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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.
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.
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How do you expect the people's will to be subverted by corrupt politicians in such a system?
By sucking around for unwise votes in response to well-groomed populist or alarmist nonsense. If all it takes is a mouseclick to "agree" with a position that's been slickly presented to you in a nice Flash-based web site that you just visited while reading your e-mail at home and having your fourth beer, then this makes matters worse, not better. If you can get a Nobel Peace Price for slickly packaging semi-truthy rhetoric, you can certainly get your pet legislation passed that way too - and even more quickly using this new bots-using-Senatorial-bots method. You want less corruption? Elect people with integrity and good judgement. Is that just too much work, compared to complaining? Then quit complaining.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
Elect people with integrity and good judgement.
I would. I really would. I'm serious, I would.
If I just could.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's not a sham joke, it's simply misguided. Like communism and anarchy, it relies on the flawed axiom that humans are, at their core, good. Nearly all evidence points to the contrary, as shown by how the other political ideaologies based on the same axiom have played out.
Step back or forward, both have their ups and downs.
Yes, a representative democracy has its advantages. If, and only if, the person who is supposed to represent you does actually represent you. If he's just a slick bastard who gets the lowbrows to vote for him because he promises easy solutions to problems that have none, he's worse than any direct democracy could be.
Now, show me one politician who isn't such a slick bastard (one that actually has some power, not some wannabe, trying to get somewhere), and we'll talk.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
While you were probably joking, this brings up a very important point -- elected officials do more than just vote "yea" or "nay," and I'm not talking about all the subversive stuff like accepting bribes and getting wined and dined...
A good elected official will take a piece of legislation that has good parts and bad parts, strip out the bad parts, and add more good parts to it. If all you can do is simply vote yes or no, you're losing quite a bit of power there. Would they allow you to vote on a particular bill and say "yes if you strike out this one provision" or "yes as long as we add x, y, or z." What about creating legislation from scratch? If you rely on the other senators to do so, you are really at their mercy in terms of what legislation the "voting mass" ever gets to vote on.
Note to self: Stop putting jokes in my insightful comments so I can get something other than +1 Funny!