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THE MODERATES’MANIFESTOHarold Paddock Moderates of the World, Unite!You have nothing to lose but the chains of extremists!

Harold PaddockTHE MODERATES’MANIFESTOModerates of the World, Unite!You have nothing to lose but the chains of extremists!

DedicationTo Patti,Here’s to you.(Sorry about the tiara.)

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Perils To The Left Of Me, Perils To The Right Of Me! 3. The Moderates’ Manifesto 4. “May The Force Be With You” 5. “Want To Play A Game?” 6. Economics: The Not So Dismal Science 7. There Ought To Be A Law 8. The Jigsaw Puzzle—Putting It All Together 9. Ok, Where Do We Go From Here?10. Epilogue11. The Origin Story12. Acknowledgements13. Author Bio14. Recommended Book List

Contents

INTRODUCTION

“A house divided cannot stand”

1848—Karl Marx publishes The Communist Manifesto.1948—I am born in Cleveland, Ohio.2048—The United States government is………? Any guesses?Lincoln warned us that a house divided cannot stand. While slavery is gone, the United States is divided anew into red states and blue states, conservatives and liberals, small “d” democrats and authoritarians, and along several other fault lines. On the day of this writing, a sitting mem-ber of Congress advocated a “divorce” between red states and blue states.Ideas have power. What follows are, I hope, several ideas worthy of con-sideration. This modest eort called The Moderates’ Manifesto is one person’s attempt to bridge the divisions facing our nation, and perhaps the world. And the title deliberately uses the plural “Moderates” in the belief that it reects the views of many who feel that the two dominant political parties do not fully represent their views on how society should be structured and governed. It is NOT the goal of The Moderates’ Manifesto to present a utopia. While there is a measure of idealism in this work, it is to a large degree diluted by large amounts of pragmatism. The humble objective is just to im-prove government in the United States, not perfect it, even if a stated goal in the Preamble to the Constitution is “in order to form a more per-fect union.” Any improvement would be better than no improvement at all. On a personal note: I once tried to describe myself in a speaker phone conference with people out of state who had never met me by saying “I am either an idealistic pragmatist or a pragmatic idealist. I don’t know which.” That still holds in this work. 11Introduction

Please do not expect a scholarly treatise, a law review article, or a textbook. There will be no footnotes, endnotes, index, or formal bib-liography. Rather, each chapter will end with suggested books or articles to oer deeper analysis and broader insight. There may be books that are listed in two or more chapters because of their appli-cation over multiple intellectual disciplines. The works listed will by no means be exhaustive or the ultimate word on their topics, but it is my hope that this Manifesto will spark the reader’s curiosity and a desire to delve further into the topics.If you have a hunch that an attorney wrote this, you are right. I’m proud to say I am a member of the Bar. But my target audience is not just my fellow attorneys, but every American who wants to see our nation improve and be rid of the perils of extremism tearing at the fabric of society. Beyond my legal background, I will try to look at this topic with insights from economics, Game Theory, and a large mea-sure of common sense. And rest assured, no part of The Manifesto was written by ChatGPT or any form of AI. At scattered places in The Moderates’ Manifesto, I will insert little Thought Experiments to make a point or encourage intellectual reec-tion. We have all had some exposure to Thought Experiments, with one of the more famous ones being “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?” (Hint: dene your terms. If you dene “sound” as vibrations in the air or as waves perceived by a human ear, you get dierent answers.) Einstein used Thought Exper-iments about light beams and moving trains to develop the theory of relativity. I promise these will be much easier. There will also be Pop Quizzes, but no grades.Will there be some controversial thoughts in here? Yes, and that is by design. Part of the problem with the current political divisions in the United States is lack of a fundamental agreement on the role and scope of government. If there was more rational discussion, less 12The Moderates’ Manifesto

heated passion, more respectful dialogue, and eventual agreement on what government should do and should not do, there could be more consensus on how government should operate.This Manifesto will begin with an attempt at a diagnosis of what the problem is in trying to structure a government when the extremes of both parties pull society in diametrically opposite directions. I will try in summary form to highlight the primary aws in both the Left’s and the Right’s approaches to governance. Instead of making you the readers wait for the very end of the work to see what the heart of The Moderates’ Manifesto is, Chapter Two will lay out the basics of the suggested changes in government in the U.S. in 2023 and beyond. This enumeration will sound like a party platform because that is how it started. Following extensive discussions with a dear friend, I was motivated to put some thoughts down on paper (or a computer screen.) The original concept of a new party that moved away from the two major parties, and eliminated their aws led to a hypothetical American Moderate Party or AMP. In honor of that friend-ship, the AMP platform is presented almost as originally written. Each thought or concept in the “platform” will be labeled as a Point. It would be presumptuous of this basic work to label concepts as “Article X” or “Amendment Z” of an actual constitution, but there are recommended amendments. I will try where possible or convenient to reference mate-rial in the chapters after Chapter Two with the corresponding Points in the proposed platform.You may not agree with all of these points. That’s ne. There should be debate and discussion. There may be improvements that other, bet-ter thinkers and scholars than I can suggest. That is to be encouraged. In the interest of brevity, there will be some overgeneralizations that need expansion and renement. Please supply the improvements. If you want to stop after Chapter Two and work to put some of the con-cepts into eect right away without seeing the explanations, please do.13Introduction

Subsequent chapters will be devoted to providing support and rea-soning for the principles set out in Chapter Two. There may be other reasons for thinking that these or similar principles are good ideas. Support or rebut, have a eld day with comments and enhancements, as that will encourage others to read, consider, and share this work, and to nd ways to improve our government. The concepts and sug-gestions set out here are not fully formed and may need polishing and elaboration. But given the problems facing the U.S. today, it is better to get The Moderates’ Manifesto out for consideration and discussion than to wait and let the chasms grow so big as to be beyond repair.Moderates of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but the chains of extremists!Harold Paddock, Westerville, Ohio, September 2024

Contents

Contents

CHAPTER ONEPerils To The Left Of Me, Perils To The Right Of Me!

“I despise people who go to the gutter on either the left or the right and hurl rocks at those in the center.”~ President Dwight Eisenhower

“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.” “I despise people who go to the gutter on either the left or the right and hurl rocks at those in the center.”“Those who take the extreme positions in American political and economic life are always wrong.” - President Dwight EisenhowerThe extremes of American politics are widely divergent, and the gap grows wider each election cycle, and sometimes every week. And each side ac-cuses the other of being horrible for the country. Where do some of these extremes exist?On the conservative side of the chasm, adherents advocate for strictly limited government, for a constricted role for the federal government, and for a government that stays out of people’s business. But there is a colossal contradiction between conservative philosophy and practice. As soon as conservatives obtain government power, they immediately do a deep dive into taking control over matters aecting the family— Who can you love? Who can you marry? How can you plan your family? What lifestyles can you adopt as a family? If there was ever a place that govern-ment should stay out of, it’s the privacy of the bedroom. Other related intrusions pop up—How can you dress? What books can your kids read? What can teachers and professors teach in schools and universities? What books are on the shelves in a public library? What history do people be-lieve?Conservatives are more eager to regulate copulations than corporations.Much of this comes under the heading of culture wars, generally started by elements of the far Right. Those who advocate being anti-woke go so far as to advocate hatred and intolerance against (and legislate accord-ingly) entire classes of people—immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people, to name but three targeted groups. 19Perils To The Left Of Me, Perils To The Right Of Me!

On a separate and growing wing of the far Right are the Christian Nation-alists who believe that the Constitution should be discarded, and society operated on Biblical principles. Stoning sinners, anyone? The religious Right claims divine authority to make you rigidly conform to their views in pursuit of being holy, and do as they dictate as they in-terpret the will of God. The extreme Left claims the moral authority to tell you what to think, what to do, and what to say in the pursuit of being woke.And the biggest dividing lines have become support for or rejection of the validity of the 2020 election, and the tolerance or avoidance of violence to achieve political goals. On the opposite side of the aisle, liberals speak of freedom and equality (noble goals in any society) but try to enforce rm controls over language and actions by setting forth extreme standards for “political correctness” and “being woke.” This requires diversity, equality, and inclusion state-ments for certain employees, and favoring implicit quotas over neutral hiring principles. Hiring decisions are made based on whether the candi-date’s ethnic group has been “oppressed,” and not on the quality of the candidate. The rise of identity politics has caused government to pigeon-hole people based on their heritage rather than treating them based on what they can achieve. Will identity politics go so far as to require a listing for and distinct treat-ment of left-handed Lithuanian librarians as an underrepresented group or an under served community? It seems to be headed that way.There are elements of the Left who advocate for non-citizens having the right to vote. While there might be some logic in favor of non-citizens voting on purely local issues like school levies or utility bond issues, espe-cially if their local tax dollars were involved, but voting for national candi-dates should be limited to those who are part of the nation.20The Moderates’ Manifesto

Extremists try to make headlines; moderates try to make government work. But it looks likes the moderates have been squeezed out of Con-gress. There are some on the Left who assert that society should “defund the police.” Given the growing demands on the roles of police, it would be better to increase police funding and allocate the extra resources to more forensic technicians, drug counselors and mental health professionals to aid citizens in distress, and more lab technicians to expedite DNA and rape kit testing. Debates over sensitive topics are frequently cut short by “cancel culture” eorts to avoid certain speakers, words, or topics. The voices of a few who are “oended” are amplied by social media to the point where they drown out the views of the many who are not so unreasonably sensi-tive. Eorts to command politically correct speech approach censorship. Everyone should keep in mind the quote attributed to Voltaire “I wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it.”Extreme liberals appear not to be concerned about decit spending and the rising national debt (and the debt service that goes with it), so long as their social programs are funded. The integrity of the southern border is questionable in light of a seeming tolerance of mass immigration. Others on the far-Left assert that the founding of the United States is so thor-oughly tainted by slavery that the Constitution and even all of American society is irrevocably broken.One area of frequent intense debate between the Left and the Right is what to do with monuments and statues that commemorate the Con-federate side of the Civil War. Many on the Left want to hide, remove, or even destroy statues of Confederate generals and soldiers, and erase all references to slavery and the war to end it. Many on the Right insist that the monuments remain just where they are because they are part of their Southern heritage and that the Civil War was not fought over slavery.21Perils To The Left Of Me, Perils To The Right Of Me!

But there is a dierent approach. Consider this:•••Thought Experiment: In thinking about removing monuments and all references to the Confederacy, consider this hypothetical television news coverage from a TV station in Chicago on a Sunday in October:Tom, news anchor: “Now it’s time for sports. Let’s go over to Bob at the sports desk.”Bob, sports anchor: “Thanks Tom. We can take a look at today’s scores. It was the Bears 28. Over at Wrigley, the Cubs scored 4. In exhibition basketball, it was the Bulls 101, and in hockey it was Blackhawks 3. Back to you Tom!”What’s the problem here? Bob gave the scores of only the Chicago teams. We don’t know if any of the home teams won or lost, or how close or lop-sided any of the games were. There was no context, no reference to the opponent, no comparison of results.Erasing Confederate history gives us no context. Who did Meade beat and where and how? What did Sherman or Grant accomplish, if anything? Why are Antietam and Vicksburg important? We don’t have to glorify the Rebels, but we need to know what they did to understand what the Union accomplished. Confederate history has a place on the battleelds and in the museums of the Civil War. Instead of banning or banishing Confederate Civil War monuments, wouldn’t it be better to adopt something like this proposal with every item on public display? 22The Moderates’ Manifesto

PROPOSAL REGARDING MONUMENTS AND STATUES:As an alternative to removing a statue or monument to a Civil War related person or group, the entity responsible for the site should prominently post a dignied permanent marker with-in easy visual range of the statue or monument. That marker should have highly legible words to this eect:“This location commemorates and preserves the memory of General [_____ ]/Civil War unit [______ ], who fought with distinc-tion for the cause he/they believed in. However, history tells us that the cause of Southern secession was based on a profound moral aw: the right of certain people to enslave other human beings, contrary to the basic American principle set out in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. This location does not condone or glamorize rebellion, slav-ery, or war. Instead, it serves as a living reminder that we must learn from our shared history, even from events and causes that bother us today. It is the object of learning both sides of America’s Civil War history that enables us to honor all soldiers and to more nearly carry out Abraham Lincoln’s pledge “that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth.”•••Extreme conservatives may want a national government that does next to nothing, while the extreme liberals want a government that does near-ly everything. Conservatives accuse those who support using government to protect citizens from unreasonable risk of trying to create a “nanny state.” Those on the Left think that the Right’s emphasis on limited to no government involvement in the economy would create a “cutthroat”, “dog eat dog” or “winner take all” level of competition where vulnerable mem-bers of society are at a considerable disadvantage. There are elements in the conservative world who are so resistant to x-ing society’s problems that they deny the very existence of the problems, such as climate change, racism, and the ill eects of income inequality. 23Perils To The Left Of Me, Perils To The Right Of Me!

Zealots complain that even mentioning a national problem is “unpatri-otic” or “unamerican” or even an example of “hating America.” There are elements of the Left that scorn patriotism and think that the legacy of slavery makes our nation unworthy of love and respect. Some on the Left are too quick to hurl the accusation of racism at opponents.•••Thought Experiment. Let’s assume you have a wonderful little three-year old that you love with all your heart. You’re in the kitchen when something comes up that needs your immediate attention in another part of the house. You take a couple min-utes to attend to that item and you return to the kitchen. To your horror, you see that your child has somehow opened the cabinet under the sink and is about to take a big drink of drain cleaner. What is your immediate reaction? You see and rec-ognize the problem, intervene quickly before the swig occurs, move your child out of harm’s way, and take steps to prevent future problems. Love of country should be compared to love of family. Love of country, in the form of patriotism, should motivate a patriot to observe what’s going on with their country, diagnose a prob-lem, take steps to x the problem, and work to prevent its re-currence. Rather than strive to go backwards to an earlier time (the 1950s? the 1940s? the 1850s? the good old days however dened?), patriotism should encourage people to identify prob-lems and make progress for the betterment of the country they love.•••The best view of patriotism is that it is never inconsistent to love one’s country and still recognize aws and x them. This is no dierent than loving your home and xing the roof: you x it because you love it. Apply-ing that love of country and the desire to improve it, we will move in the next chapter to specic ways to improve American government by way of The American Moderates’ Manifesto.24The Moderates’ Manifesto

You might be interested in reading:The Deconstructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Par-ty, by Dana Milbank, Doubleday (2022)Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy McLean, Penguin Books (2017)Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, Anchor Books (2016)The Fifth Risk, by Michael Lewis, Norton (2018)On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder, Crown (2017)It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collid-ed with the New Politics of Extremism, by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Basic Books (2012)One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Des-perate, and the Not-Yet-Deported, by E.J. Dionne, Jr., Norman J. Ornstein, and Thomas E. Mann, St. Martin’s Press (2017) The Conservative Sensibility, by George Will, Hachette (2019)American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump, by Tim Alberta, Harper (2019)How the South Won the Civil War, by Heather Cox Richardson, Oxford Uni-versity Press (2020)How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Crown, (2018)25Perils To The Left Of Me, Perils To The Right Of Me!

Contents

Contents

CHAPTER TWOTHE MODERATES’ MANIFESTO

30The Moderates’ Manifesto

Point 1. The position of AMP is that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall be devoted to the common good of all citizens while recognizing the constitutional rights of each individual, that the rule of law is essential to maintain justice and avoid the appli-cation of arbitrary government power, and that it is the goal of govern-ment to promote a legal system of ordered liberty and justice which allows each individual to live to their fullest potential with liberty and self-determination. Point 2. AMP asserts that regulated capitalism is the ideal economic system in which the excesses of greed, market failure, and monopoly power are restrained for the common good while allowing business, industry, and individuals to pursue economic success within lawful bounds. Point 3. AMP asserts that the ultimate purpose of the tax code is the generation of appropriate revenue for government operations, and not the modication of citizens’ behavior. To that end, the tax code should be both relatively simple and comprehensible to the citizens, progres-sive in nature, and without loopholes for special interests. AMP further asserts that there should be an equitable sharing of the tax paying ob-ligation so that all individuals and corporations, regardless of their eco-nomic circumstances, are bearing the cost of providing infrastructure and funding necessary government expenditures. Point 4. AMP asserts that the collection of tax revenue and the dis-tribution of government expenditures is a sacred trust, and that both processes should be carried out with the utmost attention to honesty and avoidance of waste. Congress shall consider and may adopt the practice of passing taxation and appropriation legislation concurrently in order to achieve an approximate balance between government in-come and expenditures.The Platform of The American Moderate Party (AMP)31The Moderate’s Manifesto

Point 5. AMP asserts that national problems require national solutions. The federal government should deal with broad national matters which aect all citizens equally, while allowing for state level regulation of truly local matters. Point 6. AMP asserts that voting is a fundamental right available to all citizens at or over the age of 18. The voting process shall be admin-istered in a strictly neutral, fair, honest, and easy to use fashion with no partisan advantage to any faction or political party, and no inter-ference from foreign entities. Eorts at voter suppression and elec-tion tampering at the local, state, or national levels shall be a federal crime. Within one year prior to a presidential election, all announced candidates shall publicly disclose their federal tax returns for the prior ve years, with appropriate redaction of Social Security numbers and other private information. Point 7. AMP asserts that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees all people equality before the law, and that discrimination based on mat-ters over which the individual has no control, including but not limited to race, color, gender, national origin, and sexual orientation, is wrong and such discrimination should be prohibited at the national, state, and local levels.32The Moderates’ Manifesto

Point 8. AMP asserts that the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses of the First Amendment create a system of strict government neutrality toward and non-interference with religious and philosophical beliefs and practices. This principle can be summed up with the slogan: “Religion—In your Heart, In your Home, In your House of Worship, but Not in the Halls of Government.” Philosophical beliefs include but are not limited to non-belief in one or more deities. Citizens shall have the right to practice their beliefs as they see t so long as they do not harm or coerce others or expect govern-ment authority to coerce others for them. No national, state, or local tax revenue shall go to the support of any religious organization. AMP asserts that the Constitution should be amended as follows: Point 9. “Unless otherwise prohibited by this Constitution, all laws passed by Congress and signed by the President shall apply with equal force and eect to all members of Congress, the Executive branch, and their respective employees and agents.” Point 10. “Any member of Congress who receives anything of value, directly or indirectly, from a person, corporation, organization, union, or other legal entity shall be disqualied from voting on any legislation which aects such person, corporation, organization, union, or other le-gal entity other than through laws of general and universal application.”—OR—POINT 10A. “Any and all political donations to members of Congress and candidates for election to Congress will be ltered through a process where the identity of the donors and the amount of the donations are concealed from the intended member or candidate.” 33The Moderate’s Manifesto

Point 11. “Discrimination on the basis of sex or gender shall be prohib-ited. Congress and the several states shall have the authority to enact laws for the purpose of ensuring equal pay for equal work as between men and women.” Point 12. “The Electoral College and all references to it in the Constitu-tion are hereby abolished, and the President and Vice-President shall be elected by direct popular vote of all eligible voters.” Point 13. “The right to vote is a fundamental right of all adult citizens. The practices of partisan gerrymandering of Congressional districts and state legislative districts, and voter suppression are prohibited. The courts of the United States, including but not limited to the United States Supreme Court, shall have jurisdiction to hear and decide cases under this clause. State courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction to en-force these prohibitions in their respective states.” Point 14. The Second Amendment will have this second clause added to the existing language: “Congress and the states shall have the power under the Second Amendment to impose reasonable regulations on the sale, possession, and use of rearms and ammunition of all types for the purpose of promoting public safety.” Point 15. “Congress shall have the power under the Interstate Commerce clause to create, fund, and direct federal agencies for the purpose of carrying out congressional objectives. Such federal agencies may promulgate rules and regulations for that purpose. Wherever pos-sible, rules and regulations should be written in plain English.” 34The Moderates’ Manifesto

Point 16. “For all purposes under the Constitution and all laws en-acted by Congress and signed by the President, corporations and simi-lar business organizations shall not be considered people, but shall be deemed to be articial legal entities only for the purposes of conducting normal business, but not for purposes of voting, inuencing the out-come of elections, or the passage of legislation.” Point 17. AMP asserts that education is a fundamental right of all citizens of all ages, that government at the local, state, and federal lev-els shall provide appropriate expenditures for that purpose. AMP also asserts that courses in science shall exclusively teach evolution through natural selection. Point 18. AMP asserts that access to quality health care, while not a constitutional right, is an essential service to the public that govern-ment has a responsibility to provide, whether through regulation of the private insurance market and/or through direct government expendi-ture. Government may consider legislation to regulate the health care and health insurance industries in the manner of public utilities. Citizens have the right to select their providers without arbitrary restriction by insurance company or government decisions, to pay equal rates for coverage without regard to race or gender, to have equivalent coverage for physical and mental illness, and to have coverage for all conditions, pre-existing or otherwise. 35The Moderate’s Manifesto

Contents

Contents

CHAPTER THREE“MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU”

POP QUIZ ONE. Please identify the authors of these quotes. Hint—they are Americans. No cheating. The answers are on the next page. 1. “The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual capacities.” 2. “Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work –work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stie it.”3. “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one an-other, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of indus-try and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”4. “We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.”“MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU” (Because it is with any Government) or What is the Role of Government?38The Moderates’ Manifesto

Ready? The authors’ names have been added to the respective quotes. 1. “The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of peo-ple, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual ca-pacities.” - President Abraham Lincoln2. “Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stie it.”- President Ronald Reagan First Inaugural AddressThe same president said in the same address “In this present crisis, gov-ernment is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”3. “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injur-ing one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” - President Thomas Jeerson4. “We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to oth-ers, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unwor-thy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.” - President Barack Obama39“May The Force Be With You”

One more quote without a quiz: Conservatives frequently recite the say-ing “That government is best which governs the least.” A catchy slogan that resonates with many people. But there is a problem. ... That’s not the whole quote. The full quotation from Thomas Jeerson is “That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.” Makes a dierence, right?Jeerson’s close friend James Madison echoed that comment with his own remark “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” So what should happen in situations where people can’t or won’t disci-pline themselves, when men aren’t angels? Then government must take on an increased role. Conservatives frequently view the world as if there is a single line running between an individual or group and the govern-ment, whether local, state, or federal. In this mono-linear, zero-sum, tug-of-war viewpoint, anything that expands the role of government has a corresponding restriction or diminution of the freedom of the individu-al or the group. Therefore, in order to maximize personal freedom and autonomy, government must be shrunk to the barest minimum. In the words of Grover Norquist, to make government small enough that some-one could drown it in a bathtub. A charming thought for the nation the Founders created. This linear viewpoint would look like this, just you vs. the government on the question of power: GOVERNMENTYOU40The Moderates’ Manifesto

Any encroachment by the government would curtail the area of privacy that the individual would have to exercise their personal freedom. But what if the way to look at the government/individual relationship is not mono-linear, not just two sided, and is not a zero-sum game? What if the best depiction is not a single line at all, but a triangle? GOVERNMENTYOUTHE REST OF SOCIETYThe strictly linear view overlooks the fact that there are multiple (in-deed millions of) individuals and hundreds of thousands of groups and factions in society. And any of those other individuals (think crim-inals, polluters, con artists, scammers, greedy businesses, or even just people who generally take advantage of other people) can do some not-so-nice-things to other people. You can be just as broke, just as ill, or even just as dead if someone or some private entity in society sells unsafe products, ruins the environment, cuts corners on safety, runs a shady business, makes health care or food unaordable, as if a gov-ernment did something wrong.41“May The Force Be With You”

Government, acting through law, can and should enact and enforce rules that protect citizens from the bad actions of other citizens, whether those actions are intentional or inadvertent.GOVERNMENTYOUTHE REST OF SOCIETYLAWSGovernment in large measure exists to protect its citizens from the wrongs that the less upright members of society may inict, on pur-pose or otherwise, on the ordinary cooperative citizens. [Points 1 and 2]42The Moderates’ Manifesto

And as to the argument about “state’s rights,” the proper rebuttal is that national problems require national solutions. No one state could eectively regulate air travel safety, drug safety standards, product safety in a mass market, or environmental standards where water and air move freely and expect to solve diculties of a national scope. [Point 5] A fundamental problem with the United States under the Arti-cles of Confederation immediately after the Revolutionary War was that the thirteen states acted as if they were separate and independent with a very weak central government. The Constitutional Convention and the eventual ratication of the Constitution (with the adoption of the Bill of Rights) cured many if not most of the ills of the Articles and set the country on the path to greatness.•••Thought Experiment. This one consists of three questions.Q1. When you and your family go to a nice sit-down restau-rant and order your meals, do you go into the kitchen to check it for cleanliness and inspect the entrees to make sure the ingredients are fresh and wholesome? Q2. You are at the airport ready to board a plane for a long-awaited vacation. Do you go down to the tarmac and inspect the engines, the landing gear, and the control surfac-es of the plane, plus go into the cockpit to check the mainte-nance log?Q3. You are about to make a signicant deposit to your sav-ings account at your local bank. Do you go behind the tellers’ counter and inspect the bank’s books and cash drawers to see if it is solvent? 43“May The Force Be With You”

The answers to all three questions in a resounding NO! If you tried any of these you would likely be (1) chased out by the chef waving a cleaver, (2) tackled by airport security and tak-en to a holding cell, or (3) arrested for attempted bank rob-bery. The link between all three situations is that there is no need for your eorts at private inspections because govern-ment, at the local, state, or federal levels, does that work for everyone and sets a legal standard that all the organizations are required to follow. Sure, there are occasional slip-ups or circumstances where a regulated entity breaks the rules. But food safety, air travel safety, and bank nancial security regu-lation are all solidly established in well-organized societies by operation of law.•••A basic question for all forms of government is what it does with the use of force regarding its citizens. A tyrant uses force to clamp down on the citizens or subjects and restricts their freedom to speak, associate, protest, etc. as they see t. Even the most enlightened democracy uses force to uphold law.The British philosopher Bertrand Russell observed:“The use of force stands in need of control by a public neutral authori-ty, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice. Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state; in relations between na-tions, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will have to be some interna-tional parliament.”44The Moderates’ Manifesto

If a citizen’s conduct is so bad that it harms others and disrupts civil so-ciety, armed law enforcement personnel can arrest an alleged criminal for breaking the law, require the defendant to stand trial, and if con-victed, imprison the wrongdoer under the watch of armed guards. In the civil area of torts and contracts, a dispute can be taken to court, a judgment rendered, and if the losing party does not pay, the court will enforce the judgment by having law enforcement personnel seize the defendant’s property, or if contempt is involved, arrest and jail the party in contempt. Criminal or civil, law is ultimately a matter of the legally controlled use of force as an alternative to violent self-help. Anglo-American law going all the way back to the Magna Carta emphasizes the principles that law binds both those ocials who govern and those citizens who are sub-ject to government, and that the arbitrary use of force by government is constrained by law.A frequent operating method of the far Right is to initiate culture wars to iname their political base and boost turn-out at the polls for their candidates. One overarching purpose of this Manifesto is to identify the “just-right spot” for the level of government that does enough to pro-mote the common good of the people but not so much as to overwhelm individual liberties.A suitable approach might be to require that government be “culturally neutral” so that it does not favor one lifestyle or personal philosophy over another. It would appear that many on the far Right would want to use the coercive force of law exercised though local, state, and federal government authority to mandate a universal orthodox lifestyle remi-45“May The Force Be With You”

niscent of “Ozzie and Harriet”, “Father Knows Best”, or “Leave It To Beaver.” Under cultural neutrality, a government would never use the power of law to force the standards, lifestyle, morals, or religion of one group on other groups. If government operates properly, each individual will have a “Zone of Personal Autonomy” created by a combination of con-stitutional rights including a right of privacy, an eective legal system to enforce rights, the right to own and use private property so long as no one else is harmed, government cultural neutrality, and a social con-tract where people respect each other’s rights. It is not written in the Constitution, but “Live and let live.” is a pretty good organizing principle for a free society. It is also more polite than “Mind your own d*** busi-ness!” 46The Moderates’ Manifesto

You might be interested in reading:Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy McLean, Penguin Books (2017)The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, by Zachary Carter, Random House (2020) Burning Down the House, by Andrew Koppelman, St. Martin’s Press (2022)Enlightenment Now, by Steven Pinker, Viking Penguin (2016) 46 Pages: Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Pointto Independence, by Scott Liell, Running Press (2004)First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Ro-mans and How That Shaped Our Country, by Thomas Ricks, Harper (2021) 47“May The Force Be With You”

Contents

Contents

CHAPTER FOUR“WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

A Brief Introduction to Game TheoryWe have all played rock, paper, scissors as kids and probably with our kids. There have even been cases where a judge has ordered attorneys to solve a discovery dispute with one round of rock, paper, scissors on the courthouse steps. But even rock, paper, scissors can be an intro-duction to the fascinating study of Game Theory, an intellectual tool that has applications in economics, politics, business, biology, and the strategy and tactics of war.At its most basic, Game Theory analyses how players, faced with cer-tain payos, make choices that aect outcomes for themselves and the other players. The number of players can range from two to mil-lions acting in groups. The payos can be positive and benecial, or negative and disastrous, or something in between. The choices can be made with complete knowledge of the situation, partial knowledge, or total ignorance of the circumstances. The choices can be binary yes/no or a range of possibilities. The outcomes can be frozen after one round of game play, or a product of a nearly innite series of plays. But so long as you know something about the number of players, their choices, and the payos, and have a passing knowledge of Game The-ory, you can make some educated predictions about what the players will do and how the game will go. The players can use what they know or think they know about their opponent to plan their moves and make their choices.Sherlock Holmesin The Adventure of the Abbey Grange“Come Watson come, the game’s afoot!” “Life is a game. All you have to do is know how to play it.”Unknown50The Moderates’ Manifesto

To go back to rock, paper, scissors, it is a two player, three choice game that is a zero-sum game because what one player wins in a round is ex-actly matched by the other player’s loss. There is no net gain. If there were a way for both players to get some positive benet from game play (apart from just the fun of it), it would be a positive-sum game. If both players were worse o after each round (Mom punishes them both for wasting time), it would be a negative-sum game. As a personal aside, people may tend to downplay the signicance of Game Theory because of the name—Game Theory. It is true that Game Theory had its beginnings with thinking about chess and other recre-ational games. But in its full intellectual development, Game Theory has been applied to topics as serious as nuclear war and been considered a serious enough discipline that Nobel Prizes have been awarded for schol-arly insights into it. John Nash of A Beautiful Mind fame was the rst of fteen Game Theory winners of a Nobel. If I were in charge of all names, the proper title would be Interaction The-ory, because it sounds more serious and looks closely at multiple forms of interaction between people, groups, companies, nations, and even animals. But Game Theory has stuck as a title and that’s what it will be called here. Prisoner’s DilemmaThere are multiple names for various games with diering payos—Stag Hunt, Chicken, Escalation, Cake Cutting, and several others. But one par-ticular game has received the most study and oers interesting insights to human behavior. That game is Prisoner’s Dilemma.The game gets its colorful title from the hypothetical that was the rst and still the best description of it. The game goes like this:51“WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

Two criminals Andy and Bucky are arrested and separately interrogated by the police. Andy and Bucky can’t communicate with each other, and they have no prearranged plan. The ocers tell them both separately, “Look, we know you committed these crimes. If you confess rst, and testify against your pal, we will let you o with no charges. But if you stay silent and your pal rats on you, we will throw the book at you for se-rious felony time, and he walks. Make up your mind. The clock is ticking.” What is the dilemma here? If both crooks go for the ocers’ deal and both confess, they have turned on each other and both Andy and Bucky do felony time. If they stay silent and don’t rat on their pal, the police can’t prove the most serious crimes and they both will get lighter sen-tences. A grid can be used to outline the players, their choices, and the outcomes in arbitrary units of value to the players:ANDY’S CHOICESStay Silent ConfessBUCKY’S CHOICESStay SilentConfess3,0003,00005,00005,0001,0001,000Note on scoring: The payos for each player’s choice are listed within each cell in the location closest to that player’s name. Player listed on top, their results at the top of the cell.Player listed on left, their results to left of the cell.This notation system will apply throughout this chapter. 52The Moderates’ Manifesto

Both players reason without the ability to communicate with the other: “Hmmm, 5,000 in value is better than 3,000 if the other guy stays silent, and 1,000 in value is better than 0 if he confesses. So, no matter what he does, I’m better o confessing. Guard! I’m ready to talk!” And in the other wing of the jail, his co-defendant is using the same reasoning and reaching the same conclusion. By striving for the best deal for them-selves by confessing, each one makes a choice that is worse o than if they had cooperated with each other by staying silent. The key point is that pursuing what appears to be the “best choice” for the individual in certain situations leads to a result that is worse for the group and for each player. When the value of a tempting alternative is better than the reward for a cooperative approach and the value of be-ing exploited is higher than the worst outcome, there is a strong incen-tive to act selshly rather than cooperatively. And this key observation can be extended to situations beyond a hypo-thetical jailhouse interrogation. This central lesson of Prisoner’s Dilem-ma has several real-world applications:• The United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a decades-long arms race (which carries over with modern day Russia) where each tried to gain the upper hand with more nuclear weapons for strict-ly unilateral advantage. India and Pakistan are currently in an arms race. The cooperative solution is arms control treaties.• Great Britain left the European Union in Brexit because it thought it could do better in the world economy by going it alone rather than cooperating with other countries across the Channel.• Trade wars between nations with a series of rising tari barriers winds up hurting both nations (and perhaps the world economy) through reduced international commerce. This happened in the early days of the Great Depression. Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution forbids taris on commerce between states, preventing a trade war within the nation. 53“WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

• A run on a bank is a situation where depositors all try to gain an in-dividual advantage by withdrawing their money, while if everyone does it, the bank fails. As of this writing, Silicon Valley Bank has col-lapsed because of a run on the bank, and other banks are currently at risk. Closer to home, let’s consider big corporations and their choices as to spending money (and reducing prots) on safety for their employees and the public, and environmental protection eorts. The dollar gures represent corporate prots in a market where customers shift busi-ness to the lowest priced seller:MEGA CORPSpend $ on Safety Cut Safety BudgetGIANT INC.Spend $ on SafetyCut Safety Budget$4 Billion$1 Billion$4 Billion$7 Billion$2 Billion$2 Billion$7 Billion $1 Billion54The Moderates’ Manifesto

With major incentives to maximize prots (think executive bonuses, stock options, CEOs’ exorbitant salaries, Wall Street accolades, plain old greed, etc.), corporations can, if not regulated, race to the bottom against their competitors with lower budgets for maintenance, worker safety, environmental controls, and consumer/customer safety, all to the detriment to society. It goes against human nature to think that a person or organization can be completely impartial in evaluating their own conduct or their legal position. This is reected in our reliance on neutral judges and juries to decide cases in court. Just as no one can be the judge of their own case in court, no business can be the judge of how much regula-tion is enough. [Points 2 and 15]Tragedy of the Commons Here’s another Thought Experiment: You and your family live in Merry Olde England in a rural village. You have a small house, and you graze your sheep in the village commons, a nite area of pastureland set aside for everyone in the village to graze their ocks without limitation as to how many animals each family can have. You need to make a de-cision each Spring on whether to keep your ock the same size or in-crease it through purchases and breeding. Other families do the same. Increasing your ock will make your family better o with more wool to sell and mutton to eat. What do you do?The “logical” answer is to increase your ock, of course. You want the best for your family and yourself. Better prosperity benets a house-hold in many ways. But what happens in the long run to the village as a whole?55“WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

There is a good chance the village and by extension your sheep, your family, and you will starve. Why? Because every other family in the village is faced with the same decision and the same temptation—to take advantage of the “free” resource of the village commons. It only makes sense to increase each family’s ock with free grazing. But if everyone does the same thing, the number of sheep will increase to the point that the grass can’t grow fast enough to feed the rising numbers of grazers. The sheep population plummets due to overgrazing and eventually the people starve or move elsewhere in search of food and forage. You might ask, “Well, as a matter of history, the entire population of rural English did not starve. What was the solution?” The answer might surprise you—the invention of private property. Instead of pastureland held in common by all villagers where each family could increase the sheep population without immediate cost to their own-ers, a shift to private ownership of distinct parcels linked the costs of increasing the size of the ocks with the benets. Each farmer had the incentive to manage their ock with an eye on costs and long-term sustainability of the grass. This is not to say that famine from civil war, drought, or animal illness was eliminated, but the Tragedy of the Commons was avoided. 56The Moderates’ Manifesto

Fast forward several centuries, and ask do we still see examples of Tragedy of the Commons? Yes, and here are a few case studies:• The drought in the Southwest has reduced the ow of water in the Colorado River and lowered the water in reservoirs to dangerous lev-els. Mexico and the states in the region that divide the river water are each trying to do the best for their populations by claiming the maxi-mum share. (As of this writing, torrential rains and record snows are having a positive eect on available water supplies, but the sharing problem remains.) • There are limits on crab shing in the Gulf of Alaska and edible sh in the Atlantic o New England to prevent the collapse of breeding stocks. Fishing for chinook salmon in the Pacic Northwest is being restricted for the same reason. This problem has already occurred with the supply of cod in the Grand Banks and blue n tuna else-where.• In general, pollution is the consumption of nite resources of clean air and water. If every person and every business “takes” as much free air and water as they can to clean up their messes, the commu-nity (and maybe the world) suers from an eventual lack of useable air and water through pollution. • Highway construction is supposed to improve trac ow and reduce travel time for the community, but each new highway attracts more drivers who try to take advantage of the free common highway re-source.• In times of scarcity due to natural disasters or pandemics (think of the recent COVID 19 pandemic), people resort to hoarding of essen-tials like food, water, and even toilet paper. By trying to unilaterally improve their own situation by having as much as possible for their individual use, hoarders create scarcity and empty store shelves to the detriment the community. 57“WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

Once you are alert to Tragedy of the Commons and Prisoner’s Dilem-ma, you are much more likely to notice real world examples of both in news stories and your local community.Free Riders and NIMBYTwo specic examples of civic behavior that can be best explained by Game Theory are the diculties with free riders and people who as-sert NIMBY. Free riders are people or groups who take advantage of low cost or no cost opportunities paid for at the expense of others. The phenomena of NIMBY, which stands for “Not In MY Back Yard!”, is the situation where individuals or groups reject the placement of so-cially undesirable facilities in proximity to their location.To apply Game Theory to the free rider problem, visualize a public transportation system where the fare is relatively low, but the honor system applies—riders should pay but can avoid paying without con-sequence. The cooperative action is for all riders to voluntarily pay the fare and support the transportation provider, but the non-coop-erative choice is to ride free to the destination and avoid the fare. If too many riders choose not to pay, revenues plummet and the sys-tem can’t cover its costs. The end results are that the provider must move to mandatory fares for everyone or go out of business. Looking at NIMBY, the players have the choice of allowing a Locally Undesired Land Use (known in regional planning circles as a LULU) or blocking it through a local ordinance, zoning regulation and/or pro-tests. The LULU might be a drug treatment facility, a halfway house for felons, a recycling center, a jail, or just a strip mall. The unilateral-ly advantageous choice for a particular locale would be to reject the new project. But if every community in the region makes the same choice, the entire region suers by not having the needed but unde-sirable services available. 58The Moderates’ Manifesto

The common thread of the free rider problems and NIMBY are the questions: what if everybody does it? What are the consequences if peo-ple are tempted by something that benets only them and they make that choice? Like the Tragedy of the Commons, if too many players in a particular game make the uncooperative choice for their own benet, the entire group or community suers. Perhaps the biggest free rider problem today are billionaires and giant corporations that pay little or no taxes. They benet from the taxes oth-er people pay by getting national defense for their world-wide opera-tions, protection from crime through the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, civic infrastructure to move products, public education for their workers, and other civic goodies, all at little or no cost to them. As Oliver Wendell Holmes and other notables have said: “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” There are some who think they can and should get a free ride on civilization as we know it through a favorable tax code. [Point 3] But good government, not controlled by special inter-ests, can enact and enforce an equitable tax system. [Points 4 and 10]59“WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

Solutions to Prisoner’s Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons: Tit For Tat, the Golden Rule, and GovernmentGame Theory researchers, using both computerized game play and human testing, have tried to come up with the best way to “win” at Prisoner’s Dilemma. Scholars and researchers have been trying to “solve” Prisoner’s Dilemma for as long as the concept has been around. But there has been no solid, universally accepted answer on how to avoid the tension between the temptation of unilaterally advantageous actions and the wiser course of looking for a cooper-ative solution. A major factor is whether the Prisoner’s Dilemma is a one-shot game or the subject of repeat interactions between the players. The two basic approaches to solving the dilemma are: (1) an advanced plan or expectation with a level of trust between the play-ers, and (2) a central authority outside the players who can impose conduct standards and/or change the payos for dierent choices. Decades of studies have shown that in a repeated series of Prisoner’s Dilemma games, a strategy of cooperation on the rst move, then mirroring the opponent’s choice in the long run creates the best re-sults for a player through extended cooperation. This strategy goes by the name “Tit For Tat” because of the equivalent response to the opponent’s moves. It is also worth noting that if both players use “Tit For Tat”, they tie, maximize their own respective scores and the total for both. From a Game Theory point of view, long-run mutual cooper-ation is the best mechanism for achieving maximum benet for ev-eryone.60The Moderates’ Manifesto

Does this have a parallel in the real world outside the connes of Game Theory testing? Yes, and we know it as the Golden Rule. We were all taught in one way or another to treat people as we would want to be treated ourselves. Kant’s Categorical Imperative states: “Act only ac-cording to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” Kant makes it a little complicated, but the basic idea is to act by moral rules as if those rules were to become binding principles for everyone. On another front, twenty-two dier-ent religions have a variation of the Golden Rule. Confucius said it too. Even before anyone ever thought of Game Theory, humanity hit on a fundamental principle for social success. In the real world, we are much more likely to take cooperative steps when dealing with family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors than we are with strangers. With people we know and trust and expect to have future interactions with, we can factor in the likelihood that our current cooperation will be reciprocated by their cooperation with us in the future. One reason why used car salesmen have such bad reputations for hon-esty and trustworthiness is that their deals are likely to be one-shot transactions with no expectations of future sales or service. Hence, they have the nancial temptation to sell lemons, hide defects, charge unfair prices, or all three. In looking at the original formulation of Prisoner’s Dilemma, suggested solutions arise that involve a crime family or a crime boss as a central authority gure. An organized group of criminals can have internal codes that: (1) create a standard and an expectation that silence in the face of interrogation is the norm, (2) that a criminal’s wife and kids will be cared for while the oender is in jail or prison, and (3) those who turn state’s evidence will get “whacked” or will “sleep with the shes”, which certainly changes the payo for ratting on a colleague. No one has calculated the value of taking the cannoli.61“WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

The “real” answer is a third party outside of the two players caught in the dilemma. That third party can be government, setting standards for behavior and changing the payos for highly uncooperative ac-tions. Government acts to control individuals’ conduct by passing criminal laws that impose signicant penalties for bad conduct that harms others. A rational criminal (it is not always a certainty that “ra-tional” applies to the thinking of major rule breakers) is assumed to factor in the penalty and be deterred by the increased “cost” of a par-ticular action. Is it worth 20 years for a bank heist that nets a handful of cash in the teller’s drawer? There is a saying in the realm of criminal law “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”In dealing with strangers, a functioning legal system that enforces contracts can help engender cooperation because people in the com-mercial realm know if they default on a contract, a court is likely to impose a damages sanction on them for that failure to cooperate by performing the deal. Tort law sets universal standards for cooperation in safe conduct for driving on public streets, maintaining property, op-erating a business, and personal conduct that aects other people.What Does Game Theory Teach Us?Really advanced Game Theory can be dizzying in its complexity and equations. But even knowing just the basics of Game Theory and how the incentives of cooperation or selsh competition can help citizens and ocials create a more eective, ecient, and just government. [Point 1] Knowledge of Game Theory is not a cure-all, but it is a valuable tool for understanding the interactions with the economy and society in general.62The Moderates’ Manifesto

Life is not a zero-sum game. Life can be rich and rewarding as we seek cooperation over confrontation. All of society has the ability to play a positive sum game and be better o in the long run with cooperation. But politicians think of and have made the process of governing a zero sum or even a negative sum game. No political party will give the other a win, even one desired by a majority of the public, out of spite, revenge, distrust, or just a desire to play politics as a bareknuckle brawl. Cam-paign contributions encourage elected ocials to benet their donors to the detriment of the community. [Points 10 and 10A] Other politicians create a negative sum political climate by dividing groups in society and encouraging them to ght among themselves along ethnic or class lines. Being able to evaluate proposed legislation or executive action through the lens of Game Theory and avoiding the pitfalls that Game Theory exposes (like Tragedy of the Commons or Free Rider or NIMBY) gives everyone, in government or in the general public, a deeper insight into how people and groups interact.63“WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

Truth … is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.John von Neumann • Inventor of Game Theory

You might be interested in reading: Prisoner’s Dilemma: John Von Neuman, Game Theory and the Puzzle of the Bomb by William Poundstone, Anchor (2011)Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life by Len Fisher, Basic Books (2008) Gaming the Vote: Why Elections aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It) by William Poundstone, Hill and Wang (2008)Nudge: The Final Edition by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Penguin Books (2021)Outplayed: How Game Theory Is Used Against Us by David Lockwood, Greenleaf Book Group (2022)Getting To Yes 3rd. Ed., by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Penguin Books (2011)Wikipedia entries for “Game Theory,” “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” and “Golden Rule.”Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths—And How We Can Stop Them by Bill Eddy, Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2019)Note: this is a topic where outside reading will explain Game Theory more clearly and in greater depth than this one-chapter summary.65“WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

Contents

Contents

CHAPTER FIVE“ECONOMICS: THE NOT SO DISMAL SCIENCE”

James Carvill“It’s the economy, stupid!”“Economics is a very dicult subject. I compare it to trying to learn how to repair a car when the engine is running.”Ben BernankeFormer Chair of the Federal Reserve “Economics exists to make astrology look respectable.”John Kenneth GalbraithGovernments and their concurrent economies have gone hand-in-hand throughout history. And the study of any economy involves looking at markets. Conservatives talk frequently and glowingly about the “free market!” and “market-based solutions!” But be alert, there is some tricky word play at work here. A free market generally means a system of transactions be-tween buyers and sellers interacting without government interference, like price controls, in market operations. There are major benets to society when markets work just right. Prices obey supply and demand, there is little or no waste of resources, goods and services are exchanged eciently, and market change occurs over time as the society evolves. But there is a catch.68The Moderates’ Manifesto

The kind of market that truly benets all of society is not a “free market,” it’s an “ideal market” as dened by economists. In an ideal market, there are many buyers and many sellers, everyone has very good or close to ideal information about market conditions, and there is easy entry into the market for outsiders who wish to become suppliers of prod-ucts. What many conservatives tout as a “free market” is far from ideal because there may be few or even just one dominant seller or buyer, monopoly power can exist, market knowledge is controlled by a few in-siders, and there are huge barriers to entry for an entity trying to get a start from scratch. Barriers to entry can be enormous when you think of the cost of a new oil renery, auto assembly plant, a eet of airplanes, or computer chip factory. 69“Economics: The Not So Dismal Science”

POP QUIZ TWO. Question 1. When you think of competition, does Exxon compete with Mobil Oil in the petroleum business worldwide? Answer 1. No. Exxon and Mobil merged in November of 1999 to form ExxonMobil, a gigantic international corporation with activities all over the world. ExxonMobil has a market value as of July 2024 of $520.68 billion. Question 2. When you think of competition for viewers and advertising, do Google and YouTube compete?Answer 2. No. Google bought YouTube in October of 2006, and they are now both under the corporate umbrella of Alphabet. Alphabet has a mar-ket value as of 2024 of $2.2 trillion.Question 3. Will Kroger and Albertsons continue to compete in the gro-cery business?Answer 3. Probably not. Plans are in eect as of this writing to have the number 1 grocery chain in the nation (Kroger) and the number 2 (Alb-ertsons) merge in the near future. Albertsons had earlier merged with Safeway in 2015. There is government opposition currently to the Kroger/Albertsons deal.End of quiz. How did you do? Not as much competition as you expected?70The Moderates’ Manifesto

Please don’t misunderstand. I support capitalism as does the AMP plat-form [Point 2], and I use the goods and services of many huge corpora-tions (Apple to write this, Google to research this, Honda to get to work, Amazon to buy the books I recommend, Facebook to stay in touch with friends, Microsoft for word processing this Manifesto, etc.) Capitalism has brought the world material prosperity unimaginable 200 years ago. But it is the unchecked power of enormous corporations that distorts the functioning of markets, elections, and government that needs to be regulated for the common good by preventing market abuses through monopoly power. And it is certainly something the Founding Fathers nev-er anticipated that huge corporations would manipulate both election outcomes and the behavior of elected ocials once in oce. [Points 10 and 16] The United States does not have a health care problem; the U.S. has a health care nancing problem. Conservatives speak of “market-based solutions” to problems with health care costs and delivery in the United States. But they never seem to come up with a specic workable plan. Part of the problem is that hospital chains and big pharmaceutical com-panies strive to maximize their monopoly prots to the detriment of pa-tients. Another aspect is that people don’t always price shop for health care, they want the easiest to access and “the best” for their loved ones and themselves. The health care system and especially the nancial side of it needs signicant regulation for the common good. [Point 18]71“Economics: The Not So Dismal Science”

There are critics of economic regulation who suggest that the “good” business leaders and corporations don’t need regulation because they will do right voluntarily. But to be eective and fair, law must be written and applied evenly with no loopholes or special treatment. Writing rules and regulations in plain English will lower the cost of compliance. Leonar-do Da Vinci once said: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Govern-ment should be legally sophisticated in writing clear and easy to follow regulations. To control the “bad” corporations and prevent undercutting “good” corporations by shorting environmental and safety protections, laws and regulations must cover everyone uniformly. [Points 2 and 15] Good ethical corporations are protected from unscrupulous bad corpo-rations when they all must compete on a level and equitable economic playing eld with uniform standards. Another area where economic words are important but sometimes dis-torted to win an argument is the use of the word “socialism.” Conservatives frequently label (improperly as we will see) worthwhile social programs as “socialist” or “socialism” in an eort through fear to block legislation or eliminate funding. What is socialism really?To put it briey, Marx described capitalism as a system of private owner-ship of the means of production that exploits workers by seizing the extra value created by selling at high prices while paying low wages. Commu-nism is a system, led by an “enlightened” Communist party, where gov-ernment owns the means of production and all public goods like housing. Decisions about what to produce, how much, and at what price are all controlled by the central government without input from market data. A mantra of Communism is “From each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs.” It is obvious that this is not the best set of in-centives where more is taken from you if you are productive, and more is given to you if you are not. No wonder the Soviet Union collapsed from within. 72The Moderates’ Manifesto

Socialism is supposedly the ideal system where Communism works well because people have changed their nature to the point where they need no coercion to accept the system where government and the party con-trol everything—work, housing, health care, education, the economy. Under socialism, society is supposed to see “the withering away of the state,” meaning that the people are so accepting of the socialist system that no central government is necessary. Needless to say, experience and history tell us that communist countries have to utilize terror, re-pression, surveillance, and even mass murder to force their citizens to accept the Communist system under dictates of Communist leadership. One word—gulag.And modern-day Russia is actually not much dierent in concept from Communist. Under Communist, the central government owns the means of production. Modern Russia is governed by Putin and his circle of cro-ny oligarchs. The oligarchs, after giving Putin a piece of the action, own all the major industries that constitute the means of production. Putin and his pals control markets, block competition, tolerate corruption to their benet, stie dissent, and run the economy with a thin veneer of an elected government. The central government as run by Putin owns the means of production. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. How does this relate to American governance? Conservatives use “so-cialism” as a scare word to block the programs they oppose. But it is NOT socialism to have public parks, a good education system, good in-frastructure, eective delivery of health care, and conservation of natu-ral resources. [Points 17 and 18] It is the direct opposite of socialism for the capitalist system to have the mechanisms to deliver privately made abundant goods and services to a mass market, to have a well-educated workforce with incentives to innovate, and to have your citizens healthy enough to be productive and happy. 73“Economics: The Not So Dismal Science”

Comfort and habits let us be ready to forgo, but I am not ready for a creed which does not care how much it destroys the liberty and security of daily life, which uses deliberately the weapons of persecution, destruction and international strife.~ John Maynard Keynes

You might be interested in reading:The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, by Zachary Carter, Random House (2020)Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, Anchor Books (2016)Capitalism in America, by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Woodridge, Pen-guin Books (2018)How the South Won the Civil War by Heather Cox Richardson, Oxford Uni-versity Press (2020)A Moderate’s Manifesto by Richard Dworkin, in American Purpose, No-vember 2020A Moderate Manifesto by David Brooks, New York Times, March 2, 2009 75“Economics: The Not So Dismal Science”

Contents

Contents

CHAPTER SIX“THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW…”

“We should be eternally vigilent against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.”~Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Oliver Wendell HolmesThe Common LawThere is a legal maxim so old it exists in Latin “Nemo iudex in causa sua” – No one can be a judge of their own case.“The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.”Experience tells us:—Law is a link.Citizens elect their representatives, federal, state, and local.Those elected representatives, acting as the legitimate government and the voice of the people, are expected to pass and enforce controlling principles that promote the common good. [Point 1] This link, the con-nection between government objectives and citizens’ actions, is law. —Law is an instrument of social control.If government (and behind that government, its citizens) wants to dis-courage certain conduct, such as crimes, it passes laws to deter the bad conduct we call criminal activity. It passes laws that encourage benecial conduct in areas like safety, conservation, business regulation, and the environment. [Point 2]79“There Ought To Be A Law…”

A statement by my Property Law professor, ten minutes into my rst class of rst day of law school.- “Law is a process of dispute resolution.” Craig Heckman, Esq.- “Law exists to resolve disputes with reason instead of might.”80The Moderates’ Manifesto

A functioning legal system provides for procedural institutions and mechanisms to resolve disputes between people, groups, and entities in order to avoid violent self-help and vigilante justice. By providing for stable laws, courts, judges, juries, and other tribunals, a functioning government creates neutral forums for dispute resolution. A good legal system also works to prevent disputes by having rules for various doc-uments and procedures, such as contracts, deeds, wills, public records, and nancial instruments.—Law denes and sets the bounds of the social contract.Political thinkers going back to John Locke and David Hume (who pre-date the American revolution and inuenced the Founding Fathers) have written about the concept of a social contract. The social contract is an organizing principle in which citizens “trade” some limits on their rights to do anything they want in return for their follow citizens “trad-ing” some of their rights to do anything. In this way, people form society out of anarchy and avoid infringement of their rights by mutually agreed reciprocal constraints. In Game Theory language, the players in society agree in advance to mutually cooperate and not make uncooperative choices that harm others. While no one literally signs the social con-tract, the body of laws, customs, and societal norms gives everyone the framework for a functioning society. 81“There Ought To Be A Law…”

Thought Experiment: You want to participate in a public rally to protest the overreach of government and its restriction of your freedoms. You drive to your destination staying on the right side of the center line, stopping at red lights, and yield-ing when you make left turns. You arrive at the rally without any trac incident. You protest vigorously. You drive home safely. What just happened?Government and the social contract have protected you. There is no diminution in your rights because you obeyed the trac laws and relied on other drivers to do the same. You give up the “right” to drive left of center and barrel through intersections because you know, even without thinking con-sciously, that other drivers giving up those “rights” protects both you and them. Trac laws are just part of the social contract that we live with and follow every day....82The Moderates’ Manifesto

An Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court over a hundred years ago spelled out in detail the trade-os that the social contract engen-ders where individuals give up a small fraction of their rights in return for other individuals curtaining their rights to do the same and thereby creating an organized society under law. [Point 1] The quote is long but well worth reading:83“There Ought To Be A Law…”

“But the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are man-ifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis, organized soci-ety could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy. Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which rec-ognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others. This court has more than once recognized it as a fundamental principle that per-sons and property are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State, of the perfect right of the legislature to do which no question ever was, or upon acknowledged general principles ever can be, made so far as natural per-sons are concerned.” (legal citations to cases omitted) In Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86, 137 U. S. 89, we said:“The possession and enjoyment of all rights are subject to such reasonable conditions as may be deemed by the gov-erning authority of the country essential to the safety, health, peace, good order and morals of the community. Even liberty itself, the greatest of all rights, is not unrestricted license to act according to one’s own will. It is only freedom from re-straint under conditions essential to the equal enjoyment of the same right by others. It is then liberty regulated by law.”In the constitution of Massachusetts adopted in 1780, it was laid down as a fundamental principle of the social compact 84The Moderates’ Manifesto

that the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each cit-izen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for “the common good,” and that government is institut-ed “for the common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people, and not for the prot, honor or private interests of anyone man, family or class of men.”“The good and welfare of the Commonwealth, of which the leg-islature is primarily the judge, is the basis on which the police power rests in Massachusetts. Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53, 84. Justice John Marshall Harlan, Jacobson vs. Massachusetts 197 U. S. 97, (1905)To give a context, the issue before the Supreme Court in the Jacobson case was the right of a resident of Massachusetts to decline to be vacci-nated during a smallpox epidemic. Sound familiar, doesn’t it?One area where the law is dramatically changing to the detriment of in-dividual rights is the topic of the separation of church and state. [Point 8] Current trends in U.S. Supreme Court decisions under its conservative wing are moving toward greater involvement of religious principles and groups, acting through state legislation and court precedent, in the aairs of government at the state and local level, hence aecting individuals.Compare these older pronouncements of the Supreme Court with more recent holdings. Note the dates of the decisions: “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and ocials, and to estab-lish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s 85“There Ought To Be A Law…”

right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the out-come of no elections.”“If there is any xed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no ocial, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be ortho-dox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opin-ion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith there-in. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.” Justice Robert Jackson West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)And this holding:The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one reli-gion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Nei-ther can force nor inuence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for enter-taining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or 86The Moderates’ Manifesto

small, can be levied to support any religious activities or insti-tutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the aairs of any religious organizations or groups, and vice versa. In the words of Jeerson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect “a wall of separation be-tween church and State.” [Point 8]Justice Hugo BlackEverson vs. Board of Education330 U.S. 1 (1947)•••Thought Experiment: Let’s pretend that you have 40 children, all roughly the same age. Each of them clamors to be your fa-vorite. All your children want to have special favors and get preferred treatment to the detriment of their siblings. A large number of the kids, rightly or wrongly, perceive that you like certain other ones better and react accordingly. Arguments, discord, even ghts break out because of jealousy and claims of unfairness. Home life becomes a constant battle for superi-ority and parental preference among the children.Now let’s suppose you are the government in a multi-religious nation. There are 40 major sects, each one seeking government favor as the “ocial” or “preferred” religion of the country. Re-ligious strife and even sectarian combat break out over which religion is “right” and should hold the preferred status in the nation.87“There Ought To Be A Law…”

The solution to both the family and the national competition be-tween the 40 faiths? Strict neutrality. Every parent knows this. The Founding Fathers knew this too, based on their knowledge of European history and the various religious wars that had wracked the European continent for centuries. So the Founders wrote strict neutrality into the First Amendment—“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,….”. The United States is not and cannot be a Christian nation, a Mormon nation, a Muslim nation, or one of any other sects, no more than Jimmy or Elizabeth can be the favored child and still maintain family harmony. 88The Moderates’ Manifesto

•••In noteworthy recent cases:• The Court has sharply curtailed the ability of the Federal gov-ernment to enforce voting rights and prevent voter suppression through use of pre-election supervision. Shelby County vs. Hold-er 570 U.S. 529 (2013) [Point 6]• The Court has declared that partisan gerrymandering is not a subject that federal district courts can rule on. Rucho vs. Common Cause, 588 U.S. 684, 139 S. Ct. 2484. [Points 6 and 13]• The Court has overruled Roe vs. Wade and declared there is no constitutional right to abortion services. Dobbs vs. Jackson Wom-en’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215, (2022)• The current Court has altered First Amendment law to allow greater involvement of religion in civic aairs, [Point 8] including the allocation of tax dollars to support religious institutions: Specically, in Carson vs. Makin, 596, U.S 767, 142 S. Ct. 1987 (2022), the Court held states can use public tuition assistance funds at private religious schools; In Espinoza vs. Montana Department of Revenue, 591 U.S. 464, 140 S. Ct. 2246 (2020) the Court held that state tax revenues can be used to attend private religious school even when a provision of the Montana state constitution prohibits using tax dollars to support religion; In Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. vs. Comer, 581 U.S. 449, 137 S. Ct. 2012 (2017), the Court held that state tax dollars can be used to refurbish a playground at a religious school; In Kennedy vs. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507, (2022) the Court held that a high school football coach can lead Christian prayers at the 50-yard line after a high school football game. 89“There Ought To Be A Law…”

•••Thought Experiment: Suppose in the 2000 Presidential elec-tion, a thousand votes in Florida went the other way, and Al Gore is elected President instead of George W. Bush. Concur-rently, Joe Lieberman becomes Vice-President. And in anoth-er matter to suppose, something horrible happens and Pres-ident Gore dies in oce. Joe Lieberman becomes President. Please note that Mr. Lieberman is an observant Jew. Question: Does the ocial religion of the United States become Juda-ism? No. The First Amendment prevents the establishment of an ocial national religion. The same reasoning would apply if a Mormon president were elected, such as Mitt Romney. But there are people and groups within the United States that be-lieve that a president should be a spiritual leader as well as a governmental one. This viewpoint is especially prevalent with the Christian Nationalist movement. The recently crowned En-glish monarch holds the title “Defender of the Faith.” The Unit-ed States does not and should not have a comparable position or duty.•••Freedom of religion does not include the right to require others through government authority, and ultimately the use of force, to believe and act the way you do. [Point 8] There is a huge practical dierence between religious beliefs practiced privately and government actions based on specic religious beliefs and enforced by the power of law. 90The Moderates’ Manifesto

You might be interested in reading:The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero, by Peter Canellos, Simon & Schuster (2021)Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas, by Stephen Budian-sky, Norton (2019)Justice on The Brink, by Linda Greenhouse, Random House (2021) Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy McLean, Penguin Books (2017)Burning Down the House, by Andrew Koppelman, St. Martin’s Press (2022)Supreme Conict, by Jan Crawford Greenburg, Penguin (2007)Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, by Susan Jacoby, Metro-politan Books (2005)The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby, Pantheon Books (2008)The Second Founding, by Eric Foner, Norton (2019)The Fight to Vote, by Michael Waldman, Simon & Schuster (2016)Complete United States Supreme Court opinions are in the public do-main and can be accessed on Google by a name search or using the ocial citation.91“There Ought To Be A Law…”

Contents

Contents

CHAPTER SEVEN“THE JIGSAW PUZZLE—PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER”

“It is the people who control the government, not the government the people.”~ Sir Winston Churchill

President Dwight Eisenhower,State of the Union, 1960“In the long perspective of history, the right to vote has been one of the strongest pillars of a free society. Our rst duty is to protect this right against all encroachment.”“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”Winston Churchill Fight.The one word I hate the most in political ads. A candidate in either party says: “Send me to Congress/the State Legislature and I will ght for you.” I despise that metaphor.Many of the problems discussed in this Manifesto (and many that are too numerous to be included here) are the result of legislative bodies so sharply divided that neither party will go along to give the opposing party what appears to be a political victory. Everyone tries to “ght” the other side rather than cooperate. The problem is particularly acute in Congress where control of the House and Senate turns on a tiny margin of seats. Looking at Game Theory, this is a classic situation where each player in the game (the two major parties) always takes the noncooper-ative approach when looking at a proposal from the other side. Neither party will budge from the viewpoint “If they are for it, it must be wrong and I’m against it.” With little or no cooperation, nothing gets done. The end result is gridlock extending over years at a time. 95The Jigsaw Puzzle—Putting It All Together

Enhancing universal voting rights and creating freedom from partisan ger-rymanders would go a long way toward breaking the gridlock in Congress and reducing the need for politicians to “ght.” [Points 6 and 13] Link-ing change in those areas with eorts to reduce the eects of corporate donations on the political process are intended to make elected ocials more responsive to their constituents. [Points 10 and 16] By disqualifying Senators and Representatives from voting in matters favored by their big donors, the donors lose some of the incentives to make legalized bribes, also known as campaign contributions, and elected members of Congress don’t have to devote so much time to fundraising. [Point 10] The ultimate return of political power to the majority of citizens is the abolition of the Electoral College and the move to direct election of the President and Vice President. [Point 12] While there is a value to making candidates campaign in and think about good policies for all 50 states, it is time to sunset an institution created to bring the slave states into agreement on the Constitution and end the all too frequent occurrence of a presidential candidate winning in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote.Two of the most important services that a government can deliver for its citizens, beyond protection from foreign enemies and domestic criminals, are education and health care. [Points 17 and 18] There is a persistent problem in the United States where deep cuts in education and health care budgets leave its citizens dumber and sicker. Conservatives have tried numerous times to repeal the Aordable Care Act. States with all conservative governors and legislatures limit their state’s participation in the ACA. It makes no dierence whether someone is hit by a tractor on a farm or an Uber in a city, people will all need health care at some point. If a fundamental purpose of civilized government is to enhance the lives of its people, providing good quality schooling at all levels and health care for a lifetime should be at the top of the list. 96The Moderates’ Manifesto

And at the foundational level, there is voting. Using sophisticated com-puter programs designed for one purpose, (a notorious one is called REDMAP) politicians and parties can manipulate district boundaries to get just the right mix of voters to elect and reelect themselves. We live in a gerrymandered era where elected ocials pick their voters, rather than voters picking their elected ocials. To enact many of the ideas in the AMP program and other benecial legislation, the United States needs to put political power back in the hands of the people through free and fair elections with honest district boundaries. [Points 6 and 13]To turn to Churchill again, he observed:“At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper—no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.”While times may have changed since Churchill’s day with electronic vot-ing machines, or voting absentee from the comfort of your home, de-mocracy remains the best system for selecting leaders and representa-tives that respond to the needs and concerns of the people. And remember, Churchill’s mother was an American.97The Jigsaw Puzzle—Putting It All Together

You might be interested in reading:The Fight to Vote, by Michael Waldman, Simon & Schuster (2016)Gaming the Vote: Why Elections aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It), by William Poundstone, Hill and Wang (2008)Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, Anchor Books (2016)It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Col-lided with the New Politics of Extremism, by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Basic Books (2012)One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported, by E.J. Dionne, Jr., Norman J. Orn-stein, and Thomas E. Mann, St. Martin’s Press (2017)98The Moderates’ Manifesto

Contents

Contents

CHAPTER EIGHTOK, WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

There are many recommended changes to our system of government circulating these days. To list all of them would turn a manifesto into an encyclopedia. It will take political courage to create political change, but that change is needed. In the spirit of avoiding the ills of the political ex-tremes, here are a few moderate suggestions:• Push your federal and state oce holders to adopt many or all of the points in the AMP proposal in Chapter Two as promptly as possible. It would just duplicate the content of Chapter Two to relist all the items here. But there is merit in all of them, and there are certainly similar proposals that can be advanced. • Push back vigorously against voter suppression at all levels. Expand voter registration and make voting easy while maintaining accuracy and honesty. You might think that some laws tightening registration or limiting voting hours are just an abstract provision, of interest only to voting ocials and party activists. But if your state government can restrict voting as to some members of society, that government can just as easily restrict your voting rights in the future. Practices like registering high school students at graduation, increasing the number of polling places, and equipping the polls with enough sta and machinery to ensure prompt voting will go a long way to increasing turnout and eliminating wasted time. Billions, even trillions of dollars ow through the Internet every day. If society can secure all those nan-cial transactions and still make them easy and safe, that level of tech-nology can be harnessed to make sure electronic voting machines and voting by mail remain both safe and easy to use. 103Ok, Where Do We Go From Here?

• Push your state governments to create independent, non-partisan com-missions to get rid of gerrymanders and install compact, fair districts for both Congress and state legislatures. [Point 6] Even the best reforms on voter registration and ease of voting procedures have diculty overcoming gerrymandered districts at the state or con-gressional levels. Diabolical computer-generated districts can “stack” vot-ers (piling up the disfavored parties’ likely voters in certain districts) or “cracking” districts (splitting up areas that are likely to vote for the disfa-vored party into two or more districts so they can never achieve a majority in those districts), and defeat majority rule. Independent commissions are more likely to created fair districts than groups made up of elected (and therefore partisan) ocials. • Utilize open primaries where all candidates from all parties run in one primary and the top two vote getters move on to the general election.In open primaries, candidates would have an incentive to run toward the middle of the electorate to maximize the number of voters they appeal to. Currently, primaries are dominated by party activists and the most ex-treme zealots of that party who campaign on the far fringes of their party. Incumbents are fearful that they will face a primary opponent who is more extreme than they are, which pushes them toward more extreme posi-tions. Open primaries would put candidates at the far slopes of the statis-tical bell curve at a disadvantage and maximize the need for candidates to seek the support of moderate centrists across the political spectrum. 104The Moderates’ Manifesto

• Be an informed and educated voter. Once you know more about the candidates, vote for moderates, not those on the extreme.Voting just on candidate name recognition or number of yards signs does not foster good democracy. Get to know the candidates records and positions can lead to elected ocials who more nearly reect your views. Online research is free and easy. Candidate forums provide op-portunities to listen and learn.• Make use of your state’s provisions on initiative and referendum to make statewide changes in state law, especially in voting rights and drawing fair district lines. Use your state’s provisions for recall if avail-able to remove extremist oce holders at all levels. • Don’t be afraid to split your ballot and vote for good candidates in both parties who are moderates. • Get involved in local government. School boards, city councils, local boards and commissions all are making important decisions about the role and scope of government where you live and work. Local elections sometimes get overlooked in the glare of presidential contests. But your city council might be setting the police budget and the school board will control your children’s curriculum. The local li-brary board might vote to censor books on the shelves based on pres-sure from just a few individuals. The mayor might select the next police chief. Trial court judges make the rst rulings on the constitutionality of new state laws. All of these “down ballot” contests have more direct eects on your daily life than the occupant of the White House. Get to know the local candidates and vote for the moderates and against the extremists.105Ok, Where Do We Go From Here?

• Push your elected representatives in Congress for legislative action to overrule some of the more extreme Supreme Court cases that have had adverse eects on voting practices and voting rights, such as Citizens United, Shelby County, and Rucho. [Points 6 and 13] Not all Supreme Court cases involve constitutional principles. Some cases turn on how statutes are written. If a ruling interprets the statutes in an unfavorable direction, lobby your representatives for corrective changes through new legislation. There may be no perfect solution to the inuence of money in politics, but there needs to be reasonable controls to prevent big corpora-tions and multi-billionaires from buying elections. Money talks; cor-porate money shouts through a huge amplier set to 11 and pumped through rock concert speakers. At a bare minimum, there should be full disclosure of where a candidate’s donations are coming from. The voters deserve to know who is trying to inuence the candidate and for what purpose.• In perhaps the ultimate defense of a healthy political system, insist on factual accuracy (otherwise known as the truth) in communica-tions about politics and government.The last decade has seen the rise of claims of “fake news” and “alter-native facts.” If citizens and elected ocials can’t agree on an objec-tive reality and accept certain empirical facts, it becomes dicult if not impossible to craft legislative action and executive solutions to society’s problems. People can reasonably disagree on the interpre-tation of facts and the validity of competing solutions, but they have to start with a common frame of reference. Citizens should insist that the media and elected public ocials operate with a commitment to the truth. Citizens should never be afraid to call B.S. on a politician, a candidate, or a commentator. Well, maybe in a little more polite fash-ion than calling B.S.Don’t let liars lead.106The Moderates’ Manifesto

You might be interested in reading:The Fight to Vote, by Michael Waldman, Simon & Schuster (2016)Gaming the Vote: Why Elections aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It), by William Poundstone, Hill and Wang (2008)Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, Anchor Books (2016)Complete United States Supreme Court opinions are in the public do-main and can be accessed on Google by a name search or using the ocial citation.It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Col-lided with the New Politics of Extremism, by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Basic Books (2012)One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported, by E.J. Dionne, Jr., Norman J. Orn-stein, and Thomas E. Mann, St. Martin’s Press (2017) 107Ok, Where Do We Go From Here?

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EPILOGUEBOOKENDS

“The world must learn to work together, or nally it will not work at all.”—President Dwight EisenhowerBookends. My career in law has historic and unfortunate bookends.The Watergate break-in occurred June 17, 1972, during my second year of law school. Facing impeachment, President Nixon, who would have been indicted if not for a pardon, resigned August 8, 1974, in just my second year as an attorney. I would note that everyday life and the civic life of the nation went forward unaected by the change in presidents.Fast forward several decades, and President Trump experienced not one but two impeachments, and was acquitted both times in party line votes. The January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol occurred in my 48th year as an attorney. The New York State conviction of Mr. Trump, handed down on May 30, 2024, comes just two weeks shy of my 51st anniversary in the practice of law. Such presidential misbehavior bookends at the beginning and twilight of a legal career should be enough to make someone extremely cynical. But it hasn’t. Because good people inside and outside of govern-ment acted to restrain the actions of those who would try to sabo-tage American democracy both in 1972-74 and again in 2020-2023, we can take renewed faith in the power of the people and the rule of law. However, the framework of government has been skewed to favor certain limited groups over the well-being of majority of the ordinary citizens.There are too many politicians who are only working for their reelec-tion and not for their constituents. It is time to reform government to prevent a further slide toward unamerican outcomes. Hence this Manifesto. 110The Moderates’ Manifesto

During the COVID 19 pandemic, I tried to cheer up my Facebook friends by posting pleasant skiing pictures while adding a message about cooperating to stop the spread of the virus in the days before vaccines were available. Once vaccines became available, I contin-ued the cooperation theme with the messages accompanying my photographic oerings. The basic idea I was setting out was the les-son from Game Theory that long term, mutual cooperation, even if it means some small sacrice on the individual’s part, was the best way to beat the disease for the good of the community. I summed this up with the phrase “Teamwork, Victory over Virus.” In some round-about way, Teamwork became an organizing concept for thinking about many social problems, not just disease. If the na-tion, its citizens and the political parties had more cooperation, less political combat, more teamwork between people and groups, and less ghting between parties and politicians, problems like pollution, crime, failing infrastructure, climate change, political gridlock, etc. would be easier to solve with a responsive and responsible govern-ment. Government should perform an organizing and coordinating function to harness the cooperative eorts of its citizens to make society a better place for everyone. A nation needs both teamwork and leadership.President John Adams said it right when he stated:“Government is instituted for the common good; for the protec-tion, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for prot, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have any incontestable, un-alienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.” 111Epilogue

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never berestored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.~John Adams

This Manifesto may have come full circle to a quote we started with in Chapter 3. Remember the Lincoln quote that was part of the rst quiz?“The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual capacities.” As we look at contemporary American society, this Manifesto would assert that people, in their individual capacities, can best plan and raise their families, choose their educational paths, pick their ca-reers, enjoy the freedom of conscience to nd and follow their belief system, establish a lifestyle they are comfortable with, and be free of government censorship and coercion. But government lls the role of organizer and coordinator of cooperative eorts at national defense, establishing a legal system, building and maintaining an in-frastructure, setting and enforcing standards for safety of products of all kinds, holding fair and honest elections, and doing those tasks that promote the general welfare of all citizens. [Point 1] We love teamwork in our favorite sports teams; now we need more team-work in our favorite nation. Old Abe nailed it when he spoke so eloquently of “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Make America ideally what it could be with liberty and moderation for all.113Epilogue

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THE ORIGIN STORY

Harold: Growing up in Northeast Ohio in the era of Sputnik, the Mer-cury Seven astronauts, and the growth of technology in society, I loved science. I couldn’t get enough of physics, chemistry, and sci-ence overall. When it came time to pick a major and a college, I de-cided on chemical engineering and discovered Clarkson College of Technology (now known as Clarkson University.) But after two years and diculties with dierential equations (you try it if you don’t think dierential equations are challenging), I considered changing majors and transferring. That’s when I met Patti Cleveland.Patti: Right next to Clarkson College was SUNY Potsdam, established primarily to train teachers, which was my rst major. Back when ev-eryone expected women to become secretaries, nurses, or teachers. Interestingly, I met Harold on a date – not with him – but it ended up being a fascinating evening of conversation as we enjoyed each oth-er’s company and ideas. I’m not sure my date was as delighted as we were, but it began a wonderful friendship between Harold and me.Harold: Even though I had just met her, I felt a connection with Patti. Perhaps in foreshadowing her long career as a College/Career Coun-selor at Batavia High School, she would listen to a near stranger’s concerns about transferring and not knowing what new major he should pursue. Kind, empathetic, and charming, Patti was the ideal unocial counselor for someone looking for a new educational path.Patti: It wasn’t dicult to sense Harold’s need to move on to the college he admired and where he belonged; my job was to help him realize it was time to move to Ohio State. Harold: Long story short, I transferred to Ohio State at the start of my junior year. Ohio State proved to be the ideal place for me. Eco-nomics was my major, but I had a broad menu of course choices—logic, ethics, Soviet economics, business law, introduction to political science, and economic history, all excellent preparation in an un-planned pre-law curriculum. And there was Homecoming Weekend 1969. Patti was my actual date!! 116The Moderates’ Manifesto

Patti: I was Harold’s date this time, which didn’t stop our constant conversation and endless laughter. My rst trip to a giant campus was an eternal memory, from fraternity parties to a gigantic yellow mum to wear to the football game. Harold: Fast forward a few years, I proudly graduated as a Buckeye with a degree in economics and enrolled in law school. I became a double Buckeye with two degrees from my alma mater. How rm thy friendship, O-HI-O! Patti: Meanwhile, I changed my major to English and took time o school to become the Women’s Editor of a small newspaper. When I returned to study, I attended SUNY Brockport, where they taught me enough to spend later years as a school substitute, a Director of Public Relations, and a fascinating time as a College/Career Counsel-or at a high school. Harold: Armed with a newly issued law license, I built a career in the justice system and eventually focused on being a mediator. While never politically active, I watched Watergate, President Nixon’s res-ignation, Iran Contra, the razor-thin 2000 election, and other events at the intersection of law and government. I was never strongly af-liated with any major party as I saw diculties with both. I helped improve the legal system by encouraging mediation to resolve cases sooner and more eciently. Patti: Building on my education and experience with careers now available to women, I grew strong enough to become a City Council-man in Batavia, New York, a job I held until retiring after 13 years. The more my government participation increased, my interest in our na-tional government grew, and how hugely it needed to be improved.Harold: With a quick Facebook search, I located Patti, and we reconnected as friends. After several months of messaging back and forth, I suggested an actual conversation. She agreed. I called. It was like 1968 all over again!!! 117Origin Story

We had an incredible connection, many laughs, and much catching up. We agreed to talk regularly. And we did and still do!Frequently our conversation topics turned to government and the problems with political parties, Washington gridlock, and hyper-par-tisanship. Almost as satire, we talked about how a political movement that ap-pealed to the political middle and avoided the worst of the extreme wings of the parties might work. But humor turned more thoughtful as we saw that our views overlapped and might be something others would like. I sat down at my computer and tapped out the rst rough version of a platform of what we called the American Moderate Party or AMP. The rest is history or will be if The American Moderate Manifesto catches on. Patti: There were meanwhile hours of discussion between Harold and me. We agreed he should take our ideas to print. Along the way, we have found many others who agree. Assuredly, more will speak out after they read about The American Moderate Party (AMP), a presentation of many hours of thought and discussion printed here in The American Moderate Manifesto.And yes, we still keep talking, discussing, and laughing at least once a week.Harold: We hope you will also discuss it with people you care about.118The Moderates’ Manifesto

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI owe a great debt to my dear friend Patti Pacino who inspired the cre-ation of the AMP platform. This Manifesto would not be the work it as-pires to be without the copy editing and comments of Darrell and Craig Heckman. My friend Linda O’Connor added wise suggestions. In this digital age, marketing and creating an online presence are paramount and my friend Julie Davis Friend has excelled in all those areas, as well as providing wise editing. I thank Neil Friend for writing the song “Move On Over.” My public gratitude to all.I cannot name because they are too numerous, but I revere all my class-mates, teachers, and professors, all the authors whose works I’ve read, the judges and attorneys in my career, and all the participants in every good political discussion I’ve been a part of. All those pieces make for a well-rounded education, for which I am profoundly grateful.

THE MODERATES MANIFESTO BOOKSAuthor’s Note: My hope is that the books listed in this Manifesto will be interesting and informative, and will deepen and broaden your under-standing of the current situation in the United States. Of these works, three stand out and merit my suggestion that if you want to focus your valuable but limited reading time, select these titles rst:Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy McLean, Penguin Books (2017)Prisoner’s Dilemma: John Von Neuman, Game Theory and the Puzzle of the Bomb by William Poundstone, Anchor (2011)Getting To Yes 3rd. Ed., by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Penguin Books (2011)A Complete List Of The Books Suggested In The “You Might Be Interest-ed In Reading” Segments Of This Work:Chapter OneThe Deconstructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party, by Dana Milbank, Doubleday (2022)Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy McLean, Penguin Books (2017)Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, Anchor Books (2016)The Fifth Risk, by Michael Lewis, Norton (2018)On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Sny-der, Crown (2017)122The Moderates’ Manifesto

It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Col-lided with the New Politics of Extremism, by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Basic Books (2012)One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported, by E.J. Dionne, Jr., Norman J. Orn-stein, and Thomas E. Mann, St. Martin’s Press (2017) The Conservative Sensibility, by George Will, Hachette (2019)American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump, by Tim Alberta, Harper (2019)How the South Won the Civil War, by Heather Cox Richardson, Oxford Uni-versity Press (2020)How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Crown, (2018)Chapter ThreeDemocracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy McLean, Penguin Books (2017)The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, by Zachary Carter, Random House (2020) Burning Down the House, by Andrew Koppelman, St. Martin’s Press (2022)Enlightenment Now, by Steven Pinker, Viking Penguin (2016) 123Recommended Book List

46 Pages: Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Pointto Independence, by Scott Liell, Running Press (2004)First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Ro-mans and How That Shaped Our Country, by Thomas Ricks, Harper (2021) Chapter FourPrisoner’s Dilemma: John Von Neuman, Game Theory and the Puzzle of the Bomb by William Poundstone, Anchor (2011)Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life by Len Fisher, Basic Books (2008) Gaming the Vote: Why Elections aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It) by William Poundstone, Hill and Wang (2008)Nudge: The Final Edition by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Penguin Books (2021)Outplayed: How Game Theory Is Used Against Us by David Lockwood, Greenleaf Book Group (2022)Getting To Yes 3rd. Ed., by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Penguin Books (2011)Wikipedia entries for “Game Theory,” “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” and “Golden Rule.”Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths—And How We Can Stop Them by Bill Eddy, Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2019)124The Moderates’ Manifesto

Chapter FiveThe Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, by Zachary Carter, Random House (2020)Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, Anchor Books (2016)Capitalism in America, by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Woodridge, Pen-guin Books (2018)How the South Won the Civil War by Heather Cox Richardson, Oxford Uni-versity Press (2020)A Moderate’s Manifesto by Richard Dworkin, in American Purpose, No-vember 2020A Moderate Manifesto by David Brooks, New York Times, March 2, 2009 Chapter SixThe Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero, by Peter Canellos, Simon & Schuster (2021)Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas, by Stephen Budian-sky, Norton (2019)Justice on The Brink, by Linda Greenhouse, Random House (2021) Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy McLean, Penguin Books (2017)Burning Down the House, by Andrew Koppelman, St. Martin’s Press (2022)125Recommended Book List

Supreme Conict, by Jan Crawford Greenburg, Penguin (2007)Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, by Susan Jacoby, Metro-politan Books (2005)The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby, Pantheon Books (2008)The Second Founding, by Eric Foner, Norton (2019)The Fight to Vote, by Michael Waldman, Simon & Schuster (2016)Complete United States Supreme Court opinions are in the public do-main and can be accessed on Google by a name search or using the ocial citation.Chapter SevenThe Fight to Vote, by Michael Waldman, Simon & Schuster (2016)Gaming the Vote: Why Elections aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It), by William Poundstone, Hill and Wang (2008)Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, Anchor Books (2016)It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Col-lided with the New Politics of Extremism, by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Basic Books (2012)One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported, by E.J. Dionne, Jr., Norman J. Orn-stein, and Thomas E. Mann, St. Martin’s Press (2017) Chapter EightThe Fight to Vote, by Michael Waldman, Simon & Schuster (2016)126The Moderates’ Manifesto

Gaming the Vote: Why Elections aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It), by William Poundstone, Hill and Wang (2008)Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, Anchor Books (2016)It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collid-ed with the New Politics of Extremism, by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Basic Books (2012)One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Des-perate, and the Not-Yet-Deported, by E.J. Dionne, Jr., Norman J. Ornstein, and Thomas E. Mann, St. Martin’s Press (2017) 127Recommended Book List

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Harold Paddock is an attorney, mediator, and author. Born andraised in Ohio, he has both his undergraduate degree in economicscum laude and his Juris Doctorate from The Ohio State University. Sinceadmission to the bar, he has learned to be a mediator, been the co-creator of Settlement Week (a popular mediation program in trial courts around the country), is self-taught in game theory, and been an avid reader of history, science, economics, and about any other non-c-tion he can buy, borrow from a library, or download. Before turning to The Moderates’ Manifesto, he wrote two science ction novels,The Voices at CERN, and the sequel The Terror at CERN, available on Am-azon. Outside of law and mediation, he loves the Ohio State Buckeyes, photography, Civil War history, astronomy, and good conversations.He has NO plans to run for any political oce or to head any politicalparty. He will not run if nominated, and if he wins an election, he willdemand a recount

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