Welcome to the first post on "State of Mind". I hope that you find this blog stimulating or at least enjoyable.
The theory of government has always be interesting to me. Particularly, how each form of government (republic, communist, parliamentary, kingdom, etc...) justifies its existence. In nearly all forms, the government exists solely because the people over which it governs have sacrificed some of their individual freedoms for the benefit of the whole. The people have realized that an organized structure will create the best chance for human advancement over a disorganized conglomeration of households or indivduals. In order to advance humanity, we must have "successful" governments. How does one make an effective measure of the "success" of a government? What would the key performance indicators be for measuring the ROI of the government? Would they be simply protection, health care (in some societies), and education or perhaps how many of the populations' "needs" it has addressed?
Perhaps the answer lies in how we define government and the acceptable practices of government. Once we define the boundaries of our government, it then becomes possible to measure the effectiveness of the government. In the United States of America, the government and its boundaries were defined in a document known as "The Constitution of the United States of America". A remarkable document in its own right, however, the Constitution delineates no process for evaluating the effectiveness of government. There doesn't exist a means for a citizen of the United States to understand the progress and "success" of their government. While certainly the different departments of the government measure the effectiveness of policy via their own measures, their does not exist a means to aggregate that information and present the findings to the citizenry.
Perhaps, a method to solve this void would be to develop a fully automated system that receives reports from the various departments, aggregates the information and then disseminates that data to the voting public. I say voting public because an argument could be made that only those who voted (a civic duty) would have interest in the data. This system would be fully automated and the reports, once submitted, would not touch human hands. This would provide a level of security that would prevent the manipulation of the data to satisfy political agendas. The voter registration would list mailing addresses for the voting public. Alternatively (and cheaper), the information could be published onto a centrally maintained government website and downloaded for printing or view by the citizens. Imagine a citizen receiving a report on the effectiveness of government policy that was clear, concise, and informative. In order to minimize the "game of interpretation" played by many a policy maker in their attempts to further their political party, the report would present the data in a manner that is not open to interpretation. This will require the automated system be fairly sophisticated. I think the difficulty in programming this system could be minimized by requiring the various departments of the government to submti a standardized data form containing all of the raw data (relevant to the department) to the automated system. The real "trick" to effective reporting from this system would be linking the reports from the various departments back to a specific piece of legislation. No small task, yet one that apparently gets accomplished by the "distinguished" representatives and senators in their attempts to gain or keep political clout. The methods that they use are far from standardized and is not generally available to the public. Essentially, they provide you with their results, but not necessarilly their methodology. I would feel more comfortable knowing that the results of government could be more accurately and openly tracked by an impartial system, than from a politically motivated interest group, the media, or any politician.