[Peace-discuss] Weinberg's law of twins and ballot access

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Gerald Weinberg is a ancient computer programmer (he and some of the 
computers he programmed) who worked on the Edsel project, Project 
Mercury, for IBM, and is an at times excoriating social critic and an 
ex-(ex-patriot) who wrote some interesting books on the psychology of 
computer programming, a quite remarkable book called "Introduction to 
General Systems Thinking", and several other "how to think better" 
books.  He is also famous for a few of "laws" or "principles" which he 
formulated.  One of his "laws" that got some attention is "Weinberg's 
Law of Twins"---(originally from the 1979 "On the Design of Stable 
Systems")...  Wikipaedia notes:

    *Weinberg's Law of Twins* states that most of the time, no matter
    how much effort one expends, no event of any great significance will
    result. *Weinberg's Law of Twins Inverted* states that
    occasionally---particularly when one isn't expecting it---a
    significant event occurs.

    Gerald Weinberg <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Weinberg>
    invented the law and described it in his book /The Secrets of
    Consulting/ (1986), in which he explains the origin of its name. He
    reported that, while riding a bus <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus>
    in New York City <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City>, he
    observed a mother <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother> with eight
    small children <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child> embark. She
    asked the driver <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_driver> the
    amount of the fare; he told her that the cost was thirty-five cents,
    but that children under the age of five could ride for free
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis>. When the woman deposited only
    thirty-five cents into the payment slot, the driver was incredulous.
    "Do you mean to tell me that all your children are under five years
    old?" The woman explained that she had four sets of twins
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin>. The driver replied, "Do you
    always have twins?" "No," said the woman, "most of the time we don't
    have any."

Democracy as we know it seems to be about limiting debate and limiting 
real choices while maintaining, via a massive education and PR campaign, 
the thin facade that the system gives a ripe red rat's ass about the Vox 
Populi.  Of course the system does welcome the Vox Populi as long as it 
is sufficiently squelched and massaged to support the notions of the 
Masters.

Government in Illinois is no exception.  The system is rigged to 
maintain the power of the two-headed one-party system and to make sure 
that the hopes of 3rd party ideologies are dashed to pieces on the rocks 
of the Illinois ballot access process.  Non-conformist candidates are 
forced to get many times the number of signatures required by 
"candidates" of the Illinois Combine.  The next step in the "democratic 
process" is for the Democrat party to file objections to the signatures 
on the petition.  The objections to Rich Whitney's petitions filed by 
the "Democrats" in 2006 is the classic case.  But with the emergence of 
the Tea Partiers and the R[3voJ]uition-aries, even the GOP feels 
threatened by this new Spectre of Democracy which seems to be slowly 
spreading its dark shadow across the tidy gaming of the electoral process.

Threatened by several emerging candidates for US Senate and other races, 
the Illinois Republican Party is stepping up to show they too have a 
can-do attitude when it comes to stamping out participatory democracy

But here is where Weinberg's Law Inverted may be taking hold.  It's 
quite possible that the people are starting to stir a bit and even 
express a bit of righteous indignation.  Doug Ibendahl grew up on a 
cattle farm in southern Illinois and is now a Chicago attorney and was 
at one time General Counsel for the Illinois Republican Party.  That is 
to say he knows too much about the inner workings of the beast and he 
knows where the bodies are buried.  Doug is a traditional 
paleoconservative and a tireless reformer who hates machine politics and 
its dirty tactics and wants to return the voice in government back to 
the people.  We wanted to get Doug on at the Midwest Liberty Fest but he 
was not available.

Interestingly, Doug is now representing the Constitution Party against 
the petition challenges filed by the Republican Party.   I think its 
interesting because Republican Doug is stepping up to cry foul and 
oppose the corrupt system.  Doug writes at his blog:

    No one was happier than I when Republican Cedra Crenshaw
    <http://www.cedracrenshaw.com/> recently won her court fight and the
    right to appear on the ballot as the GOP candidate for State Senate
    in the 43rd District. Cedra's now officially facing incumbent
    Democrat Arthur Wilhelmi in what has already become an exciting
    race. If any Republican can take that seat this year, it's Cedra
    Crenshaw.  The Democrats' attempt to keep Crenshaw off the ballot
    was wrong. It was doubly wrong for the incumbent Wilhelmi to pretend
    (at least for awhile) that he had nothing to do with the objection
    filed against Crenshaw's petitions.  Fortunately that one turned out
    for the best -- eventually -- after much time, frustration, and
    expense.  You were probably already aware of the good news story
    regarding Cedra Crenshaw. You've likely heard all about how evil the
    "Democrat Machine" was for attempting to deny ballot access to a
    bright political newcomer. That's all true.  But what you probably
    don't know is that the Republican Machine is putting the Democrat
    Machine to shame right now in terms of petition challenges filed. 
    The Illinois Republican Party is behind 11 petition challenges right
    now, all of which are in litigation at the State Board of Elections.

    And note that those 11 challenges include a lot more than 11
    candidates. The Illinois Republican Party is currently attempting to
    keep the entire Constitution Party slate and the entire Libertarian
    Party slate off the ballot. Each of those counts as one case only --
    even though each party's statewide slate has 7 candidates.  So think
    about that for a moment. We already knew that Pat Brady is against
    the idea of Republicans voting in their own Illinois Republican
    Party. Brady still opposes passage of SB600
    <http://republicannewswatch.com/wp/?p=4738>. But now Pat Brady is
    heading the effort to keep Constitutionalists and Libertarians from
    having a vote too -- for ALL of their candidates...

    How do I know so much about this topic? Because I'm the lawyer
    representing the Constitution Party and its candidates in their
    defense of the petition challenge. I'm very proud to be doing so. I
    think what my Illinois Republican Party is doing right now is
    entirely wrong, on several levels.  First off, I think a little
    healthy competition would make the "established" parties better.
    Further, maybe if our Illinois Republican Party would clean-up its
    act and stop doing self-destructive things like constantly rigging
    party conventions and intra-party votes, maybe there would be less
    to fear from new entrants to the political marketplace.  I can also
    see as clearly as anyone that our GOP has at least two candidates on
    the statewide ballot who aren't even Republicans in any sense of the
    word. I'm talking about Mark Kirk and Judy Baar Topinka. At a
    minimum, I personally want another choice when it comes to those two.

    Finally, I'm representing the Constitution Party in this because
    quite frankly I've always liked the underdog. Randy Stufflebeam is
    the Constitution Party's candidate for U.S. Senate and I've gotten
    to know him extremely well this past month or so. Randy is a good
    man and one of the most honest I've met. They say once a Marine
    always a Marine and no one exemplifies that idea better than Randy
    Stufflebeam. In fact all of the folks I've met on the Constitution
    Party side are truly decent, God-fearing people. They don't deserve
    the disrespectful treatment they are getting from Pat Brady and a
    handful of his Republican pals.

    The pooh-bahs of the Illinois GOP see things differently of course.
    They want to strangle-off the competition so we Republican saps have
    no place else to go. They hope that if the ballot's cleared we'll
    have to hold our nose and vote for their boy Mark Kirk and others.
    Maybe some will, but I won't -- no matter what. I will not vote for
    any candidate who has lied to us like Mark Kirk has so many times...


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