Letter to Fallows: A Three Party Game

Political evolution does not care what we think. This is not a two sided chess match - this is a three sided game with the Establicrats, the Establipublicans and the Teapublicans. The Establicrats coalition together with the Establipublicans cohort want closure on their terms and the Teapublicans want to burn down the church to save the church. Sure, the budget has been passed and the result of that vote was that 'one side' won and 'one side' lost on the terms current in the dept ceiling debate. No one would look the other way if this was a criminal or civil trial and the defendant filed an appeal with a higher court. In this case, the Supreme Court on the matter of the 14th amendment which I believe is the actual end game. The Teapublicans desire nothing more than a 5-4 vote against the establishment's 14th.


Our position - the Establicrats and Establipublican position - is to treat the Budget already enacted as causation of a Dept Ceiling adjustment in a later vote. The party out of power, since the 80's has treated this Budget ceiling vote as causation of a Dept Ceiling adjustment coupled to a brief show stopper debate correlated with the Budget - Ethel Merman appears on stage and belts out a show tune as the first act causes the second act. The show stopper is a featured highlight on CNN in the past.

The Teapublicans are taking Hume's side - they are pointing out the naturalistic fallacy of the Establishment. In Hume's example two clocks in two adjacent towns peel the hour slightly out of synch. Firstville's clock peels the hour five minutes prior the Secondville's clock. The two events are correlated since the first bell does not cause the second bell to ring. Similarly, the Teapublicans treat the Budget and the Dept Ceiling as merely correlated.

Credit to your numerous well-thought out policy positions. But this is the province of game theory not policy. The dinosaurs of the establishment do not notice the appearance of the rodent-like Teapublicans. But the comet has already landed off the Yucatan peninsula. Play on.
stand by our establishment president
kirk holden
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[This is a comment I wrote to Chris Mooney at the Intersection blog. .]

The parking brake on my car was designed to stop my car from rolling down hill while it is parked. An adaptation – a change in my behavior – can change the utility of the parking brake into an emergency brake. If all the brake fluid leaks from my brake system I can change my policy about only using the parking brake for parking to a new behavior – using the parking brake as an emergency brake when not parking. Try it. You can adapt too.
What drives biological/cultural evolution? This is just inclusive fitness at work. See Hume for a better solution to your numerous objections about what ‘should’ or ‘ought’ to happen with politics and emergency brakes. I don’t like Darwin on my front porch either. But as my son the Biomedical Engineer says “Evolution doesn’t care what you think.”