Democracy

 The Greeks started the idea and modern society improved on it.  It is the best guard against the collapse of societies.  It is called Democracy and its main propose is to throw the rascals out before they become too attached to their seats.  

 

The further we stray from 'one man one vote', the greater the chance of collapse.  America is straying further and further from Democracy with her denial of voting registration, denial of voting, reduced voting stations which are put in 'favorable locations', gerrymandering and her ridiculous delegate system.

  

She augments the rot by allowing vested interests to buy politicians by financing their elections, making them rich while in office and giving them 'sweet jobs' when they leave office.  Trump almost trashed the most important, totally vital aspect of Democracy which is the peaceful transition of power following an election. 

 

Look at 'Mickey Mouse' states around the world.  They never have a peaceful transition of power.  And there is a  fear is that the  rot could spread to other states which a present are Democratic.  Potential despots exist in all societies and memes- both good and bad, spread.  

 

If Trump and the Republican party succeeds, other so called right wing parties around the world  be taking heart and trying it on for size.  If Trump is jailed for a good long time and the American election system is reformed, this will also provide an salutary example for other would be despots.

 

If the Democrats get in, in the November elections*, they will have the chance to reform the system.  This will be their one and only chance.  If they don't codify reforms in law, the Trumpists will be elected in some future election and will destroy America and the remnants of democracy that she still has.  It could just enough to save America from becoming a dictatorship by Oligarchs.

 

Jan1, 2025 - clearly Trump won the election and the only hope now is that it will be so bad under his administration that people will finally wake up and demand true democratic reform. Perhaps the situation must get so bad that even the ignorant part of the American public will wake up.

 

So what measures must be taken.

 

1.  First and most important all financial connection between members of the government and people who finance them must be severed.  We think we are gaining some sort of benefit by someone else paying for the election of our president Senators and Representatives but it is costing us vast amounts in ways both obvious and not so obvious.  If we want out government to serve us and not the Oligarchs, we must pay for their elections from the exchequer.  https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2018/01/wasted-effort.html  This includes various ways of making our government officials rich while in office and getting sweet jobs when they leave office.

2.  The delegate system must be scrapped.  It simply results in more layers of corruption.  The basic requirement of Democracy is one man one vote.  The popular vote must be what elects all elected officials.

3.  A set of principles, codified in law, must be developed to determine voting districts.  This ramped gerrymandering must be stopped.  

4.  Vastly more polling stations must be set up and specifically set up in less privileged areas.  It is now almost impossible for many Americans to get to a polling station.

5.  If someone is waiting in line to vote before the end of voting, they must be allowed to vote.  Using delaying tactics to keep people from voting is not democratic.

6.  Mail in ballots must be allowed for overseas service men, people in remote areas, overseas tourists and overseas government employees.  Alternately, polling stations must be set up for these folks.

7. Denial of registration must be stopped.  If you can show a birth certificate, naturalization papers, passport  or any other photo document that shows you are a citizen, you must be registered.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

 Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny

There is a wealth of information concealed in those three little words.

Ontogeny is the development of an individual animal from a fertilized egg and on to the birth of that individual.

Phylogeny is the evolution of life from single cells which floated around in the oceans up to the animals we see around us today including ourselves.  Many of you will have come upon this concept in courses in embryology.

If we look at the early stages of a human fetus, for instance, at a certain point we see wee gill slits on the neck, at a later stage we see a wee tail, both of which are later absorbed and disappear before birth.   At least usually they do.  Occasionally an individual is born in which you can just see the trace of gills and occasionally with a wee vestigial tail.

It is interesting how this occurs.  Take as an example a species of monkey that lives in the tree tops of the jungle.  They have developed a prehensile tail which is of great help keeping them from falling to the jungle floor where they might damage themselves and where there are a range of animals that would look very favorably on monkey for breakfast.  

 

Occasionally in certain individuals, mutations occur which make their tails less effective or in an extreme case that they have no tail at all.  One way this can happen is if the gene that initiates the sequence that leads to the development of a tail, does not switch on because of some mutation.  This sort of monkey is much more likely to fall.  We usually think of natural selection developing new valuable chracteristics which help an animal exploit new environments but natural selection has much more to do with keeping and animal which has evolved to exploit a certain environment, unchanged.

Look at another example.  Take the Wolf and the Dog.  Wolves have remained pretty much the same for a few hundred of thousands of years.  They are well adapted to their wild environment and the vast majority of mutations would make them more poorly adapted to their environment.  However look at the dog.  Under the influence of the humans who feed and care for wolves and who select some of these mutations because they are valuable for humans or  just from some misguided fancy, dogs have radiated in a huge number of different forms, which based on their appearance would be considered different species if we didn't know that all can breed with each other.

So let's go back to the jungle monkey.  It is getting crowded in the jungle and some of them have to venture out into the surrounding plains to make a living.  A group evolved that make a pretty good go at plains living.  A tail is of much less value to them. In fact it costs them resources for them to grow this useless appendage. Some of them get a mutation that reduces the ability of the tail to grasp a branch,  In fact some of them have a mutation to the gene that initiates the growth of a tail such that  they are born without one.  Since they don't need the tail now, there is no selective pressure against not having a prehensile tail.  But here is the rub.

The longer they are on the plains, the more mutations they accumulate in the sequence that produces a tail.  The occurs even in monkeys that have the switch at the beginning of the tail sequence shut down.  Now if the switch gene gets another mutation that turns on the tail growing sequence, the tail that the animal will grow will be a sorry imitation of the original magnificent tail.  Hence the very rare occurrence of a wee tail in a newly born human.  (also remnant gills).

Geneticists believe from the evidence, that we shed our tails suddenly rather than over a long period so this points to some gene that started a sequence, being shut off suddenly.