The Man, The Machine ... The Presidency?

Georgie

        SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5, 2036, 5 a.m. (Combined News Reports) – The machine won: One that no grizzled politician likely ever imagined taking a campaign by storm.

That’s the result from yesterday’s presidential election that pitted Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who co-founded the Unity Party with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, against Sam Altman’s AI-created invention and presidential candidate, a Democrat named “Georgie.”

Sam Altman campaigning

 

Just before 2 a.m. Pacific Time, with 98% of the ballots counted in California, and many states having tallied up their voting results, Georgie, with Altman as its vice-presidential candidate, appeared to be on a path to win at least 301 Electoral College votes, 31 more than necessary to win the White House.

 

Sources close to Zuckerberg and his vice-presidential candidate, former California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said the Meta founder is expected to make a statement at 10 a.m. Pacific Time today. They weren’t sure if he would concede the election, demand a recount or ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule itself to determine that only a human being, not a man-made machine, is allowed to hold the country’s highest political office.

Mark Zuckerberg online ad

    It wasn’t known, as this story was written, when Altman and Georgie would make a statement. 

 

            Last night, Altman confirmed that, if elected, he and Georgie would take the oath of office at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 20, 2037, from Chief Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

 

            Altman’s AI-created candidate made this election one of the most controversial in the nation’s history, starting in early February, when the U.S. Supreme Court justices unanimously ruled against Zuckerberg and two other presidential aspirants, former Vice President JD Vance and former Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, to allow Georgie to run for the presidency.

 

            The Justices noted there was no language in the Constitution requiring only human beings to be president and that a machine, at 35 years old, the age requirement for the presidency, would, unless continually updated, likely be obsolete.

Voters in New Hampshire

 

            “They just allowed the Wizard of Oz to become the next president,” grumbled DeSantis.

 

            “We avoided a Biden problem,” Altman said, referencing the late president’s mental acuity issues.

 

            “It used to be a scandal or two could cost someone an election. Now we’re seeing a man-made candidate, with apparently no skeletons, with a very good chance of being the next president,” said historian Jon Meacham during an interview last night on CNN.

 

            “No one saw this coming – certainly not the Founding Fathers,” he added.

            

            Altman defended his invention throughout the campaign.

 

            “These times are more challenging than any human being, let alone president, has the brain power to solve. Georgie is smarter than anyone and will be the president to solve problems from food insecurity to schools and employment to relations with China, Russia, North Korea, Ukraine and The Middle East,” he said. “He’ll be more centrist once he gets into office.

 

            “Georgie is so smart I think he could be a three-term president,” he added.

 

            As the election neared, the polls showed voters who were employed preferring Georgie while those out of work wanted Zuckerberg, suggesting the unemployed had been replaced by ChatGPT and other AI-designed devices.

 

            Asked if Georgie would vote in the election, Altman replied, “Sure. Of course. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t.”

 

            Altman took issue with reporters during the campaign when asked if Georgie was a euphemism for him.

             “Georgie is his own man, or woman or maybe just trans,” Altman said. “But either way, this machine, I mean Georgie, is its own being.”

 

            “Georgie will never get sick, need a day off, be hungry, require sleep, suffer from mental decline or be at risk of assassination,” Altman noted frequently during the campaign.

 

            When asked if power outages could negatively impact Georgie, Altman declined to directly answer the question, saying, “That’s why I’m here.”

Plural Marriage Decriminalized

“Sister Wives” reality television show star Kody Brown and his four wives can play house without fearing a possible police raid should they ever return to Utah.

That's the crux of the ruling Federal Judge Clark Waddoups issued from his chambers in Salt Lake City last Friday in the case of Brown and his four wives, stars of the popular reality television show, “Sister Wives,” which appears to decriminalize plural marriage.

For those convinced Armageddon is here for heterosexual, monogamous marriage, rest easy:  Waddoups’ ruling is far from being a full out victory for polygyny or any kind of plural marriage and hardly spells the death knell of marriage as it’s traditionally known, between one man and one woman.

One of the key considerations in the case, Waddoups said, was that the Browns were not asking for legal recognition for the three additional “wives” Kody claims. 

What they were seeking – first and foremost – was the ability to live in Utah, should they return, without fear of a police raid. 

Judge Waddoups didn’t overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 19^th century ruling outlawing polygamy.

All Waddoups said was adults, because they’re granted freedom of religion, a First Amendment right, are allowed to practice their faith.  If that means they want to live with other, unmarried adults – even have a relationship with them that looks like a marriage – they may do so without fearing the police will break up their families or jail them.

The biggest effect last week’s ruling has is taking away a tool police and district attorneys in Utah use to investigate polygyny – cohabitation.  In Utah, up until Waddoups’ ruling a week ago, it was illegal for unmarried adults to live with one another.

“A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person,” Utah’s law against cohabitation read until Waddoups’ ruling. 

Waddoups amended the statute by removing its last five words.

In addition, says the Browns’ attorney, Jonathan Turley, the ruling decriminalizes the Browns’ plural marriages – as well as other plural marriages – because of their faith as Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints, which continues to believe in polygyny even though the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stopped recognizing it more than 100 years ago.

In his 91-page ruling, Waddoups reviewed many of the same legal arguments that Phil Kilbride and I discussed in our book, Plural Marriage for our Times:  A Reinvented Option?  Second Edition, including the infamous Reynolds decision of 1879 by the U.S. Supreme Court prohibiting polygamy because it “has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people.”

“In other words, the social harm was introducing a practice perceived to be characteristic of non-European people – or non-white races – into white American society,” wrote Waddoups in his critique of the Reynolds decision. 

He also took issue with how the Supreme Court’s ruling is applied today, saying, “In the religious cohabitation at issue in this case … the participants have ‘consciously chosen to enter into personal relationships that they knew would not be legally recognized as marriage even though they used religious terminology to describe the relationships.’”

Waddoups also discussed the most controversial case in recent Supreme Court history, Lawrence v. Texas, which essentially made all sexual behavior between consenting adults legal, saying, the Browns’ “arguments about the meaning and implications of Lawrence for Utah’s ability to criminalize their private conduct of religious cohabitation are very persuasive.”

The judge noted that life has changed, saying that 42 percent of Utah residents between the ages of 18 and 64 were unmarried and that 30 to 60 percent of them were living with one another.

This goes to a point that Salt Lake City civil rights attorney Rodney Parker told me:  If Utah were serious about prosecuting unmarried adults living together, many of his clients would be jailed.

Indeed, around the country, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates there are about 8 million unmarried, opposite gender couples living together and nearly 40 percent of them are bringing up children.

Finally, Dr. Kilbride and I argued that in a time when marriage and family life gives every appearance of being threatened – either because people aren’t marrying or they’re divorcing, leaving children in the hands of their former spouse – plural marriage might very well be the antidote to fix these problems.

Waddoups appears to agree, writing that Utah’s ban on prosecuting “adulterous cohabitation” (sex between a man and woman without any commitment to ever marry) but doing so to those couples who practice “religious cohabitation” (committed to one another as husband and wife but without the marriage license) seems “counterproductive to the goal of strengthening or protecting the institution of marriage” and, thus, family life.

In the United States, according to the Census Bureau, there are two distinct minorities:  Married couples make up less than half of all households, about 48 percent, and less than 20 percent of all households consist of a married couple, where both the husband and wife have a genetic connection to the children they’re bringing up.

It’s difficult to see how defending heterosexual marriage will improve these numbers.  The more likely scenario, in the coming years, is that plural marriage and same-gender marriage will live alongside heterosexual, monogamous marriage.

While I continue to miss Phil Kilbride’s enthusiasm for the topic we researched and wrote about, I’m sure he takes as much satisfaction as I do in knowing Judge Waddoups used many of the same legal arguments we discussed in support of plural marriage.

Post Script:  Phil Kilbride passed away about a month after our book, “Plural Marriage for our Times:  A Reinvented Option? Second Edition,” (Santa Barbara, CA:  Praeger Publishers, August 2012) was published, in September 2012.  He was a wonderful man, great scholar, loving father and a tremendous colleague.  He’s very much missed.

You can buy the book here:

http://www.amazon.com/Plural-Marriage-Our-Times-Reinvented/dp/0313384789/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387411021&sr=1-1&keywords=plural+marriage+for+our+times%3A++A+reinvented+option+second+edition

You can read the judge's ruling here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/191414121/Sister-Wives-Ruling

Our Three Tragedies -- The Ancient Greeks and the Affordable Care Act

The debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, is looking like a Greek tragedy – not one but three.

The first tragedy is President Obama’s age and experience. 

While no one chooses his or her birthday, Obama’s lack of political experience, especially guiding something as tricky as a near overhaul of health care in the United States, is his responsibility.

Had he not been a young man in a hurry in 2008 – and certainly a better student of American history – he would have delayed his presidential ambitions. 

Instead of seeking his party’s presidential nomination, Obama would have gained executive suite experience as either a governor or a Cabinet member in a Hillary Clinton Administration.  But he pressed on, winning his current post.

Which is unfortunate.  Because if Obama was a better history student, he would know the most effective presidents – the ones with the chops for the job – came to the White House with one or two characteristics:  Prior executive experience as either a governor, a general or a Congressional leader and, usually, 50 years old.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan – some of the country’s best presidents – possessed one, if not both, attributes when they became the country’s leader.

If Obama demonstrated patience, he’d be watching this debate from the sidelines, not find himself in the middle of it, showing what he really is – a political novice whose inability to manage the new law may very well sink his presidency and his party, too.

The second tragedy is the law’s name.  The citizenry is finally hearing – loud and clear – it’s called the Affordable Care Act. 

But when there are, potentially, as many as 50 million people facing cancelled health insurance plans because theirs don’t cover every disease, test and possible treatment required under the new law – and facing large increases in their monthly premiums – then this new law doesn’t look “affordable.”

It looks expensive.

In California, the Los Angeles Times reported, some self-employed people paying less than $100 a month for their monthly health insurance premium are looking at an increase of about $140 a month so their plan is in synch with the new law.

The McClatchy News Service reported as many as 40 million people in the United States, buying health insurance through their employers, may see their policies cancelled because they don’t stack up with the law and another 11 million people buying policies on their own are also likely facing the same problem.

And, of course, everyone heard – or saw by now – the infamous video of President Obama saying, “If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it.”

That statement didn’t come with any caveats. The American people took him for his word.

But now Obama’s eating his words, attempting to find wiggle room to keep that promise while, at the same time, attempting to maintain his signature legislation, something that’s more difficult by the day.  Especially when he’s receiving “help” from former President Bill Clinton, who also made a run at changing how health care is managed and paid for.

The third tragedy is economics.  Its first law is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch and if that isn’t understood by now, it may never be.

A to Z health care coverage – and then some – is costly.  This isn’t like buying a liability policy for your car – usually sold for fewer dollars – so anyone you hit is paid off.

The new law requires you to buy a comprehensive health care policy covering you for anything and everything even though the likelihood of you needing such coverage might be statistically remote.

So what everyone is suddenly learning is that the Obama Administration, through the Affordable Care Act, sold off the American public to the insurance industry.

You’ll pay their rates – and you’ll enjoy it!

And given the Supreme Court’s ruling, there are few legal challenges available.

The Ancient Greeks thought no tragedy was meaningless.  There’s always a lesson. 

Maybe we’re finally learning that if we paid own doctors, out of our own pockets, with our own money, instead of receiving a subsidy from the insurance industry, as we have since World War II, then health care’s prices will drop.

We need to stop acting like crack addicts and wean ourselves off the insurance industry.  If we don’t, health care prices will continue to be inflated.

Sources:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,2756077.story#axzz2kj7MCbYZ

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/07/207909/analysis-tens-of-millions-could.html

http://itsfourthandlong.blogspot.com/2008/03/history-of-american-president-what.html