People are creatures of habit. No surprise there. But habits in politics are like boxes, or perhaps better said, cages. There is a way things are done, and reasons that they are done that way, with the result that all the parties' thinking moves through well worn ruts. We have elections, people vote. Money is spent on TV ads to twist the voters emotions. Political parties sell influence to get the money. Monied powers collect the money to get the rules (the laws) they need in order to keep getting more money. When was it different.

In America there is a basic distrust of politicians, coupled (unfortunately) with the false belief that nothing can be done about it. The corrupt system is just something with which we have to live. Oh sure, there are plenty of folks trying to change the system, having conferences, sending e-mails, organizing protests, writing their congressmen - but if you look at things, the reality is that they stay the same.

For example, we have had huge problems with our way of getting and paying for medical care. These problems are old - we could see them coming forty years ago. But no fundamental changes have come into being. There are arguments, even laws passed, but there are no changes at the foundational level - no changes in the basic system. Habits die hard.

Same with social security. The so-called baby boomer problem could be seen coming a long time ago. And the fact that these funds were being misused by Congress has also been well known. But nothing gets done, or will get done until it is panic time, and then what is done will be sloppy, confusing, mis-directing, stupid and not solve the problem, but just put a band-aide on it. Of course, it is easy to understand some of this when you realize that our representatives have taken good care of themselves (outstanding medical insurance and retirement benefits of which God would be jealous).

The main psychological element then is habit. Things are done because they were done that way in the past. It is easy to just do the habitual. Those who benefit from the way things are can hardly be expected to want to change them.

So, if we are going to hack politics, then we have to deal with habit. Habit is like the Windows OS, kludge upon kludge that only runs because we are used to it. Now we need the open source ethic in politics, where everything gets done in a transparent way - visible to everyone.

How to do that will be in part three. Originally posted October 17th, 2002.