Made my calls

[lydy]

Called Al, Amy, and Keith about the disasterous Republican "replacement" of Obamacare. As always, I flubbed the first call, did better on the second and third. I kind of think the staff are tired of hearing from me...this may be projection on my part. In all three cases, they didn't ask for my zip code, and in two cases they declined to take it. One of them said, "I have your phone number" which is totes adorbz, since one's area code is the area code that one had when one first got a cell phone, not necessarily where one lives at the moment. Which actually highlights some of the ways in which the geographic representation is an antique thing. On the other hand, most of the suggestions for replacing it with something else seem to have even greater problems. I don't know... It's complicated. If representation were by affinity group rather than geography, it removes the problems of gerrymandering, but introduces greater balkanization, just for starters.

I also called the Dept. of Homeland Security to ask for the release of Daniel Ramirez, who is a Dreamer who didn't do anything at all, other than just, be, you know, brown.

So, that's my little bit for the week.

Comments

[quadong.livejournal.com]

You're going to have to present something stronger than "there are cell phones and Internet now" to convince me that geographic representation isn't a good idea. Most issues that *actually* affect a person are geographically rooted, like whether your sewers work or roads are maintained.

Based on your comment, I guess you aren't really advocating it, but calling it "antique" seems at least half way there.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I didn't actually say that geographic representation was a bad idea. I think that it is problematic in two different ways. The first is that a lot of my community feeling is not geographically based, and I think this is true of many people. The second is that gerrymandering is a serious issue, and that is based on the assumption of geographical representation. Moreover, I did not mean to use cell phones as proof of anything. It was intended as a way of quickly noting that geography doesn't function exactly the same in people's lives now as it did even fifty years ago, much less two hundred. You are correct, it's not proof of anything, but it wasn't intended to be.

One of the things that is problematic with representation not based on geography is stuff that you are nodding at. I think one of the things that many many many people overlook is the incredible importance of logistics. And I think that as we live our lives more and more online, we have an even greater tendency to forget time and distance and distribution problems. But the issues of where resources are located, where they are transported to, how they are processed, all of that is vastly more important than people tend to realize. The distribution of wealth and poverty also has a significant geographic component, for lots of reasons, most of them logistical. So, yes, representation based on geography has a lot to recommend it.

At the same time, I don't really know my neighbors, nor have any particular interest in doing so. I don't make close friends at work. My own life, and my interests, tend to be sufficiently at angles from other people that I do much better, socially, in affinity groups of my choosing.

I am also very much an internationalist. I dislike the entire concept of the nation-state. This is one of the areas in which I remain very much an anarchist. An anarchist who adores big institutions, you understand. I am very, very fond of government in the abstract, and often in the particular. But I don't get a sense of belonging out of countries.