. Basically, more seniority equals more money for the incumbent and the incumbent's party. Seniority garners power, prestige, position, and pay (or for the cynics in the audience - payola).

When a district has been gerrymandered effectively, the majority of voters in the district can be counted on to vote in reliably predictable ways. That is, the district will almost assuredly remain a stronghold of a particular party's defined constituency. From a political strategy perspective, each district has a well-defined identity with a prototypical constituent. Find a candidate that closely matches the prototype's ideals and you can control that seat in Congress for a very long time.

The make up of Congress then becomes a self-perpetuating machine. Your representative is there because a majority of voters in the district voted for them. A majority voted for them because the voters in the district have been carefully aggregated into as near a bloc as is possible. Changes in who holds the Congressional seat happen in 3 ways: the representative gives up the seat for some other position (a run for governor, the Senate, private sector job, Cabinet appointment, retirement, etc); a shift in the district's demographics occurs causing a basic shift in the electoral mathematics (may cause the seat to go to the other party); the representative is defeated within his or her own party for not "representing the majority" (the representative became too liberal or too conservative or angered voters on some special issue).

You may think Congress is a mess, but you are probably not able to see what part of the mess your representative contributes. That's because you'd have to admit which part of the mess you're contributing. Self-reflection as voters is not something at which we excel. We continue to believe that we voted correctly, but that other people in other districts didn't. It's someone else's fault. Not ours. So, we get mad at Congress and lash out. Our representative feels just like we do and would fix everything if only "those other people" would help a little.

We could fix the problem if we had the will to do so. How? We could set "rational" district boundaries, make them static, and only allow them to change once every 50 years or something. Very blunt instrument sort of idea. Of course, neither party would like that idea. Special interest groups wouldn't like that idea.

The Constitution calls for "the number not to exceed one for every thirty thousand", but each state got at least one. When the U.S. population was smaller, there were more representatives per capita than there are today. Today, there are 435 voting members in Congress. There are roughly 350,000,000 residents of the U.S. That means, there is a representative for about every 800,000 folks. Imagine what would happen (OMG!) if there was a representative for every 400,000 or 100,000 or 50,000. As a point of reference, in 1960 the 86th Congress, had 437 members in a total U.S. population of 180,000,000. Proportionately, if Congress were twice the size it is currently, we'd be in the ballpark of 1960 representation.

I have no idea if that would be better or worse. Many people think Congress was great in 1960 and not great now. Are representatives over worked nowadays?

The bottom line is that Congress is what it is because we are who we are. Nothing more, nothing less. Fixing Congress is within our power because we can vote differently.  Problem is - we won't do that, probably. Fixing Congress is not within our power because membership has its privileges, including writing the rules to remain a member.

The question is: how would you solve the problem?