Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 March 28

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March 28

Senate approval for appointments to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors

The Federal Reserve holds enormous power. Its board of governors, particularly the chair (now that the position is held by a woman, "chairman" is gone), have huge influence on the U.S. and world economy. My question is, have presidential appointments to the board ever get stuck in the senate? When is the last time (if ever) that the senate actually held formal confirmation hearings (or put up any sort of fuss or delay) for either a presidential appointment to the board, or for a presidential promotion from the board to the chair? Or have presidential appointments to these positions always enjoyed pro forma senate approval? Eliyohub (talk) 07:53, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

As recently as last year the senate held up presidential nominations to The Fed. --Jayron32 14:46, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

A better question might be, "When was the last time -- if ever -- the Senate approved a Fed Chair without first holding formal confirmation hearings; and, is such a thing even constitutional?" DOR (HK) (talk) 07:14, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Excuse my ignorance of U.S. politics regarding fed appointments. If you say Senate confirmation hearings for them are universal, I believe you (I was unsure of this). In fact, I see that every presidential appointment subject to senate approval in theory gets a confirmation hearing, even if only a "routine" one which takes minutes, or covers dozens (or hundreds) of potential appointees at once. But why in heaven's name would skipping them be unconstitutional? Firstly, the Fed, unlike the Supreme Court, is a legislative creation, not a constitutional one. There's nothing in the constitution which dictates the operations of the fed, is there? To quote the constitution, the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers (i.e. officers other than Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and Judges of the Supreme Court), as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. In practice, fed appointments legally need senate approval, but if congress were to pass a law abolishing this requirement, how would it break the constitution?

Also, even for the Supreme Court, do the confirmation hearings themselves have any constitutional status? If theoretically, the Senate simply went straight to a vote ("consent" in constitutional terms), without any debate, how would this violate the constitution? According to our earlier question on recess appointments, the President appoints some 7000 appointees subject to senate approval each year, and most are approved en masse in batches, first by the relevant committee, then by the whole senate. Why would appointments for the fed be any different, from a perspective of constitutional law - a simple, no-debate vote being all that's needed? (ignoring the politics). Or would the constitution oblige the holding of a "hearing" by the Senate banking committee, even if only a pro forma, routine, 5 minute one? Eliyohub (talk) 13:21, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

As to your second question (whether the confirmation hearings themselves have any constitutional status), the answer is "no." Notably, Supreme Court justices were confirmed by the Senate without confirmation hearings for a hundred years. Confirmation hearings only really began in 1916 (see here, here). The constitution, in fact, does not mention congressional committees at all. The Senate can choose its own procedures, so they could easily skip straight to a floor vote on a nominee if they wishes. (It should also be noted that "only since 1929 has the Senate operated under the rule that its sessions are open to the public unless ordered closed by a majority vote. By contrast, from 1789 until 1929, the Senate with very few exceptions considered all nominations in closed executive session" Gephardt 1998). Neutrality^talk 01:18, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Eugene V. Debs

In wiki article above it says that Eugene V. Debs got 919,799 write-in votes (3.4%)in the american presidency election 1920. I found no article that says he is a write-in candidate. So is the information "write-in votes" above reliable? DanGong (talk) 09:30, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

This has the votes for that election, which is in turn cited to a reliable government publication. I would check the original U.S. government publication for the official results, and use that as the source to alter the numbers if you wish. --Jayron32 14:45, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Jayron, I'm sorry, that I have no access to that page. Please check if you can find the information that Debs a write-in candidate, or at least the votes are really write-in votes. I have translated the article Socialist Party of America into Vietnamese and want to be sure that the information is right. DanGong (talk) 17:39, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry Write-In is never mentioned there. It only has total votes (and the numbers do not match the Wikipedia article). --Jayron32 19:21, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Are the fat printed parts from the article Eugene V. Debs acceptable? "He received 919,799[43] write-in votes (3.4%),[44]" DanGong (talk) 20:24, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Since the second reference doesn't state they were "write-in" votes, I'd take that part out. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:46, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Britannica makes no mention of write-ins for 1920.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:43, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs and Clarityfiend, thank you for your help. I will delete "write-in" if noone opposes it. It isn't a big deal if it not going to appear in "Did you know" in wiki vietnamese as it is a new article and it is something very unusual for us that someone is in prison and still candidates for a public post. DanGong (talk) 04:48, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Names for the Left

On the Republican side, far right is "conservative," center right is "establishment" or "reformican". On the left, it's liberal and progressive. Which one is farther left? --Halcatalyst (talk) 14:57, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I would disagree with your wording. Far-right is ultra-conservative, center-right is conservative and establishment, center-left is liberal or progressive and establishment, far left is ultra-liberal. For example, both John Boehner and Hillary Clinton are establishment. I would say that leftist also means far left, but some might say it also includes the moderate left. Loraof (talk) 15:24, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

For far right, there is also the term "reactionary", which means wanting to return to the way things used to be (racial segregation, banning homosexuality, etc.) StuRat (talk) 15:42, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Do you mean for the USA? Terminology can be very different in different places. E.g. what is called centrist in the USA may be considered squarely to the right in EU. Anyway Left–right_politics#Contemporary_usage_in_the_United_States has some info, see also political spectrum. Using a single left/right spectrum is also very limiting, and based on historical happenstance of seating arrangements around the French Revolution. For a more nuanced take on describing political stances and platforms, see political compass. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:41, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I guess I did phrase the question badly. What I really wanted to know was what you think."Liberal" is a term commonly used in the '60s in America to refer to the political left. In the '90s the Republicans succeeded in framing US politics and one result was that "liberal" was called the L word, and the Republican pressure caused the Democrats to stop using "liberal." It was replaced by "progressive." But now "liberal" is coming back, and "progressive" is still used. Now, maybe there is some sort of jargon web site that would address the issue, but I doubt it. So I was interested in what you would say. --Halcatalyst (talk) 18:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah. So you are primarily interested in the current meanings of "liberal" and "progressive" in American politics, yes? We are not really here to share opinions, but you might get some people offering them nonetheless. You are not alone in thinking that "progressive" is a mainly a new term for "liberal" after using "liberal" became seen as a liability in some circles. However, it is not necessarily that simple, and to conflate the terms may be doing a disservice to progressive politics. See our article on Progressivism#Contemporary_mainstream_political_conception, and here [2] [3] are some nice current discussions on liberalism vs. progressivism from journalists. Here's some nice CNN coverage of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton debating what "progressive" means to them [4]. Hope that helps, SemanticMantis (talk) 18:55, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

In US politics, both "liberal" and "progressive" are just labels used by and about people to the left, mainly associated with the Democrat Party. The words have no real meaning outside that usage. Hence none of them are further left than the other. They basically just mean "left", on the sadly one-dimensional political scale in the US. We see this happening again, thanks to Bernie Sanders, people are starting to use the word "socialist" as somebody who supports Bernie Sanders, and the opinions that get attached to the word is the desire to have a welfare state, originally a conservative invention (while at that time many socialists correctly attacked the welfare state as an attempt of pacifying the workers to try to avoid a socialist revolution). The only real conclusion you can draw of all this is that US politics have a tendency of misusing words and using them as the direct opposite of their original meaning, leaving the words effectively meaningless. --OpenFuture (talk) 19:22, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

"US politics have a tendency of misusing words ...", as when some people (mostly members of the Republic Party) insist on referring to the Democratic Party as the "Democrat Party". Deor (talk) 21:59, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Heh, lol, sorry for the misspelling. --OpenFuture (talk) 10:56, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

If you've ever watched Fox News, their editorial position is that Democrat = Liberal = Progressive = Socialist = Communist. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:44, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure I've heard Obama called a Maoist once. Iapetus (talk) 11:58, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Probably by the same folks who claim he was born in Kenya. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:06, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

No, they claim he was a Mau Mau-ist. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:04, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. --OpenFuture (talk) 10:56, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Don't forget = Traitors or gullible idiots. Come back, Jon Stewart. We insidious commies miss you. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:01, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

See Congressional Progressive Caucus. The CPC’s policy agenda includes such crazy far-left ideas as economic justice, national security, civil rights, peace, environmental protection, universal healthcare, labor unions, campaign finance reform, the abolition of the USA PATRIOT Act, legalization of same-sex marriage and energy independence.[/sarcasm]. DOR (HK) (talk) 07:22, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Sarcasm aside, those causes do sound crazy to the Mammonites of the world. If they were indeed "good for everyone" goals, they'd be achievements already. Lennon said, "You may say I'm a dreamer." He's not the only one. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:28, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Who is guilty of what? (Parable of the Six Welders)

There has been a lot of debate in recent years about when conspiracy cases against terrorist wannabes go too far. One principle I've been going by concerns a hypothetical situation leading to a gruesome accident. It goes like this:

A new hire, the Sixth Welder, walks into a welding shop, and the existing employees are upset. It is clear that he works for much less than they do, and knows nothing about welding, not even how oxygen works. One thing leads to another, and the First Welder tells him, "You know, acetyoxy is just acetylene fuel and oxygen fuel. If you take a toke of it and breathe out past a lighter, you can lay waste to stuff like a fire breathing dragon..." Being instinctively suspicious, he asks the Second Welder a few times if this guy is shittin' him, and each time he says no, no, that's how it works, everybody does this. The Third Welder doesn't say anything about the science, but starts folding up a paper chicken on his own and drawing rings with point values "10, 20, 30" on a backboard he sets up behind it. The Fourth Welder makes no articulate comment, but occasionally yells "Yeah!" and "Woo-Hoo!". The Fifth Welder, the former shop steward before the plant deunionized, says nothing, just stays seated, sipping his coffee and watching the proceedings until the Sixth Welder's lungs explode.

Now my personal impression is that all the welders, having been in some way present at this event and choosing to take no action to stop it, share culpability for the act. This is the basis for an idea that proper adjudication of conspiracy is not actually related to speech at all; that one can conspire without saying a word. A similar example would be that steering a drone to drop bombs on New York can be an entirely innocent activity if you think it's an online video game, but the moment you know it's real it's a crime.

However --- I have no idea what the law would adjudicate for such things. Is there a way to predict that without actually waiting for this exact thing to happen and seeing what they decide? Wnt (talk) 18:31, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I asked a question a while back [5], and I think some of the refs I got about how the law may deal with multiple dependent or independent causes may help you with this case too. In particular Breaking_the_chain may or may not apply to welders 2-5. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:20, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

"Crimes of commission" (where you do something bad) are usually punished more harshly than crimes of omission. However, the later are sometimes prosecuted, such as charging somebody with negligent homicide who failed to save a life when they could have. Note that good Samaritan laws are often needed to protect people who, acting in good faith, try to help. For example, so somebody who breaks a rib while performing the Heimlich Maneuver can't be sued. StuRat (talk) 19:47, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

IANAL but here goes. Moral culpability and legal culpability do not always match up. The 'former shop steward' who may no longer be the welders overseer nor foreman should never the less be in a position of recognising dangerous behaviour. In Europe, one is considered to have a duty to intervene when dangerous horse-play takes place. Just by pointing out the foolishness is often enough to make the provitures realise, that at bad out-come will place their prior behavour under the scrutiny of both the police, coroner, and many other folk. Your next example of some naïve sole dropping bombs is not to my mind a good follow-on comparison. However, naïve he may be, he would still be considered one of the agents (that for all we know, may end up improving the New York skyline). He would have to plead mitigating circumstances – that he truly believed he was taking part in an innocent game. America likes its pound of flesh and if he is black and is no relation the Kennedy family or some such, then he has no hope with that defence either, however naïve. Remember, he will be tried in a court of Law not in a court of Justice. --Aspro (talk) 20:04, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

What if no one wins an election?

I got to thinking about elections with only one candidate, such as the 2007 presidential election in Syria where Bashar al-Assad was the only candidate, and people could only vote "yes" or "no" for him. Of course, pretty much everyone voted "yes". But what if the result had been "no"? I imagine that in reality, al-Assad would still have been elected. But in principle, if such a result occurs, what should be done, at least in theory? JIP | Talk 19:17, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

See Election fraud. That will never happen. --Jayron32 19:26, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I was asking, what was supposed to happen, if election fraud didn't exist. I know that elections in countries such as Syria are so rigged that this will never happen in reality, I was asking about the theory. JIP | Talk 19:29, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

What is supposed to happen, according to the theory, is "election fraud". You have two different situations: 1) True representative democracy, which follows rules and allows for the possibility (and even the likelyhood) that those in power will eventually get voted out and their opponents will win, and we'll try something new for a while, and see how that goes. Then you have 2) Absolute dictatorship which has the veneer of elections, but the elections are supposed to be a sham, they exist merely to say "Look, we have elections", but the INTENT is merely to add a layer of propaganda to the illusion of democracy. Everyone knows that the purpose of the elections is to simply concentrate more power into the hands of the powerful dictator. That's what is SUPPOSED to happen according to those systems. They either cheat, or make liberal use of moving the goal posts (see, for example, Russian power-switching operation 2008) to ensure that the power of the elite is concentrated in their personal hands, without regard for democratic principles. What is SUPPOSED to happen in Syria, according to the way that those in power have set up the system, is that Assad and his cronies are to be in power forever, TYVM, and the entire system makes sure that happens all the time. That is the way it is designed to work. --Jayron32 19:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

In some cases there is no plan. In others, there may be a formal or informal understanding that the leader will step down and allow others to run in a follow-up election. Thus, it appears somewhat similar to a no confidence vote or recall elections under legit democracies. StuRat (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

This answer was along the lines of what I was asking about. JIP | Talk 19:41, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

In British tradition, some elections (mostly board or leadership elections within organisations like political parties and student unions) include a "Re-open nominations" option (RON), which is like the "NO" option but with a more explicit explanation of what happens next. Apparently RON has only won once in a student union election - just a few weeks ago at LSE. Smurrayinchester 11:38, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Uhm. In the past when UN officials have been invited to adjudicate over sensitive elections, they often find that when most X voters vote NO there is a magical appearance of Y voters who vote Yes. Adding two together gives a sum greater than the whole voting population. So, I think the procedure is to print more voting forms than is required and leave it to the winning party fill them in themselves, until they can justly and democratically claim a majority win on a very fair and open election.--Aspro (talk) 20:30, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

My favorite story like that is in one election, where the winning side got 3 times the nation's population in votes, easily beating the losers, who only got twice the nation's population in votes. StuRat (talk) 20:34, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

You may be thinking of Zimbabwe election: twice as many registered voters as people in some areas (July 2013). Alansplodge (talk) 21:25, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

• Wikipedia has an article on EVERYthing. For legitimate, democratic elections where no one wins, see None of the above. Short answer: it's an option in a lot of ballots, but the 'none' vote pretty much never wins. Most ballot laws provide that if 'none' were to win, the election would re-run with new candidates. --M@rēino 21:09, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

There are cases where there is legitimately only one candidate. Of the 13 elections for President of Ireland since the office was created in 1938, 6 have been uncontested - either all parties agreed on the candidate, or nobody was able to secure the required number of nominations to stand against the incumbent who was seeking a second seven-year term and could nominate themselves. In these cases the candidate is deemed to have been elected without there having to be a ballot (there was no contested election between 1973 and 1990, following the election and death next year of President Childers, the election and subsequent resignation of President Ó Dálaigh, and the election and re-election of President Hillery). -- Arwel Parry (talk) 23:14, 29 March 2016 (UTC)