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Australians Running On-Line Poll Based Senators
exeme writes "The 2007 Australian election was recently announced and a new completely on-line based political party is running for election to the Australian Senate. Senator On-Line will give Australian residents eligible to vote a chance to vote in on-line polls for every piece of legislation that comes to the Senate. The senator will then blindly vote in accordance with the majority.
The party has no position on anything until it is voted on and has been approved by the Australian Electoral Commission as a legitimate party. The party will be running two candidates in each Australian state." I imagine this could have a huge impact on CowboyNeal related legislation down under.
How do you expect the people's will to be subverted by corrupt politicians in such a system?
So will the missing option meme suddenly create a massive influx of amendments onto the Australian Senate floor?
But in all - this seems to be the next step in democracy.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
So expect public floggings, the execution of homosexuals, explusion of darkies, enforced christianity, etc. to make a big come back down under, then?
There's a good reason why civilised countries don't dance to the tune of the lowest common denominator.
...to exterminate everyone that isn't wite, what happens?
Australia:
Rest of capitalist, democratic world:
Perhaps a bit of a cynical view?
I'm all for people getting involved in their political system, but this kind of system is exactly what the authors of the American Constitution were trying to moderate because they understood a government that is strictly Democratic doesn't work.
Some non-political example is slashdot versus digg. Moderation is required.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Hope you've got some strong crypto to make sure voting is done fairly. You wouldn't want to have a million people voting the CowboyNeal option.
You elect people to have judgement in complex legislative matters, and you replace them if they exhibit bad judgement. And many legislative matters, especially as related to defense or other security issues, can require a legislator to have an understanding of information that isn't (well, can't be) widely known. That's why you send a human to do that job, not a robot. Many legislators are not, in useful terms, human, of course. But net-based polling systems strike me as a crazy way to handle lawmaking. Simple majorities are often simply wrong about things.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This will depend a lot on what definition of majority they're using. If it's a simple majority something like this could be very unpopular. Get 50.1% of the population to vote for something and you've suddenly got 49.9% very unhappy. A good system might require say 75% in favor to pass, with anything less than say 25% being tossed out. If it runs in between those two then it needs to be modified and resubmitted. Would be good if in addition to voting they provided a section for comments. Could say something like "I voted against this because of clause 2, if you removed that I'd vote for it", then at least whoever proposed the legislation would have some clue on how to change it to make it more acceptable.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
I suppose the next iteration will be text messaging the way you want your senator to vote.
Text "Aye" to 73628 to vote YES.
Text "Nay" to 73628 to vote NO.
(Standard messaging charges apply.)
Democracy doesn't work. We've had them for thousands of years, and they always fail as the majority learns they can just vote to steal from the minority. Superdemocracy is even worse.
The United States Beta that was started in the late 1700's had a great idea: let there be a pseudo-democracy at the Federal level, but limit is greatly. Don't let there be an easy way for the majority to steal from the minority. It worked for a while, until the People slowly upset the restrictions provided for in the Constitution. It was a sad day when Lincoln was elected, the first tyrant of many.
The idea of voting en masse online sounds like a good idea. I recall that MajorBBS founder, the late Tim Stryker (a man I knew personally) was a big proponent of a Superdemocracy. Back then I agreed with him, until I started to realize that the failings of a nation/society generally happen because the People want more without giving more.
My own political thought is what I call a Unanimocracy: a law doesn't get passed without unanimous consent. If you can't get it at the National level, try at the State level. Keep going down the ladder of size until you might end up with a law passed only in a home, or even only by an individual who restricts themselves. Sure, it's a grandious idea, but I feel it is the only fair way to set legislation. The Internet is a great Unanimocracy, with individuals deciding what limitations they'll accept, and others forming relationships based on agreeing to those limitation. You could say that the dreaded click-contracts are similar, although they're covered by "laws" rather that voluntary contracts that can be broken by either party.
The only way I'd accept a Democracy of any kind is if there was an agreement that 10% of any voting bloc can veto any legislation they disagree with. Let 50.1% say "We want to tax tall black men to pay for education of short asian women." Let the legislation be unless 10% of the population votes VETO. That's three ways to vote: Yes, I want it. No, but I don't really care. Veto, this is bad. A 10% veto requirement would get me to support government again, because the minority has power to stop a crazy, and theft-prone, majority.
The Senator On-Line party would meet the voter apathy parry. I predict not much would happen.
The real question is how the results of this would then actually differ from our current establishment.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Also, it seems like the process can be controlled or at least subverted by the major parties simply by the leaders of the legislative bodies not bringing up any legislation for a vote where the "population driven" senators would tip the balance.
Thoughts?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I'm moving to Australia... Wait, I'm not a citizen...
The beauty of republicanism is that even though the people may only elect a representative by a majority, the representative is then the representative of ALL the people. The social contract is that the people agree to be represented by a representative chosen by the majority. Thus, at least in theory, republicanism is government by the People, by consent of the People, not government by the majority.
A direct-democracy candidate is by definition only and always the representative of the majority, leaving the minority unrepresented. Direct democracy is, both in theory and practice, government by the majority and only the majority. It is therefore arguably the worst possible form of government, as all other forms of tyranny involve a tyranny of a minority, which inherently gives the majority the potential power to forcibly overthrow the tyrants. One cannot overthrow a tyranny of the majority.
Governing bodies make dozens of votes on bills a day. Do they expect people to read, understand, and vote intelligently on, dozens of bills dozens of pages long a week? There's reasons we have people that work do this crap (nearly) full-time.
Voter turnout for everyday things is gonna suck.
Senators do more than just vote, too. They talk about bills, argue them, control things in committees, and introduce bills themselves. How are you going to do that if you are supposed to be a puppet of the people without any ideas of your own?
I wouldn't vote this party in.
If they ever managed to get enough votes to get a seat - and the Australian Senate has quite low requirements due to it being a multi-seat proportional system but they'd be better of running for state government, in the NSW Upper House for example you only need 4.55% to get quota for a seat. They're more restricted on the preference deals they can make than other parties - the only thing they can offer is to swap preferences they can't make policy tweaks obviously - so they have basically no hope.
However, if you expected them to win a seat you would be better off voting for someone else, since then you get two dips - one for the person you vote for, and a second one if they win a seat since you can still use their online voting thing even if you didn't vote for them (and with secret ballots that's essential anyway). Making it so that people are better off voting for someone else is not a good way to win elections...
I've always dreamed of doing something like this in my own country. It's good to see some people actually getting together and doing it. I'll be watching (and hoping someone gets elected) and see how it turns out.
I like the idea of direct democracy quite a bit in a country which has a strong constitution. Probably most countries with a strong constitution could even stand to strengthen their constitutions more before going to direct democracy in a really strong way, to prevent tyranny of the majority and all that. But if I have to choose between trusting my wife-beating welfare-abusing neighbour and my Member of Parliament...well..I'd guess my neighbour has infinitely better judgement and ethics ;)
Some things I'm wondering how they'll deal with:
well i have been thinking why such a thing wasnt undertaken somewhere. apparently it is being done now. DIRECT DEMOCRACY - the next step in human civilization's evolution, and the next function of internet.
Read radical news here
I'm not familiar with Australian political system, but wouldn't this mean that some poeple would get double representation? That doesn't seem legal.
I'm fairly sure we'll see voter participation rise to around 120%.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I have been waiting 11 long years for something like this. Goes to register to vote.
Umm, correct me if I'm mistaken, but...
Isn't SOL a common acronym for (depending upon your cultural variant), "Shit Out of Luck," "Sadly Out of Luck," "Soldier Out of Luck," or "Solely Out of Luck."In a true democracy you don't vote for people, you vote for ideas. In an ideal world, every decision would be done by consulting the people. Sounds nice.
Except can it work? How would anything be done unless it is popular? How do you do anything that the major opinion makers do not want to?
In holland we had a bit of trouble with commercial radio, years ago frequencies were auctioned off, then when the contract ran out the goverment wanted to auction it off again, this lead to complaints from the previous winners because they might not win a new bid now that it had been shown how big the market had become. They argued that it was them that had made commercial radio big, had made the risky investment and should be given special consideration.
The details however do not matter, what matters is that these radio stations have a very easy time to influence the voter/listener. They aired constant commercials stating their case, pretending this was the end of the world, a blow against freedom etc etc etc, when what they really were upset about was not being able to make huge profits anymore.
What if the dutch goverment had done something that say Philips did not not like (dutch electronics giant), Philips to get the same amount of publicity would actually have to pay for it. And what if a goverment action hurt say corner grocery stores? How they hell are they going to get their message across?
Just as politicians often seem way to easily influenced by lobyist, the average voters has the same problem with popular media. Oh sure, you are different, we all like to think that and perhaps for you it is true, the rest of us are fed our thoughts by the glowbox.
This is extremely relevant, what do ALL people who work in tv got in common? Right wingers? Lefties? Liberals? No you idiot, the answer is in the question, THEY ALL GOT JOBS.
Doesn't matter how right or left they are, they all got paying jobs, and the fast majority extremely well paying jobs.
Daily public opinion is formed by people earning far above the average wage level. Do you really think the news presented by a millionaire, edited by someone making 5x average, owned by billionaire is going to be unbiased on reporting on economics?
These people would gain the power to influence every referendum, as they now do the elections by simply reporting from their world. This isn't about corruption, it is about simply not knowing what it is like to be poor. I once had a very "intresting" discussion with someone about a project by the dutch city of Arnhem, which was to give people on welfare a free washing machine. Her idea was that you could always just get the one from your parents and be really carefull with it, it did not fit in her minds that poor families might not be able to give their old washing machine to their childeren going out of the house because they still needed it themselves. She got all her first gear from her parents and just could not get the idea that this might not happen for all people.
Do you really want people like that, influenced by millionaire media to vote on every bit of goverment regulation?
It sounds like a nice idea, but you would first have to get a truly independent media going that can honestly a fully report on every issue AND then get people to watch it.
For the liberals, just follow the witch hunts that emerge after a child murder, would you really want it to be possible for someone to get a vote going banking on public sentement?
The current system is far from perfect, but perhaps it is the best we can get as long as we remain imperfect human beings.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I don't know what the rate of internet access is in Australia, but I'm absolutely certain it's not 100%. While I applaud the idea, there needs to be some sort of free access for those that either don't own a computer or or don't have an internet connection. Maybe 5 free minutes at the internet cafe so that people can read and vote on their legislation.
2 cents,
QueenB.
HDGary secures my bank
Instead of buying senators, you just can put those funds into figuring out how to game the voting system.
May the bast hacker win!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They were first, everyone else came later and NEVER got permission. Only problem, I am not sure the rest of the world wants to take back the australians, or the americans for that matter, there is reason we got you off to the colonies.
It always amazes me that illegal immigrants dare to complain about illegal immigrants just because they been scewing the people who always been there for longer.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
We pay senators to do important work, we pay them to learn all about
many important and unimportant issues.
Some mentioned security concerns but this is not the point, practically all
sensitive issues are resolved in the executive branch and not the legislative.
However, anyone voting for such a party is in fact committing himself to take care
in the many votes to follow. Should he not take interest we are again letting small interest
groups who happen to care about some minor piece of legislation pass silly self-serving laws,
simply because nobody else noticed.
Most laws are not interesting, ant not in public debate, however I would still like someone
to think about all these issues, thats why we pay the senators.
The important issues and general policies are campaigned on, a candidate who doesn't stick to
his campaign promises is less likely to get re-elected.
Thats indirect democracy, and it's the best system we found so far.
Me
It looks like an Australian senator makes between $108,000 and $126,000. For only running a website, this is a cush job. And one assumes the senatorial priviledges like office space and going on overseas "fact finding missions" and whatnot can get claimed by the webmaster. Pure genius - money, travel, lunches, etc, all on the public tab for running a website.
That's what this (and all similar) projects require but is simply not feasible: Informing everyone who wants to (or even can) vote about the matter, unbiased and without prejudice, so s/he can make his or her own decision.
First of all, too many people don't even want that. They don't want their own opinion. They enjoy being told what to think. They get their opinion from TV or maybe even newspapers. Though the latter is hard to verify, since you'd have to be able to read.
Then, nobody knows everything. Let's take "Net neutrality" as an example. It is a big issue amongst geeks, but can you faithfully say you know ALL implications? You know EVERY possible position? You know everything that is to know about the pros and cons of it? Now imagine you're not a geek, but this is the topic at hand, you should vote for or against it, and you should make a sensible decision about it.
What will happen? Well, either you simply don't care. Or you feel like your input is valuable and so you want to know what's cooking.
In comes the spin doctors and PR goons from every company that could possibly or remotely deal with the issue, who tell you that your kids will all go to hell and you of course too if you don't vote in their favor, not to mention that your job is going to be shipped overseas and the dollar gets weaker too, your house will collapse and your dog will die, all because you didn't vote the way you "should".
Is that better or worse than simply directly bribing a politician? I don't know. What I know is that the separation of church and state was a good start. Next step should be the separation of business and state.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So, this would be the Senator On-Line party? Where have I heard SOL before? ;^)
Not off to the most auspicious start, are they?
Here in the USA we voters been SOL for a long time.
I seem to remember hearing about a group who wanted to do something like this in the UK, but as far as I remember it was illegal. It could well be in Australia as well. The idea is that we have a representative democracy, things like this go against the fundamental ideals of our democracies.
Representative democracies are valuable because they are a good way to avoid the tyranny of the majority whilst still allowing people to express a preference every (4/5-ish) years if the representatives express poor judgment or are corrupt...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
for crying out loud, I'm sick of people invoking Lincoln as the reason for the downfall of america, and calling him a tyrant. What, you still upset at the the weakening of Federalism? Okay, you disagree with that. Fine. But a tyrant? Unconstitutional? I find this funny that to people like you it is SUCH a travesty that he prevented secession by force--for the ostensible reason that it was unconstitutional--but then you seem nonplussed that the states that wanted to secede were violating fundamental human rights by permitting slavery. That travesty doesn't seem to particularly upset you. As far as I'm concerned--and I don't care about the other economic motivations for the civil war--if the "victims" of Lincoln are states that support a violation of human rights and dignity like slavery, then hell with 'em. And don't give me that bs line about how "slavery was going to be made illegal eventually anyway." Again, you show a hypocrisy: the unconstitutional indignity toward slaves doesn't really bother you, but yet you dwell on the unconstitutional weakening of Federalism as so awful. You know, even permitting for a second longer the institution of slavery for reasons of "economic necessity" is IMMORAL, unconstitutional, and a disgrace. But why doesn't that bother you as much as forbidding secession? What lingering domestic tyranny is left from the era that makes you think america is worse off?
All your senate are belong to us.
Stop defending American politicians. The Iraq occupation is an extremely complex matter. The solution isn't. GTF out! I don't need a PhD to tell me that!
Some thoughts:
... uh ... better than the other guy who wants to do the same thing. Umm ... I'll do it naked!"
a) Homogenization of the vote? Any other senator would be wise, in the absence of strong constituency lobbying, to simply vote with the Senator Online. How could you go wrong if the Online vote is a reflection of the public desire?
b) What is the likely demographic of those who would use Senator Online? The hard working middle-class type isn't likely to want the added burden of being a defacto senator added to the existing job, parenting, soccer mom'ing, etc. Maybe the Senator Online would reflect the will of those with time to spare eg. retirees, welfare abusers, other politcal candidates with an agenda to push, Slashdotters wanting to comment on something different?
c) What platform would a Senator Online candidate use? Great to be a candidate if all you do is vote as told. Who could find fault with your performance? A job for life if you could get it. But what's your election platform? "Vote for me. I'll do exactly what you want
Doesn't this almost seem like Tom Sawyer? Get someone else to do the work (assume researchers/collaters are hired), get someone else to take responsibility (the online voters) but you take the perks (and pay). Does this seem like a scam to anyone else?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
I posted this somewhere else as well but your argument is so flawed I feel I must repeat myself.
Commericial radio in holland got its frequencies through a public auction that gave them a license of a set number of years. When that license ran out the goverment wanted to hold another OPEN PUBLIC auction. Commercial radio was bigger then everyone thought and the goverment was sure that they could raise a lot of money through this because more bidders would now want take part.
They were right, and the current license holders were scared, they had gotten the original licenses on the cheap and now had to compete with big internatinal players, paying way more for their new license and that would eat into their massive profits.
Cue the license holders complaining very loudly over the radio about how this was going to ruin radio, destroy freedom and bring about the end of the world. They used a bloody air-raid siren in their ads. All because the goverment was doingexactly what it had said it would do originally and commericial radio stations would have to bid with ther commericial radio stations.
The point? How do you prevent people with ready acess to the voter from making their voice heard? Do you think any of these commercial radio stations gave airtime to people defending the goverments action?
It is well known that big media is controlled by a handfull of super wealthy individuals. Check the british elections and how Labour suddenly became acceptable when several right wing newspaper suddenly started supporting Blair.
Take the current media companies case with filesharing. In this world you got two sources of big money, the media companies on the one hand and the hardware makers on the other. Before Sony became a media company they were PRO-consumer. Harddisk makers and others actively lobby against media lobbyists against things like a mediatax on harddisks.
In your world, the media companies would still get their voice out through the businesses they own, but how would the hardware makers let themselves be heard? Through buying ad time from the media companies? We saw how that works recently, with Google refusing to sell ad space to an opposition campaign.
Our current system is far from perfect, but a pure voter controlled system would give the media companies FAR too much direct power. At least right now we get the occasional balance because big bucks doesn't always agree with big bucks. Just the media forming the opinion of the people controlling the law? No thanks.
First you would need to ensure that you got a way for ALL concerned to have an equal voice. That can't work unless the state control the media, another horror in itself.
The current system ain't perfect, but it might be the least bad we can come up with.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Hey, I for one would be *glad* to vote for the ol' Satellite of Love...
Chris Mattern
Who woulda'thunk it?
I, for one, welcome our new proletariat overlords.
What the hell is that subject supposed to mean?
Here's a better title:
New Australian Party Backs Internet Opinion-poll Driven Candidates
Now, internet aside, how is that any different from business as usual?
Were that I say, pancakes?
No, not that Mob, but large groups of uninformed and emotional people.
...not just voting.
I thought of this idea about a month or two ago for the United States. My idea though was to have discussion forums, perhaps moderated like on slashdot, for voters to bounce ideas off one another. A summary then should be written with a poll on it, almost as a petition. These petitions could be edited under a sub-discussion, and if edited, the poll restarts under a new summary of desire/demands/comments. This is how the voice of the people should be represented, using the benefits of collective wisdom of the public.
Exactly. I've not seen anyone else really touch on this and am quite surprised by it. Maybe in ozzland senators dont actually DO anything, but in the US senators put forth all sorts of pork barrel legislation to help along THEIR constituency. Any idealistic community who elected one fo these robotroid senators would be selling themselves completely shrt because they would be giving up this voice in their favor. Yeah it's idealistic and looks like a noble goal, but in the real world such idealism is also quite stupid.
I figure it will work as well as online banking, except there won't be lots of little stupid banks and individually maintained certificates / encryption. This will be one large government organization keeping track of it all. The only issue is that there is only one target to be hacked, but if the source code was reviewed like a bill becomes a law for peer review, it could really work. The biggest problem is if, as stated above, some big money will *wink wink* "ensure it is done correctly", and "wins" an exclusive contract to develop the software.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
Well, that is one way to totally shut down lobbyists.
There is one problem, however. I'm a USian, not an ausie, but I'd be surprised if the parallel situation didn't exist there.
There is more to being an elected representative than voting. Elected representatives also respond to constituent requests for assistance with dealing with intractable governmental problems, they hold hearings, complete with the power to subpoena witnesses, and (in general), they hold oversight over government agencies, including those whose business is secret. Those are all things that an electoral tabula rasa wouldn't reasonably be able to delegate to the electorate.
Direct democracy is obviously a disaster for reasons beyond infrastructure and free access. A representative democracy makes a lot more sense, but an improved way for everybody to get their opinions in will be a step forward. I think this is a big more aggressively progressive than the recent New Zealand wiki project, but these are the first countries experimenting in a government that acknowledges the influence and power of the internet.
It will most certainly be a failure, but as Edison responded to a reporter about how he felt about his hundreds of failures in inventing a lightbulb, he said "I didn't have any failures, I just learned hundreds of ways NOT to make a lightbulb"
Whatever the outcome, it will be an important learning experience. I am sure the next few groups that try such a thing will fail as well for the same reason. There is just going to need to be a lot of documentation (media, history books, etc) on how NOT to do this before it is done right.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
One of the theoretical benefits of representative democracies is that our legislatures have to deal with immensely complex issues with long-term ramifications. Additionally, the emotional tenor of politics has become increasingly strident, fueled by war and (at least in my opinion) 24-hour cable news channels desperate for content and viewers pushing increasingly tabloid-style "infotainment". A few of us try to stay rational about things, but let's be honest - if we had direct democracy far too many people would be voting their day-to-day whims rather than prioritizing our needs and taking the long view. We'd be voting to spend 10% of the national budget to save cute puppies or on whatever cause is being promoted by the latest hit documentary (foot warmers for penguins or something). That being said, we're actually spending our money on whatever projects are most successfully lobbied... but this actually scares me less than direct democracy.
My solution for whoever cares: 1) Two-term limits for congress - limited the seniority system and the amount of time over which favors can be accumulated and dispensed, 2) pay them eight figures (say, $20,000,000 per year) - just over ten billion per year in congressional salaries should eliminate enough low-level graft to pay for itself ten times over.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
The American Ideal. ...or...
more to your point.
(S)enator
(O)n-
(L)ine
=
(S)hit
(O)ut of
(L)uck
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
The Americans didn't get it out of thin air. The Greeks and Romans had figured it out a long time before.
I mean, why do you think Washington, DC looks the way it does? Hell, we even have a monumental statue of George Washington as Zeus.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/10/13/1191696214489.html
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
"A good elected official"
Nuff said
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I know it's pretty cool and very popular to whip out the corruption/powerless/pointless rant. I used to do it too but decided my energy would be better spent other ways.
History is full of examples of more ordinary interest winning out over the more powerful. In every one of those examples there was a great deal of participation in the system we have by ordinary people.
In this situation it goes bad because there's no moderation. In the American situation goes bad because so few participate.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
...however there is a shortage of democracy in most "democratic" countries.
Australia is already aeons past Canada--at least they've established a process to elect senators. In Canada they're appointed by the Queen's representative (Governor General) on advice of the Prime Minister. Technically speaking the GG has final say, but convention pretty much dictates that the PM makes the choice. We do, however have the Liberal party of Canada, which sounds similar to this now party in Austrailia--it too "has no position on anything" and its representatives "blindly vote in accordance with" their leader, who unfortunately seems to have a disconnect with the majority at the moment.
The Senate of Canada is an odd non-democratic institution for a country that is seen as a champion of democracy:
It is pretty common for the PM to consult with Provincial governments (who would compose a "short list" of potential appointees from which the PM would select a senator). However, there is no obligation for the PM to select from that list (nor is it a requirement for the GG or the Queen to accept the PM's selection technically, however it would be seen as a gross violation of convention). Consequently, the PM will conveniently ignore provincial recommendations when, for example, the governing party of the province differs from the federal government.
An interesting outcome has developed however--the province of Alberta strongly advocates elected senators and for the past 17 years has only submitted a "list of one" per senatorial opening to the PM, consisting of the winners of a "senator in waiting" election. The first such senator was elected in 1989. PM Brian Mulroney respected the "list of one" and appointed Stan Waters of the Alberta Reform Party to the senate in 1990 (Mulroney assumes a Progressive Conservative would win, however he surprisingly kept his promise and appointed him anyway).
However, when the Liberals came to power in 1993 they did NOT support a democratic senate (they weren't AGAINST it exactly, but they weren't FOR it either because they say making any changes requires this big constitutional amendment procedure and stuff blah balh--it's hard to explain where they stand on the issue...well ANY issue actually...). The third party (NDP) wants the senate eliminiated entirely. The Alberta counterparts to those parties wouldn't run senatorial candidates as a result, so the ballot consisted of Conservatives, Alliance/Reform and independents. Since the two parties were both right-of-centre the rest of the political spectrum was only represented by low-profile independents. Subsequently the Liberals ignored the next two senatorial-nominee election results and made their own patronage appointments because they questioned the legitimacy of the results--which were questionable largely because the Liberals wouldn't allow anyone to run under their party banner (nice bit of circular logic there).
Now the current PM is a conservative with a strong past affiliation with the Reform party that put forward Stan Waters as a senatorial candidate. The candidate with the most votes in the most recent Alberta senatorial-nominee election (Bert Brown) has thus been appointed by the PM and today will become the second elected senator in Canada's history.
So, I know the concerns people have about mob-rule brought about by unfettered direct democracy. However, Canada's example demonstrates that often present practice is much more flawed and potentially dangerous. In Canada, the senate is highly partisan so they generally blindly vote in accordance with the party leader's wishes. However they really only answer to themselves because once appointed they cannot be removed until they must retire at age 75 except under exceptional circumstances (pretty much only conviction of an intictable offence will do it). In some cases that is a good thing as it allows for the rare intelligent, independent thinkers to flourish (Anne Cools comes to mind). However there are few checks on conduct and sen
One major problem I see with this idea is that it will be jacked by special interest groups, a known political economy problem. To explain:
Say legislation on how to regulate the steel industries was proposed. Now most of the country couldn't care less about what form this would take and so wouldn't vote. However the steel industry itself is very interested and they would all vote to shoot it down. End result: no regulation of the steel industry because they are the only ones who care enough about the issue to inform themselves of the legislation and actually vote, even though the vast majority of people would like some form of regulation.
Australia would end up with the problem of the US voting system, only half the people actually vote so all you end up needing is a quarter of the population to take a strong interest and you win.
Plus, how many people have time to follow every piece of legislation that comes up in parliament?
That's a first.
Do you think it might catch on?
Blind voting might be okay for a party in opposition with no ambition to form a government, but if loads of them got elected how would they ever run the country without policies? And why would you ever vote for officials of a party that is functionally unable to form a government and lead your country in accordance with some kind of objective?
1. Vote for a party that has concrete plans that aline with your political goals.
2. If they do get one or more seats, take part in their "what shall we vote" voting system.
This reminds me of something that happened in Canada not too long ago (well maybe 5 years or so anyway). There was a punter (politician) named Stockwell Day (who ironically enough is now our Minister of Foreign Affairs I think). Anyway back then he was the Leader of the Alliance Party(which used to be called the Reform Party, and in the end combined with the Progressive Conservative Party to form the Conservative Party who is currently elected, which is as close to the Republicans you get up this way).
Anyway part of his platform that he ran on was some referendum reform. His idea was that if 10% of Canada's population thought there should be a referendum, then there would be one. It was pointed out this was a bad idea, for two reasons, one is that they are very expensive, and we don't want to be having one for every quandary we find ourselves involved with, and also there is a reason why people are elected to represent the people.
This was illustrated by one of my favorite comics and political satirist Rick Mercer (Similar to John Daily in some respects), on the fake news show "This Hour has 22 Minutes". They urged people to visit their website and sign a petition to hold a referendum. The Question on the referendum would be "Should Stockwell Day be renamed Doris Day" (or something to that effect). Sure enough more than enough (350,000+) people signed up, and during the broadcast, it was announced that as soon as the Alliance won that would be the first order of business.
Of course they lost the election and the rest is history. Anyway it was pretty damn funny back then, and this reminded me of the same thing.
Marx didn't think humans particularly good OR bad. Oddly enough, his ideas about human "goodness" in this respect were roughly the same as Plato's and we all know how political ideologies based on The Republic have played out.
Do you really think the ppl with RTFA (especially when its 300+ pages)?
Or will they just vote "bomb the bastards" (for example)?
Once the remaining intelligence is removed from the Senate, who will write the legistration to be voted upon? Just rubberstamp the prime minister's proposal?
Sh... eats billions of flies?
In theory we could have honest politicians as being the bulk of them, in practice...well... I think some do get elected, but what happens is they get compromised quickly, blackmailed/bribed. Joe Honest makes it to being a federal rep from his state. A month later he gets a little phone call, or some stranger bumps in to him, he gets shown a bankbook from overseas with huge sums in it. He gets told these sums *might* be connected to drug smuggling/money laundering. Or maybe not, all up to him how he plays ball or not. Or he gets pictures of his relatives with crosses marked on them. Stuff like that. He learns to play ball. Want to see a huge example of it being used, right out in the open? The "unsolved mystery anthrax" attacks, right during the patriot act being slammed through congress, unread by any of those folks. If they push their luck, there's always the unfortunate "airplane accidents" or "whoops, fell from a high hospital window" or "drowned while canoeing" sort of events. And so on.
And that's the real world. You see it all the time over in those "other" nations, it is pretty easy to identify, but for some magical reason inside the US, where the stakes are much higher, it just "can't happen" because "they wouldn't do that!!". Nonsense, happens as much here as anyplace else, and always has. Hardball, for keepsies power politics and economics.
Control of the public political process in the US is worth so much money, it falls under the "beyond the dreams of avarice" level, not to mention what megalomaniacs really lust after,which is control over other humans. How far would people-rogue groups of really criminally bent and powerful people- go to achieve that "at the top, in control" status? If we look at meatspace, theft and murder are quite common over much lesser sums and much lesser amounts of power. Magnify the potential payoff of money/power/control by a million-not only is forced compromise possible, it becomes statistically most probable.
What I would like to see, though, is a mandatory test of psychopathy in all candidates. --If they test positive for the mental disorder, then they should be removed from the race and preferably put in a detention center with the rest of the human-looking sharks for the rest of their lives. If we could achieve this, then I'd feel confident in letting my elected representatives do their jobs.
I want to see an accurate biological test for psychopathy developed and an appropriate system for dealing with them. Psychopaths crave power, live in their own fantasy worlds, are extremely good at manipulating people and whose primary goal in life is to torment normal humans and create chaos. A simple survey of the world today suggests to me that most of the political spectrum in all countries is staffed by dangerous lunatics with under-developed frontal lobes.
-FL
I'm a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), in which all decisions require consensus. This makes for longer meetings, but results in better outcomes - it's better to spend longer thrashing out something we can all agree with than to force a worse solution on a minority.
And believe you me, we have some very obstructionist people in our organisation, so please don't argue that consensus only works when everyone is working together. I'd be very interested to see unanimocracy given a spin.
Do as you would be done to.
Before getting overly petulant about it, perhaps you could just google "George Washington Zeus." It's actually quite famous--and, yes, he's on a throne. The statue in question was also meant to be placed in the center of the Capitol Rotunda--directly below the painting on the inside of the dome, appropriately titled "The Apotheosis of Washington" (apotheosis="making into a god"). Directly below that spot was built a crypt in which to place the actual body of Washington. By the time this was to come about, the whole idea seemed just a bit much, so while the painting stayed, the statue went outside and later into the Smithsonian, while the old man's bones went to Mt. Vernon. Old man Zeus is still prominently displayed just of the lobby of the American History Museum.
//The More You Know(tm)
Incidentally, the inscription inside the Lincoln Memorial even refers to it as a temple and a shrine. Not saying we're actually worshipping these guys, though one could do quite some valid analysis of how we invoke "The Founding Fathers" with near divine reverence, just that we are giving a blatantly obvious and deliberate nod to the Greeks and Romans in our national icons. If you step back a bit and take it a little less seriously than the buildings seem to demand, it's all pretty amusingly campy.
I'm going to start a political party called dictatoronline that'll do exactly the opposite of what senatoronline does. It's important to have opposition in a democracy.
Democracy is based upon the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
Autocracy is based upon the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides?
Lazarus Long
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Most of the time it works pretty well(though the current government is sort of suffering quite a bit because in the last election they took the senate too and there's no one there to buffer their own stupidity), but it's not composed of the same sorts of people as the US Senate and an on-line senator would fit in pretty well there.
Add the fact that most politicians tend to just vote the way of the polls anyway.
Dude, they'll get tired of constantly voting, and then just vote on an entity to automatically vote a certain way for them in all the decisions. It'll be like their representative... Wait, that sounds vaguely familiar.
The solution isn't to condemn direct democracy. It's to have a written constitution that makes certain issues off-limits, like the Bill of Rights, and make it more difficult to amend the constitution than to pass an average law. You can still put the voting power directly in the people's hands - just require 2/3 or 3/4 instead of a simple majority for extreme cases.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Where are the instructions for starting a party like that one (not necessarily aligned politically, or even agreeing on policies) in the USA, that can also get into the Federal Elections Commission approved racket here in the USA?
--
make install -not war
The problem with all this talk about who should or should not have law-making power is that it largely ignores the inescapable facts of who really *does* have the lawmaking power, and that those people will have that power regardless of what some piece of paper says. This is because said piece of paper's only real power is the power that the people themselves give it; thus, no matter what any law on paper says, the law in fact will be whatever the bulk of the people want it to be. This is of course assuming, as seems reasonable, that no one person holds disproportionate amounts of real personal power compared to others; that is, that one individual's advantages over others are by and large only the product of other individuals supporting or at least condoning the acts of the "powerful" individual. Even the absolute monarch of a great empire has no exceptional power if nobody believes that he has power, unless that monarch was truly a god with superhuman powers.
I consider myself an anarchist in just this sense. I don't call for the abolition of government or the state; I deny that any such thing as the state exists. There simply is no such entity. There's just a bunch of people. And in that sense, all societies are direct democracies. Representative democracies are just societies in which people generally grant their support or consent to "whatever that guy says" (their representative), rather than supporting particular issues themselves directly; and that may sometimes be a good thing, deferring to someone who you believe knows better than yourself, and the same exact thing happens when demagogues routinely sway the popular of a direct democracy. An absolute monarchy is just a society in which the majority grant their support or consent either directly to one individual, or to his agents (law enforcement); if the majority did not grant that support or consent, the monarch would be powerless.
So no matter what form of government people officially erect, in the end we are all, always, subject to the tyranny of the majority. And thus the only way we can change a society and the way it is governed for the better is to make its people morally better. Thus, the problem with *all* forms of government is that they rely on humans being fundamentally good; this problem is not unique to anarchism, communism and the like.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
FYI - Voting in federal elections is compulsory in Australia. As an Australian I wouldn't want it any other way, having any section of society branded as non-voters simply gives their government a mandate to ignore or abuse them.
Any comparison to a political system that doesn't have compulsory voting (as many people have done here) is basically pointless.
This reminds me of the movie "The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066302/ from the 70s where a guy is voted into power in England with the policy that every government decision will go to a public referendum.
Very soon every person in England is inundated with documents describing all sorts of obscure government issues like how to respond to a tense diplomatic situation in a some obscure African country that no-one's heard of before. There a great scene of this couple in their working class flat, smoking cigarettes in their nightclothes, working their way through huge piles of questions.
It makes the point in a humorous way that your average person neither cares nor is capable of understanding a lot of the issues that politicians are required to decide upon (and take responsibility for). Sure, some people do care and are capable of understanding the issues and even have the time to investigate and make an informed decision. But that's a huge minority and possible a skewered cross section of the general population (though it's not immediately obvious in which way they're skewed, or to which party).
It's a funny movie too. Well worth watching.
pithy comment
The United States of America.
Certainly, not in entirety, unless you wish to be obsessively pedantic.
I'm not saying the USofA took to lot verbatim--note my use of the term "A NOD to the Greeks and Romans"--but it is asininely silly to suggest that we didn't inherit our form of government from them, not least as we originally separated out just as much the land-owning classes, women and slaves.