(3) Senators (Kerry, Lieberman & Graham) propose cutting greenhouse gas emissions 17% by 2020

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121002659.html

Senators propose cutting greenhouse gas emissions 17% by 2020

3 release 'framework' of bill to send message to climate conference

By David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 11, 2009

The trio of senators who are trying to write a bill to cap greenhouse gas emissions released a "framework" Thursday that they had agreed to.

…

Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said the framework was intended to send a message to delegates in Copenhagen for international climate talks. "The movement for climate change legislation in the United States Senate is alive and well," Lieberman said.

But the message was still fairly general: The senators revealed few details about their plans and said they were negotiable.

"The reason there's not specifics (being released) today is very specifically because of the process that we are honoring," Kerry said. He said the three would need to talk to Senate committee chairmen about their ideas and did not think a bill would be voted on until spring. "We don't want to jump ahead of the committee process."

…

[bergie321]

1. It's a start

[MH1]

2. I think they are trying very hard to get SOMETHING

in a very tough political environment.

I don't think it's enough but I think getting this much now is a little better than nothing, and who knows might help get something more helpful later. At least these guys are making some kind of effort.

[MH1]

3. Text of framework is here:

http://enviroknow.com/2009/12/10/kerry-graham-lieberman-framework/

[IrateCitizen]

4. Yet another example of how Democracy is the worst-suited system...

... to dealing with systemic crises. That is why, at such times, it either folds or is replaced by absolutism.

The best form of government is still Enlightened Despotism. It always has been. Of course, the flip-side is that the absolute worst kind of government is Unenlightened Despotism.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Yeah, how do we pick the philosopher king?

(By popular election?)

I rather liked the electoral college as it was originally intended. The “founding fathers” fully understood and acknowledged that they were creating an “elected monarch” so, the question was, how to assure that the best qualified person wound up in the office.

The people would choose “electors” to examine the candidates, and choose the one they thought best suited.

Federalist Paper #68 http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_68.html">The Mode of Electing the President

…

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.

…

[IrateCitizen]

6. If the founders' president was an elected monarch, he was also a very limited one.

That makes sense, of course, seeing how many American institutions were derived from older English traditions. The British had a limited monarch as well -- and they suffered plenty of factional squabbling both within Parliament, as well as between the crown and Parliament. We can also see how quickly this Enlightenment ideal devolved into something much less than ideal.

What I'm referring to is an absolute monarch, one with unlimited power. As for choosing him or her, it's pretty much a matter of chance, because we DON'T get to choose him or her. That's why absolute monarchy holds out the potential of being the best and the worst form of government. I'm not really endorsing it, just looking at it through a historical lens.

When Rome got Marcus Aurelius, for instance, things were good. But there's always the potential for a Nero or Caligula on the opposite end....

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Right, I understood you…

An inherited monarchy is a dangerous thing.

Even a popularly elected monarchy is dangerous though. That’s why they came up with the Electoral College. It was intended to essentially be a shadow government, with absolutely no ties to the primary government. Their only task was to select the monarch who would serve for the next 4 years…

Federalist Paper 69: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_69.html">The Real Character of the Executive

…

The first thing which strikes our attention is, that the executive authority, with few exceptions, is to be vested in a single magistrate. This will scarcely, however, be considered as a point upon which any comparison can be grounded; for if, in this particular, there be a resemblance to the king of Great Britain, there is not less a resemblance to the Grand Seignior, to the khan of Tartary, to the Man of the Seven Mountains, or to the governor of New York.

That magistrate is to be elected for FOUR years; and is to be re-eligible as often as the people of the United States shall think him worthy of their confidence. In these circumstances there is a total dissimilitude between HIM and a king of Great Britain, who is an HEREDITARY monarch, possessing the crown as a patrimony descendible to his heirs forever; but there is a close analogy between HIM and a governor of New York, who is elected for THREE years, and is re-eligible without limitation or intermission. If we consider how much less time would be requisite for establishing a dangerous influence in a single State, than for establishing a like influence throughout the United States, we must conclude that a duration of FOUR years for the Chief Magistrate of the Union is a degree of permanency far less to be dreaded in that office, than a duration of THREE years for a corresponding office in a single State.

The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware.

…

[IrateCitizen]

10. But even then, there are still numerous problems with the EC

Look, I understand where the founders were coming from when the designed the Constitution. It is purely an Enlightenment document, constructed on Enlightenment principles -- and with the faults and frailties of that line of thinking.

What you say about the design of the EC is certainly true -- and also indicative of why it would only work according to Enlightenment theory, as opposed to the real world of the founders' time (forget about today). One of the prime characteristics of Enlightenment thought as described by Juergen Habermas was the idea that differences in opinion among the members of any group, including bourgeois government, would eventually reach consensus through rational-critical debate. It is this belief in the power of reason that led Hamilton, Jay and Madison to publish the Federalist under the pseudonym "Publicus" -- they wanted the arguments to be judged according to their merits, rather than according to the publicity of the authors. However, what this line of thought fails to acknowledge is the development of competing interests, and how there can really be no consensus between those interests based upon reason. Rather, what ends up taking place is a compromise in the spirit of gaining the greatest leverage of interest.

Unless the members of the EC were without any interest at all, locked up in a house only to be brought out every four years to choose a chief executive, the process would be sullied. But, each of these men had personal lives, business dealings, etc. And when they gathered every four years to choose the next president, they brought those personal interests to bear in their decision -- probably sometimes above and beyond the demands of rational-critical debate that was central to Enlightenment ideals.

I'm not saying that the authors of the Federalist were completely off-base by any means. As a historian, I marvel at the legacy left behind by these flawed men that nonetheless aspired to greatness in many ways. I'm just saying that the EC presents as many problems as it solves, and when you really get down to things, the ONLY system throughout history that has been able to really address serious crises is that of an absolutist, enlightened despot, while the system that has proved most destructive is an unenlightened despot. The lesson in this is that, although we like to say that "rule of law" matters, ultimately history has shown us that it is the ruler more than the system that makes the difference, Successful rulers of any stripe, be they enlightened or destructive, bend systems to their will to one degree or another in pursuit of their aims.

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. Sure, there are numerous problems (theory -vs- practice)

In a way, I see it as akin to the quote usually attributed to Churchill, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

---

I disagree with what I read as your suggestion that the “founders” were naive, lost in the ideals of the Enlightenment. In reading the debates of the Continental Convention, the Federalist papers and the Anti-Federalist papers, I am continually struck by how insightful these men were, and just how little they trusted human nature.

They were very aware of the reality of compromise. Compromises shaped the Constitution both for good and for ill. Two examples come quickly to mind, both (essentially) compromises by the North, to satisfy the South: The “Three-Fifths Compromise” and the “Bill of Rights.”

Then there are the two houses of Congress, with each state government receiving an equal number of senators, and the citizens of each state receiving a proportional number of representatives (the former to satisfy the smaller states, the latter to satisfy the larger states.)

[IrateCitizen]

15. Interesting points

I did not mean to imply that I considered the founders as naive, but if it came across that way I'll take the hit for not being clear enough. Rather, I think that their efforts reflected the Enlightenment idea that people could overcome personal interest through rational-critical debate. I don't think that implies any great trust in basic human nature -- especially WRT the "democratic mob," according to the Federalists. But, I do think that it shows a certain amount of blindness with regards to the tendency of people to turn away from rational-critical debate in order to form factions around common interest. I don't say this to condemn the founders -- they were, quite literally, starting the world over again -- rather, I say it to recognize some of the shortcomings in the Enlightenment worldview they all shared.

The 3/5 compromise and the Bill of Rights were certainly compromises, but they were ones, I believe, still with the aim toward achieving consensus among the Constitutional delegates, who all came from very different regions of the fledgling nation. They differ from the compromises between political parties that come later, in that they are meant to pursue an overarching national interest (the ratification of the Constitution) as opposed to a narrower, partisan one. I think it is telling the manner in which so many of the founders warned against the formation of political parties ("factions" was the fashionable term), but yet they quickly came to be nonetheless.

As for the compromise surrounding the legislature, that is more taken from English tradition which had been alive in the colonies for many years -- the idea of an "upper house" of appointed members with a "lower house" of elected representatives.

But, in the bigger picture, I think we're quibbling over quite minor details here, since it seems that we agree that the way in which the founders constructed the federalist system of government was an act of genius. I'm just saying that it was still borne out of the prevalent thinking of the time in which they lived, which saddled it with some blind spots which would eventually lead to its undoing in many ways.

:toast:

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Thanks - that's an interesting snippet.

Seems to have gone a bit wonky in practise, though.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. Yeah, quite wonky

The problem was, Jefferson lost to Adams.
Then, a bunch of Jefferson’s supporters said, “You know… if only it was ‘winner take all’ in the contested states … he’d have won!” (And it all went downhill from there…)

[IrateCitizen]

11. Not to mention the role played by that great rogue of American history...

... Aaron Burr.

As much as there are things I detest about Hamilton, Burr is really one of the low-lifes of early American politics. And he played a central role in the "Second Revolution" of 1800 that threw the election to Jefferson.

I also find it a quite telling thing about the American character that two of the most intelligent men to ever be president -- John and John Quincy Adams -- were so unsuccessful in their respective offices.

[MH1]

12. Is it just me,

or is the E/E forum the smartest place at DU? :) (I always learn things here that would not normally be considered E/E topics!)

(pun on your screen name intended. :) )

[IrateCitizen]

13. Seconded.

It's really the one thing that has kept me at DU over the past 3+ years. I won't go within 100 yards of GDF anymore.

[pscot]

17. Thiis is definitely the reality based forum

GD is great if you feel you aren't getting your fair share of abuse at home.

[kestrel91316]

16. They get an A for effort. But we are gonna have to do a whole lot better than that.