Why not use the theory of decision making detailed in the novel,
The Dice Man, to mix up the experience? In this novel, the purported author and protagonist Luke Rhinehart--a psychologist, decides to upend his boring life by making all decisions by the cast of dice.
If failure is predetermined by choosing failed policy ideas, does this not take all of the drama and adventure out of government activity? Instead, why don't we break up the sheer monotony of perpetual failure with an occasional lucky strike of success? If all of the current administration's decisions are ill-fated and doomed upon arrival, the addition of decisions by lot or chance into the equation can only bring the occasional, or even spectacular result. And certainly this would do much to cheer up the dreary mood in America after 5 years of unmitigated mediocrity.
I. Death by Repetition--Failure R Us
One of the truly remarkable aspects of modern America is the omnipresent sentiment that everything is broken and cannot be fixed--as Jack Kerouac
once described, "...my feeling that everything was dead." There is a pall cast over the land where once proud sons and bold daughters plotted their dreams, and planned their schemes to do better than their parents. Now, instead we struggle to simply make ends meet and figure out if there could possibly be a way back to the American Dream.
It seems the harder we work, the less we have to show for it. In fact, Camus' salute to unending failure,
The Myth of Sisyphus, dedicated to all who absurdly toil for a cause which appears hopeless, comes to mind here:
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor...You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth.
II. The Dice Man
The surreal novel called
The Dice Man is a supposedly a true story that surrounds Luke Rhinehart,
described here:
A Doctor of Psychiatry struggling in an unhappy marriage coupled with the daily grind of a dull and boring life, listening to the same clients tell him about the same problems day after day. One night after going to bed at the same time as the previous five nights, Luke realised his life was in a routine of the same patterns each day so he decides to search for a more gratifying existence to # up his life and employs dice to randomly decide all of his future moves.
It is true that Luke's decisions are sometimes appalling after turning his life over to the dice, and he commits immoral acts. But are these any worse than the wholesale destruction of America's liberties and economic vitality in exchange for a handful of Marxist magic beans? Why is one irrational choice any more absurd than another? After all, in following the roll of the dice, at least there is a chance of a good outcome, unlike the blind following of socialist dogma, as seen in Washington today.
In Luke's own words, he decides to employ chance to maximize his own life opportunities:
I became ablaze at the thought: I must always obey the dice. Lead where they will, I must follow. All power to the die! Excited and proud, I stood for a moment on my own personal Rubicon. And then I stepped across. I established in my mind at that moment and for all time, the never-to-be-questioned principle that what the die dictates, I will perform.
III. Application of Dice Man Principles
There are many unwise and frankly absurd positions being taken by the US government today. But consider the following areas of US failure and a Dice Man President approach. The Dice Man would arrange 6 different options for the following topics and then roll the dice, choosing whatever number he rolled.
A. Middle East Policy
US Middle Eastern policy is currently in a shambles. The Arab Spring policy of America supporting any rebellion here has led inevitably to Shariah law regimes sprouting up across the region. Meanwhile, our sole ally--Israel, is left to twist in the wind as we decide how we will resist Iran's attempt to develop a nuclear weapon. Certainly, we can do better.
So, what to do? Why not set up the following choices for a roll of the dice:
- Immediately withdraw from Afghanistan.
- Build a super military base in Israel and commit to total war against all attackers.
- Commit all US forces to eradicate Muslim terrorists across the region, regardless the locale.
- Officially end the War on Terror.
- Withdraw all forces from the region.
- Draw up a Christian position on regional policy and goals. Fund a million foreign missionaries.
B. Energy
American Energy policy today is driven by a Luddite commitment to blocking all new leases for gas and oil, and underwriting green energy initiatives, no matter how ill-advised or financially untenable. Despite this, the US us undergoing a petroleum renaissance, becoming the world's leading oil producer, while the President announced we cannot drill our way out of shortages.
So what will the dice tell us to do? Consider these choices:
- Shut down all oil production on government lands and create a green economy by taxation and law.
- End all state and federal regulations blocking oil exploration and development on American soil.
- Make gasoline and diesel engines illegal under a radical block Global Warming policy.
- Make illegal importing any petroleum products from any Muslim dominated country.
- Sell all government lands except for national parks, in the next 10 years.
- End all petroleum taxes and award $1 million dollars for each new producing oil or gas well.
C. Immigration Reform
What are 6 interesting choices for the immigration dice?
- Only allow millionaires to emigrate to America.
- Grant instant amnesty to all illegal immigrants.
- Immediately expel all illegal immigrants.
- Offer citizenship to all foreigners willing to enlist 20 years in the US military and fight in war.
- Place alligators, piranhas, tigers and lions at all border zones. Make illegal entry a capital offense.
- Tear down all walls and gates on the US border areas and de-fund Border Patrol.
D. Education Reform in Public Schools.
Here are six possible choices for reform:
- Only teach the French Revolution, Karl Marx and the evils of capitalism.
- Just teach the Bible, American Revolution, the Founders and Adam Smith.
- Teach both Evolution and Creationism, or neither.
- Cancel the US Dept. of Education; shut down all public schools.
- Return to the ancient Triumvirate curriculum of logic, argument and composition.
- Use Sesame Street as a model for all instruction, at all levels.
In any event, one can see quite easily that a "
dicelife" president and congress would inject much drama into American society. Further, one cannot claim that such a change would create a worse outcome than is already guaranteed via doomed-to-failed, pre-formatted socialist policies.
IV. Government by Untestable Theories
There is no doubt that the American government has adopted failure as its standard, as seen in current economic stagnation, foreign military reversals and corruption and scandal at every level in DC. Interestingly, Thomas Sowell mentions the difficulty in holding politicians responsible for failed policies which result from a deranged view of the world, in
The Vision of the Anointed, writing:
Even when issues of public policy are discussed in the outward form of an argument, often the conclusions reached are predetermined by the assumptions and definitions inherent in a particular vision of social processes. Different visions, of course, have different assumptions, so it is not uncommon for people who follow different visions to find themselves in opposition to one another across a vast spectrum of unrelated issues, in such disparate fields as law, foreign policy, the environment, racial policy, military defense, education, and many others. To a remarkable extent, however, empirical evidence is neither sought beforehand nor consulted after a policy has been instituted. Facts may be marshalled for a position already taken, but that is very different from systematically testing opposing theories by evidence. What is important about that vision are not only its particular assumptions and their corollaries, but also the fact that it is a prevailing vision--which means that its assumptions are so much taken for granted by so many people, including so-called "thinking people," that neither those assumptions nor their corollaries are generally confronted with demands for empirical evidence. Indeed, empirical evidence itself may be viewed as suspect, insofar as it is inconsistent with that vision.
Conclusion
Is it really so wrong to suggest government by random chance is crazy, as opposed to "enlightened" public policy--when the model used has never worked, and its assumptions are all already proved to be false? The question answers itself.
