For the past two years, this Dave Volek fellow has been pattering around the political forums of Medium, trying to flog his tiered democratic governance (TDG) idea. He has 164 articles and 4200 comments, most with a TDG perspective. Several Medium contributors have slapped his fingers for getting a little too spammy. Good thing. This man is a shmuck.

Dave is only interested in making money.

He in obviously trying to cash in on the American democracy going into decline. He is trying to sell snake oil to desperate people. That is how he earns a Medium paycheck.

Except this Dave has not signed onto the Medium…

A recent Medium article by Benjamin Cain has an usual prediction for USA’s future. He claims that the recent behavior of the Republican Party is mostly temper tantrum that will eventually subside.

Is he right? I would say that the tantrum is a possibility. January 6 could have been a lot more disastrous if it were not for some infantile planning. So maybe we are worrying for nothing. Maybe we just need to wait for the crying to stop.

But I also see that the possibility of a great amount of civil unrest and violence after November 2022 if the…

For some reason, I thought I needed to see this move when it was released in 1998. The movie marketers successfully found my psyche to get a few dollars from me.

Within a half hour, the movie insulted both the petroleum industry and NASA. Corny, corny, corny! Corny! A part of me wanted to leave the movie theater; another part said the show might get better and I had to get full value for my ticket. I finished the movie with a wasted evening and no value for my money.

I had no inclination to watch this move again. But…

The Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE) is a 1999 psychological theory that sheds light on relationship between competence and confidence. The above graph gives this relationship, which can be applied to many different societal topics, such as health care, climate change, and economics. Many workplaces and family relationships have their own DKE issues.

The right of this graph represents the high confidence of experts in a particular field working in their field. While they are not always right in their predictions, the experts make these predictions with great confidence.

In the middle are the people who know something about a particular topic…

First, you will have to find a few neighbors who are willing to help you write a local TDG constitution. Maybe you don’t know your neighbors. Maybe you don’t like them. But you have to get out of your social bubble and interact with people you normally do not interact with. This is a skill we all really need to develop and acknowledge.

Second, you will have to spend about 10 hours a month with these neighbors. Maybe a two-hour meeting every couple weeks. A few email exchanges to improve the wording of your constitution bit-by-bit. Those ten hours a…

Medium is full of thinkers who have great ideas on how to reform the American electoral system. Here is a short list of improvements that I have encountered on Medium:

1. Replacing the electoral college with popular vote.

2. End of gerrymandering of electoral districts.

3. Put a lid on campaign contributions from the corporate world.

4. Term limits for Congress representatives

5. Ranked-Choice Voting

6. Proportional Representation

I will agree that #5 and #6 will make American democracy a bit better. It will give voters a few more choices than the two-party hegemony which is polarizing USA.

#1, 2…

A recent Gallup poll gives a 32% rating for the Republican Party.

This poll has made left-leaning political pundits on Medium and mainstream media happy. If 32% is all the support the GOP can muster, then we should expect a Democrat landslide in 2022. Purple states will go blue. Some red states will go purple. It’s not too hard to imagine a big Democrat majority in both the House and Senate. And state legislators will be shifted. Yes, let’s dance in the streets.

The trouble with polls is that they cannot measure the motivation to ensure proper registration, make a…

Medium has many political writers who are telling us about the possibility of a fascist takeover in the USA. All of these writers are competent in their craft; some are quite good. Some are rehashing the workings of other writers and the mainstream media; others have new and interesting perspectives that are enjoyable to read. A few are interested in a higher Medium paycheck; most believe their work is helping the USA to move away from fascism.

I can understand the reason behind wanting to do something to preserve democracy in the USA. When one is outside the sphere of…