Today, a huge amount of sophis­ti­ca­tion goes into cre­ation of
ini­tia­tives all across the coun­try. And orga­ni­za­tions like ALEC
get involved. Ini­tia­tives were meant to be grass roots, but they’re
mostly Astro­turf today.

Precisely. Then we are in agreement.

I’m object­ing to “overly ener­getic use of con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment bal­lot mea­sures”.

Fair enough. I object to that as well. Typically, a countermeasure is put in place to address a particular instance of someone(s) gaming the system. And that sets them back for a while…until they learn how to game the new system. And then another countermeasure gets put in place eventually…and so on in a neverending arms race.

It’s a condition very familiar to me, since it applies to computer security as well.

It is the oppo­site of the Cal­i­for­nia ini­tia­tives to which you refer.

It’s the opposite of the early form of California initiatives. That went out the window around the time of Howard Jarvis. Today, a huge amount of sophistication goes into creation of initiatives all across the country. And organizations like ALEC get involved. Initiatives were meant to be grass roots, but they’re mostly Astroturf today.

I understand that sometimes a citizen’s initiative is needed to correct a problem of a government that is not actually representative to the people. As I said, I’m objecting to “overly ener­getic use of con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment bal­lot mea­sures”. In most cases today, this is not being done as an initiative being brought by The People, but by cynical totalitarians who want to enact their policies into constitutional law so as to prevent them from later being altered. We’re seeing that throughout the nation, with attempts to use such measures to block the ACA or suppress voting or reduce women’s rights.

This is not a case of a state government being owned by undemocratic forces, and thus being brought back in line by The People. It is rather a case of state governments being owned by undemocratic forces, and thus using their power to prevent The People from responding to their excesses. It is the opposite of the California initiatives to which you refer.

In the case of California, Sacramento was entirely being controlled by the railroads. Nobody got on the ballot who wasn’t in the pockets of the railroads. Nobody got elected who wasn’t in the pockets of the railroads. This was what brought about the initiatives.

The purpose of putting these sorts of questions on the ballot is to make an end-run around representative democracy.

The purpose of making them constitutional amendments is to make them more difficult to change later, once the public realizes what a truly and frighteningly horrible idea it was to dismantle representative democracy.

Representative democracy is a good idea for the same reason that it’s stupid to have a random collection of your neighbors perform the surgery you need to remove your brain tumor.

Doing away with representative democracy through overly energetic use of constitutional amendment ballot measures is exactly like handing out copies of your house key, your car key, and all your ATM passwords to every living soul in the Bronx. (I’m not picking on the Bronx. Any randomly-chosen collection of humans would have a similar assortment of saintly and of despicable individuals.)

These techniques can only be supported by people who either do not understand, or are opposed to, representative democracy.

Are the socons really a major­ity, or merely the most vocal minority?

They have long been the majority in terms of constituents. But until recently they weren’t in the majority among those with the most influence in daily party operations.

Are the socons really a majority, or merely the most vocal minority?

You have to won­der if Mitt Romney’s name was on the ‘whistle­blower’ list from the Swiss Bank­ing Scan­dal.

It’s the leading explanation for his refusal to publish his tax returns.

I’m begin­ning to won­der how many parts the Repub­li­can Party is frag­ment­ing in to, and on what basis this is happening.

I’ll hazard an educated guess on the first part, and a SWAG on the second.

The Republican Party, since at least the Reagan years, has been made up of three primary constituents:

• Pro-business, aka “Rockefeller Republicans”
• Social conservatives, aka “Religious right”
• Libertarians, aka “Goldwater Republicans”

More recently, the “Neoconservatives” have grown in prominence, though there’s nothing especially “neo” about them. They’ve been around since the McCarthy era, seeing a Communist behind every tree until the breakup of the Soviet Union, and then turning their attention to the Arab/Muslim world after that. The core tenet of this group is to find an enemy to focus on, in order to justify keeping the military-industrial complex funded.

Why is it fragmenting now, when things were going so swimmingly for so long? Here’s where I start seriously guessing. I think each group tolerated the others, assuming that they’d stay out of each other’s way. That worked until the libertarians got tired of the neos spending money on wars (libertarians aren’t particularly fond of those), and the socons got upset that the Rockefellers and Goldwaters were getting queasy about how far the socons wanted to take policy. I don’t think the Rockefellers expected to become minorities to the socons.

Compare the delegates at the 1980 RNC to the 2012 RNC. The 1980 delegates were Rockefeller all the way…dressed up and classy. The 2012 delegates were predominately NASCAR socons. That tells you how things have changed.