In June, the European Union passed legislation requiring all mobile devices to use one specific port type (USB-C) for re-charging their batteries.

US Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) , Ed Markey (D-MA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) think that’s a great idea, and that the US should adopt it as well. They’ve asked Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to come up with a “comprehensive strategy” to take charge of how you charge your phones, tablets, etc.

“Consumers shouldn’t have to keep buying new chargers all the time for different devices,” Warren tweeted on July 7. “We can clear things up with uniform standards — for less expense, less hassle, and less waste.”

Looking to government for “less expense, less hassle, and less waste” is like looking to your favorite local buffet restaurant for fewer dishes and smaller portions. Expense, hassle, and waste is pretty much the dictionary definition of what government does. This case is no exception.

Let’s take this astoundingly stupid idea from the top on those three metrics.

Expense: At present, we’re all free to choose the devices we buy and, if we’re worried about the expense of chargers and cables, choose devices which are compatible with each other. If your phone with a micro-USB port dies, you can buy a new phone that’s compatible with the chargers and cables you already have instead of having to buy new USB-C cables.

Hassle: Right now, you can walk into pretty much any electronics, department, or even convenience store and find a cable to fit your needs. A government-imposed standard will, over time, result in older types of cables becoming “specialty” items that are harder to find.

Waste: Right now, you can re-use your existing cables with new devices. A uniformity requirement will eventually put those existing cables in landfills as you move on to new devices which are, by law, forbidden to use them.

And all that’s just on your end. How much cost, hassle, and waste will the proposed standard impose on manufacturers whose current devices come with now-illegal ports? Those devices will have to be re-designed. The factories that make them will have to be re-tooled, workers re-trained.

Let’s add a fourth item to the list of reasons legally required uniformity is a bad idea: It will slow down technological innovation.

Suppose the government requires all devices to come with USB-C ports. Who’s going to spend the money to develop USB-D or some other new port technology, even if that technology would likely prove much more efficient, reliable, etc.?

The regulatory delays and expenses in getting better charging devices to market would make innovation much less profitable … until and unless the government REQUIRED the new port, which would put you right back in the same expense/hassle/waste position as when the first requirement was imposed.

If 1880s legislators had imposed “uniform standards” on transportation, we’d all still be staring at the rear ends of horses from our wagons. And spending proportionally more of our time and money to get from hither to yon.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom’s scandal-saddled premier, is finally stepping down as leader of the Conservative Party — which, as British politics are structured, means he’s also stepping down as prime minister.

In conjunction with America’s recent annual July 4th celebration of independence from the British monarchy as declared in 1776, it seems worth noting that our former rulers seem to have long outdone us when it comes to claims of “representative democracy.”

For one thing, the British get more democratic representation than Americans. A LOT more.

Their House of Commons, the equivalent of our House of Representatives, numbers 650 for a population of  68 million, or roughly one MP for every 10,500 citizens. Our “people’s house” numbers 435 for a population of 330 million, or roughly one US Representative for every 750,000 citizens.

Their House of Lords — an even rougher equivalent to our Senate — boasts 767 members to our 100.

What’s more, while Americans are saddled with our political “leaders” for fixed terms (two years for the House, six for the Senate, four for the presidency), barring extreme measures such as impeachment, a prime minister can be sacked and replaced by the majority (or majority coalition) party any time that party loses confidence in him or her, and “snap” elections for the House of Commons can be called at, seemingly, the drop of a hat.

And, finally, the United Kingdom actually turns to “direct democracy” on some of the biggest questions. Case in point: The national referendum on “Brexit” under which the UK left the European Union. The US offers no such mechanism for “direct democracy” at the national level.

One effect (or at least characteristic) of the British system is that the Commons includes representative from no fewer than 11 parties (plus several “independents” and Sinn Fein, which wins seats but abstains from taking them), while the US is bogged down in a supposedly two-party system that really amounts to one party of two warring factions.

While I’m no big fan of government in general, and while democracy as such certainly has its flaws, the British way of doing things is both by far more representative, and  notably closer to the Declaration of Independence’s dictum that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,” than the American system.

The comparative difficulty of replacing our rulers causes  otherwise short-term turmoils to drag on for years instead of getting settled. That sometimes produces gridlock (a good thing, in my opinion), but more often just allows the ruling party to continue down paths that the majority of Americans don’t support.

What can be done about it? Well, amending the US Constitution to make America democracy “more representative” is quite difficult (as amending the Constitution for any reason should be).

On the other hand, if enough states amended their constitutions to create their own UK-style parliamentary systems, the idea might catch on. Hardly perfection (that would be panarchy), but perhaps a good start.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

A June 29 Associated Press/NORC finds that 85% of Americans — including 92% of self-identified Republicans and 78% of self-identified Democrats — say “things in this country are headed in the wrong direction.”

Meanwhile, notional support for a “third” political party remains high — 62% as of last year’s Gallup Survey — yet no actually existing party outside the Democratic and Republican establishments seems able to get much traction.

The Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and numerous smaller third parties have labored in the vineyard of politics for decades (the Prohibition Party since 1869!) without ever coming close to shattering the “major party” duopoly.

Recent startups, also seemingly going nowhere, include Andrew Yang’s Forward Party and the New Jersey Moderate Party, both of which seem more inclined to endorse simpatico “major party” candidates than field their own.

Why can’t a third party break through? There are plenty of reasons, but they all come back to the fact that the “major party” duopoly is actually a monopoly.

The Republicans and Democrats aren’t really two separate parties. They’re a single ruling party comprised of two large feuding factions which continually re-balance power and divvy up the spoils between themselves through a burlesque of “representative democracy” rigged, by force of law, to preclude meaningful competition.

From gerrymandering to preserve “safe” districts for each of the two factions, to a death grip on candidate access to ballots (which, until the late 19th century, were printed by actual parties/candidates, or hand-written by voters), to the natural inclination of big campaign money to go to the party in power rather than  to upstarts and rebels, The Republican/Democratic uniparty guards its prerogatives as jealously as any banana republic or communist dictatorship.

For all the talk of “polarization” in American politics, the uniparty monopoly occupies the broad and massive center, dividing the largest and most powerful constituencies between its two factions and doling out largess to those constituencies.

“Third” parties have difficulty making inroads into those large constituencies. The “major party” benefits may be unsatisfactory, but they’re birds in hand. “Third” parties are limited to the birds in the bush, the smaller constituencies the uniparty doesn’t consider worth catering to.

The last really major American political realignment took place in the 1850s when the Whigs disintegrated due to their inability to unite on slavery (and Democrats split along north/south lines on the same issue), making room for the ascent of the Republicans.  And within a few decades, the Democrats and Republicans had coalesced as described above to make sure no such thing ever happened again.

Absent an issue of overwhelming concern to Americans which neither uniparty faction can co-opt for its own use, we’re never likely to vote our way out of this monopoly. It will end when the United States ends.

But that doesn’t make third parties useless. As we’ve seen with issues like marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage, third parties bring forward those issues the uniparty has to co-opt to remain in power.

Which is better than nothing, I guess.  But not much. And fortunately  not sustainable forever.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY