THE ROLE OF FIRST NATION Mancur Olson suggested offering generic benefits to attract people to his large groups. The difficulty in that is where do these bene

THE ROLE OF FIRST NATION Mancur Olson suggested offering generic benefits to attract people to his large groups. The difficulty in that is where do these benefits come from? Small groups don't have the resources to put that together. So we came up with First Nation - something large and stable enough to put together core packages of benefits for any other Nation to offer to their members. Then there's the problem of what groups should be able to get them? A group of 10 people? 1000? 10,000? First nation would have to set some kind of criteria. It's a non-profit. There are a dozen ways you can set it up to avoid it becoming a king-maker. We realized we could also use First Nation as a Watchdog group. They're not necessary for this part of the system to work, but it could be effective. Congress voted on a financial overhaul bill last week, for example. First Nation would have polled the other Nations to see how they felt about what needs to be done, what they'd like to see. The financial industry had lots of lobbyists involved in the bill, but there were few, if any, representatives from consumer protection groups or similar. In this scenario, I'm pretty sure at least one or two Nations would propose some new ideas or have some comment on what was passed. They'd try to convince other Nations to lend support. This "encompassing coalition" of Nations could sway the direction of financial overhaul to something that's beneficial to the larger public rather than the bank lobby. SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS These aren't special interest groups. I'd join a Science Nation, for example. What's their agenda in financial regulation? None. But I bet some of the people there might have some interesting and good perspective on what should be done. These are "general interest groups". If the bill being discussed were about funding a supercollider, on the other hand, then I think you could say they're biased. And the other Nations would know it. GRIDLOCK That's a terrible argument. If your car can only go 10 mph, then it might help you avoid fatal crashes, but it also makes it difficult to go anywhere. Take Immigration Reform. The system has been broken for 20 years. Did you see the bit in the comic about why negative campaigning works in a winner-take-all system? Immigration hasn't been fixed because right now all a politician needs to do is discredit an idea instead of proposing a new one. There is no "win" for anyone who proposes an idea. WHAT'S THE 67,000 FOR? Fair question. I'm running for office and using the campaign to pitch an idea that might help fix the system a little bit. Even if you don't buy Olson's ideas, the worst that happens is that you end up with groups that offer benefits similar to AARPs. I do need to fund my campaign. I didn't think asking for a dollar was so onerous that it would raise suspicion of impropriety. TEA PARTY Well, they really are bogeymen. :-)