Misbehaving Politicians
“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” J. F. Kennedy
INTRODUCTION
It is too easy to denigrate politicians to explain their poor behaviour in responding to the “Global Warming” issue. Doing so might miss some more plausible reasons for this poor behaviour. In the theme of this website, we could assert that politicians can no longer think critically which causes their irrational responses. They were being brainwashed as easily as their citizens.
Such a claim might be true for some individual politicians but would be much harder to accept for the collective political ‘body’. Politicians have access to the broadest amount of information on any issue, so it is harder to claim that there is a collective ignorance and irrationality in their behaviour. There has to be other reasons for their poor behaviour.
For at least five decades, the behaviour of Western politicians has slowly but progressively declined. This has been caused by several interrelated generic problems that have grown in this period. Each of these are discussed below. As you read each one, you might recognise that the poor behaviour of “us” – the citizens – have had a significant contribution to each of these problems.
Following the generic causes of poor behaviour, we try to identify if these problems have caused the poor response to the “Global Warming” issue.
GENERIC PROBLEMS OF WESTERN POLITICS
The Father Xmas Problem
In most Western democracies, several decades ago, there were two main parties who could depend on a large majority of voters to support them with only a small number of “swinging voters”. To win an election, each party spent a disproportionate amount of time and money trying to gain these ‘swinging’ votes.
With a growing selfishness in our society, politicians realised that these swinging voters had to be bought and treated as ‘favourites’. This was the birth of the “Father Xmas” problem.
As any teacher will tell you, once you create favourites you divide the class in two, by also creating ‘non-favourites’. The non-favourities very quickly become disenchanted with their second class status. They envy the favourities, and will mimic the favourites’ behaviour to gain the same attention and benefits.
In the political context, this means the politicians can no longer depend on the votes of the majority and the number of potential swinging voters can increase significantly. Consequently, the cost of buying these voters, in all sense of the word ‘cost’, significantly rises.
The politicians quickly realised that going down this path meant their focus on the nation was lost, as they now were focusing on selfish individuals, often at the cost of the nation. Both sides of politics are now trapped by this problem as they compete to ‘out-gift’ one another as a Father Xmas. The voters will now vote for the Father Xmas who will give them the best gifts. A gift, mind you, that they do not want to pay for!
Reading 5.7.1 expands on this problem.
Encouraging Authoritarians
Once our politicians start playing the game of ‘gift giving’, several things happen. Citizens will start demanding more and more from their politicians and, at the extreme, have the politicians become their ‘nanny’ to look after every facet of their life. Politicians will lose sight of the role of democratic governments and progressively interfere in the lives of its citizens – half of whom might like this, while the other half object.
We now have unleashed the authoritarian behaviour in all of us. At the best of times, it is difficult to control our authoritarian predisposition and we all have to work at stopping ourselves from telling others what to think, say, and do. Politicians, with all the resources and power at their disposal, will find it even more difficult to stop themselves from becoming an authoritarian elite controlling the lives of all citizens.
The politicians who served Australia up to the 1970s had seen, or been involved in, two World Wars that were fought to save our freedoms being taken from us by authoritarians. They were keenly aware of the fragility of our freedoms, and the danger of authoritarian politicians who wanted to control and increase the role of governments at the expense of the freedoms of the citizens.
The post 1970s politicians lost this sensitivity and progressively embraced a more authoritarian behaviour. Unlike their predecessors they spent significantly more time in Canberra filling their days passing legislation that affected all citizens.
As we will read in the next section, every law passed by our politicians removes a freedom from an individual, a group of individuals, or every citizen. The graph below shows the exponential rise of the number of pages of legislation passed by the post 1970 politicians as more authoritarianism was encouraged.
Nothing changed with the life in Australia post 1970 that required more laws – the only thing that changed were the politicians who no longer had any sensitivity about freedoms and the role of government in a democracy. Consequently, the danger of encouraging authoritarians is no longer recognised.
Reading 5.7.2 expands on the dangers of encouraging authoritarians in a democracy.
Freedom and Democracy
In the past fifty years, Western citizens have been progressively losing their freedoms. Generally, this has not been recognised because we have forgotten what freedom is, and the role that democracy has as a defender of our freedoms.
We need a historical perspective to understand why the words “freedom” and “democracy” are often used together, even though we have little understanding of what freedom means today. Before democracies were created to protect our freedoms, countries were ruled by a political elite and there was little freedom for most citizens.
This elite could be led by a monarch, a bishop, the landed gentry or a general. It mattered little who was in charge, as all of them were authoritarians who controlled the life of most citizens. Understandably, these authoritarian elites did not give up their power without a fight.
To achieve their freedom, citizens had to go to war with the elite and many lives were lost on both sides. On winning that battle for freedom, a mechanism to retain and protect their freedoms was needed – and this was democracy. Democracy was a new concept that had to be understood before a change could be made to not only replace the elites, but to prevent new elites forming.
So, the primary role of democracy from the beginning was to protect the freedom of the citizens, and to prevent any political elite from rising and taking freedoms away from the people again. In the hundreds of years since then, our freedoms and its protector – democracy – has been threatened and many wars have been fought to protect our freedoms and the democratic form of government. Once again, many lives were lost.
The citizens wanted to be left alone so they could get on with their life without any “authoritative interference”. This term extensively used 150 years ago, is rarely used today but it accurately described what the citizens wanted to avoid. The citizens did not want any form of authority interfering in their life.
Today we pay lip service to the words “freedom” and “democracy”, not fully understanding either term nor the importance of each word, and how they are connected.
Remember, as you will read, every piece of legislation shown in the graph above will be removing a freedom from individuals, groups of individuals, or every citizen. You will not be allowed to do something that you were free to do before the legislation was passed. Is anyone limiting the authoritarians from removing more of our freedoms. When is enough, enough.
Reading 5.7.3 discusses the connection between freedom and democracy. It then examines how fast we are losing our freedoms and how our democracy is being abused. Many in our society today are working at reducing our freedoms, and promoting a political authoritarian elite, rather than defending both our freedoms and democracy.
Re-Election Before Country
Australia has an unusually short term of three years for each government. Sometimes shorter. Australian politicians are told that in the first ten months all the difficult changes must be implemented first. After that, the next 26 months are focused on re-election.
Throughout the three years the Media is judging the government’s actions and tying it to re-election prospects. Survey after survey is held measuring the changes of voting intentions of the public.
Meanwhile, the opposition is totally focused on re-election and not the nation. The opposition’s aim is to be critical of everything the government does, hoping to damage it as much as possible to enhance its own re-election chances.
Even if you tried, you could not set up a better system that encourages politicians to forget the nation and its citizens, and play the ‘political game’. This is a major problem of all Western democracies and particularly so in Australia with its short three year terms.
Winning the ‘political game’ is paramount, even at the expense of the nation and its citizens. The Media’s influence on the “game” is corrosive with all politicians being driven by the 24 hour news cycle. Having a long term view for the nation was lost decades ago.
Unfortunately, the Media also encourages citizens to focus on personalities and labels rather than performance and outcomes for the nation.
Closing the Responsibility Loop.
Western governments rarely “close the responsibility loop” and treat the taxpayers’ money as unlimited – as if it were their own money.
In a family, the parents are acutely aware that they have limited money and the cost of all their desires is greater than all their money. This situation forces them to very carefully examine each desire and its cost, and then rank these desires to determine which of these desires will be funded.
This responsible activity is repeated as the family’s circumstances change. As children grow older and have their own desires, the parents explain the method of deciding what desires are to be funded. Very quickly the children learn that they cannot have everything, however much they want it, because there is not enough money.
This is an example of “closing the responsibility loop”. Both the parents and the children are acutely aware of the limited funds and the inability of funding everything. They also are focused on the cost of each desire and the importance of logically determining the ranking of each desire.
At a national level, the same activity is meant to occur, with politicians having the role of parents and the citizens in the role of children. However, in the past five decades, the discipline in ‘closing the responsibility loop’ has gradually degraded especially in providing feedback to the children’.
First the ‘children’ believe that “government money” is unlimited and consequently demand that the ‘parents’ fund all their desires as Father Xmas. Because they aim to get everything and it is all “free” they demand the best irrespective of the cost. No ranking of desires happen – as the children can have anything they want with the free money.
For example, every family in Australia will eventually pay $20,000 for the NBN that gives them faster internet speeds. How many families were told of this cost and how many would then agree that this money was well spent? Was faster internet speeds worth $20,000 to them? Did they have any higher priorities?
We need to understand the damage that can occur when citizens think that “government money” is free – rather than being “taxpayers money” that is limited. Then understand how this damages the responsibility loop and any rational way of setting priorities.
No Longer Leaders, but Followers
In ‘black and white’ terms, which rarely reflects reality, our politicians no longer lead but follow the mob.
Often this causes them to damage our nation while performing for the ‘mob’. The ‘mob’ is no longer interested in the nation but is focused on what they can get “from the system”, rationalising that they have paid their taxes so they deserve everything they can get – even if this costs more than the tax they have paid and hurts the nation.
Without leadership from our politicians, from both parties, this selfish greed will get out of control. This is happening now, as politicians gradually abandon their leadership role to become followers of the mob.
So it is not surprising, when the mob is greedy and irrational, the politicians’ decision making and performance will also be poor. The only ‘political’ metric to measure success is how well the mob responds to the politicians’ ‘gifts’. A focus that is devoid of outcomes for the nation.
All these problems result in politicians making poor decisions which costs the taxpayer and hurts the nation. The politicians, for all the wrong reasons, find themselves being ‘forced’ to make poor decisions – locked in a destructive political system.
Not Defending Rationality, Critical Thinking & Western Civilisation
None of the above behaviour can be considered good for the country or considered to be rational behaviour. It could be argued that such behaviour is encouraging some of the worst traits that humans have – greed, selfishness, nastiness, authoritarianism, divisiveness and lack of tolerance.
Our leaders are meant to lead and be an example for all citizens. They should resist the temptation to follow an irrational and emotive mob. They should be defending rationality and the ability to solve problems using facts and logic. Not to do so, undermines all the benefits that have been delivered through the “Age of Reason”.
And that is just one foundation stone of Western Civilisation that has brought us so much. For any Western politician to not support the foundation stones of Western Civilisation – or worst, try to undermine them – is unbelievably self-destructive. Yet all the misbehaviours described above are leading our politicians down this path.
All of us should remember, we are lucky to be living with all the benefits provided by this civilisation, and should focus on maintaining the civilisation that produces these benefits. To do otherwise, will have this civilisation fall – a fate that has happened to all previous civilisations – and for our well being to go backwards for hundreds of years to the detriment of both the citizens and the nation.
POLITICIANS AND GLOBAL WARMING
Remember the crux of this issue. The theory has been falsified and without correlation you cannot have causation.
Introduction
In the 1980s, numerous Green “Internationally Renowned Climate Scientists” (their words not the authors) claimed that a rise of 40ppm to 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere by the year 2000 would cause global temperatures to rise 3-5 degrees. By the year 2000 global temperatures had only risen by 0.3oC, which sceptical scientists had expected as a natural rise. Even in 2005, Australia’s CSIRO Green climate scientists were still making a similar claim (i.e. 2oC rise in 15 years).
Sceptical scientists pointed out that there were more than 30 known factors and probably many more unknown factors that affected global temperatures. There were also more than six known feedback loops and probably others that either reinforced or reduced global temperature movements.
The Green scientists countered that carbon dioxide was the dominant factor, so much so, that even the small amount of CO2 that Man was producing would cause catastrophic global warming. Sceptical scientists pointed out that, if that were the case, the two variables CO2 and global temperatures would move in lockstep. Then sceptical scientists showed that there had never been a tight correlation between the two variables that would indicate a strong cause and effect relationship.
In the past, CO2 concentrations had been 5-15 times (2,000-6,000ppm) higher than the present level of 400ppm concentration, and global temperatures had never followed these large movements. Temperatures had moved between approximately 10-30 degrees Celsius. During one of the highest CO2 concentrations periods, global temperatures were 10o C . Where was the draconian heating effect of CO2?
If the Green scientists claims that a 40ppm increase would cause a 4o C rise in global temperatures, then the temperatures in the past, when there was 2,000ppm CO2 concentrations, should have been approximately 160oC higher than today (or 600oC higher with 6,000ppm concentrations).
Because temperatures didn’t climb more than 15oC higher than those today during those periods and, often fell to 10oC, even during periods of high CO2 concentrations , it shows that carbon dioxide is not a dominant factor, but an insignificant factor amongst the net influence of more than 30 other known and unknown factors affecting global temperatures.
The sceptical scientists criticised the Green scientists’ near total focus on CO2 at the expense of more than 30 other factors affecting global temperatures as professionally unsound. The Green scientists’ views had become more religious than scientific.
Summarising – even a secondary school pupil familiar with physics can show our politicians that there is no logical or scientific basis to this issue.
So why do Western politicians listen to the Green Movement and their ‘scientists’ to the near exclusion of tens of thousands of other scientists? More importantly, why do they spend billions of taxpayers dollars trying to “save the planet” when carbon dioxide is not harming the planet? Especially when their anti carbon dioxide actions harm the citizens and the country.
The White Hat View
This view has politicians trying their hardest to look after Australia and all its citizens, without fear or favour. Yes, being human, they may make mistakes but their aim would be to correct these errors quickly and minimise the number of mistakes they make.
However, in the past forty years this has not happened. Remember this is not ‘rocket science’ – a secondary school student can show them that there is no logical or scientific basis to this Green campaign. (See the first page of The Crux on this site). It is nonsense. So collectively our politicians are behaving as if they have closed their minds, turned off their brains, and are incapable of any critical thinking on this issue.
The chances of that happening are so remote that we can only conclude that our politicians are misbehaving for a variety of reasons – none of which are acceptable. They are wasting billions of taxpayers dollars, introducing legislation that favours a minority of the citizens and harms the majority, and have joined the Green ‘mob’ in deceiving and misleading their citizens on this issue.
Consequently, we are only left with a “Black Hat View” of such behaviour.
The Black Hat View
For at least five decades, the behaviour of Western politicians has slowly but progressively declined. This has been caused by several interrelated generic problems that have grown in this period. In trying to identify why our politicians are misbehaving in dealing with the global warming issue, we can see evidence of following generic problems
- buying votes to remain in power,
- acting like a Father Xmas and not “Closing the Responsibility Loop” ,
- Placing more importance on re-election than on the well being of the nation and its citizens,
- Embracing authoritarianism and removing freedoms, and
- failing to lead and encouraging irrationalism, while rejecting rationality and critical thinking.
Some examples might support this view.
Each year, a mind boggling amount of taxpayers’ money – measured in trillions of dollars around the World – has been spent favouring Green supporters who irrationally believe the human race is headed towards extinction. This ‘blank cheque’ approach, avoiding any responsibility loop, has the primary aim to buy votes so politicians can remain in power – irrespective of the damage to the nation and its citizens.
As expected, the alarmist prediction of a rapid rise in global temperatures did not occur and the growth in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was not reversed, stopped, or significantly slowed down. So what did we get after trillions of our dollars were spent? In practical terms – nothing! No politician has been held accountable for what must be seen as the largest and worst expenditure of taxpayers’ money that the World has ever seen. And this abysmal behaviour continues today.
But the politicians did get the votes that they were after.
As Father Xmas, politicians showered Green supporters with programs such as; Green light bulbs, Green fuel (ethanol), Green electricity, Green electric cars and recharging stations etc.etc. In a free country, Green followers could have obtained all these benefits without forcing the politicians to give it to them as a “free good”. No, the authoritarian Greens wished to force this on all citizens and our wonderful politicians, showing no understanding of freedom, were happy to oblige.
So now those who are not Green supporters, have lost the freedom of say choosing the light bulbs, the fuel, the electricity or the type of car they desire. Their freedom of choice has been removed. To add salt to their wounds, their money is being used to subsidise these gifts to the Green followers.
Limits to government funding hurt this section of our community further. When you waste a trillion dollars each year, funding for say improvements in education, health , social security, age care, public transport, infrastructure etc.etc that might be appreciated by all, is also lost.
Finally, the lack of political leadership and encouraging citizens to embrace emotion and irrationality to solve society’s problems will cause continuing damage for decades. Just look at our triplicated, inefficient and very expensive new power system as a good example of decades of damage.
But the politicians did get the votes that they were after.
CONCLUSION
If we are relying on our political leaders to behave rationally and serve both the nation and its citizens – we can say “Dream on”. The misbehaviour of our politicians is a major part of our problems.