From: pauls at utdallas.edu (Paul Schmehl)
Subject: Will a vote for John Kerry be counted by a
 Hart InterCivic eSlate3000 in Honolulu?

--On Friday, October 22, 2004 10:32:34 AM -0400 Barry Fitzgerald 
<bkfsec@....lonestar.org> wrote:
>
>     I share similar concerns.  If we trace the "why" of this issue back
> to it's root (and discard conspiracy theories - which, given the attitude
> of a certain voting machine company that begins with a 'D's executives,
> would be impossible to discard) is that it comes down to the fact that
> our (s)elected officials are more and more often coming from the
> corporate power-base.

This is false.

<http://www.polisci.wisc.edu/~kritzer/teaching/ls415/Miller1993CP.htm>
The U.S. Congress has long been dominated by lawyer-politicians. Friedman 
notes that, "From 1780 to 1930, two thirds of the senators and about half 
of the House of Representatives were lawyers; the percentage seems to have 
stayed fairly stable" (Friedman 1985: 647). As Table 1 indicates, at the 
beginning of the 101st Congress in 1989, 184 members (42%) of the U.S. 
House of Representatives were lawyers (47% of the Democrats and 35 % of the 
Republicans). Sixty-three senators were lawyers, roughly equally 
distributed between the two parties (Ornstein, Mann, and Malbin 1990: 
20-21, 26-27). At the beginning of the 102nd Congress in January, 1991, 244 
of the 535 members of both houses (46%) claimed attorney as their 
profession (Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 1/12/91: 118).

<http://www.c-span.org/questions/weekly30.asp>
There are more lawyers than any other profession in Congress - 217.  There 
are 184 businessmen/bankers, 124 public service/politicians (never had a 
real job), 99 educators, 28 farmers/ranchers, 24 realtors, 17 journalists, 
17 medical professionals, 10 law enforcement officers, 9 engineers, etc, 
etc., etc.

Please get your facts straight before posting to a public list.

> There are two facts about corporate leadership: a)
> Negate your responsibility and liability and b) the appearence of
> legitimacy is all you need.
>
>     Using that filter, you can explain all of the actions and
> perspectives of the current government.  Of course, this isn't a
> statesmanly thing.
>
Nor is it a true thing, but I guess that's beside your point.

>      This is why I support removing the right to run for office from
> anyone who has served as an executive in a company.  Having served in
> that capacity produces a mindset that is poisonous to the democratic
> process.

I'll make a deal with you.  If I get to ban all lawyers from Congress, you 
get to ban all business persons.  Of course, if you're going to do that, 
you might as well just transfer the membership of the NEA, but I supposed 
*you'd* be all for *that*.

>  This is not a "discriminatory" practice in the sense that being
> elected is a right.  That's the first argument people throw at me.

They're stupid then.  It's just plain discriminatory in that it treats one 
class of citizens differently from all others.  You *do* understand *that* 
don't you?

> However, it's an argument that is not grounded in reality.

Or common sense or logic either, but that doesn't seem to stop you for a 
second.

I'm sure glad you don't make the rules.

Paul Schmehl (pauls@...allas.edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
The University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu

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