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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.
Australia:
Rest of capitalist, democratic world:
Perhaps a bit of a cynical view?
Switzerland isn't civilized anymore? We Germans better close our borders then.
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.
And a pony?
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.
No, actually! According to their FAQ they're only running for the Senate, our house of review. So they won't be proposing any bills and effectively give the public a veto. Looks surprisingly well done
What you are basically saying is that the entire concept of 'democracy' as the will of the people is a sham joke, and that a minority elite is busy in every modern country "fighting the good fight" by repressing and finding ways to counteract and block what the majority would like to do. Am I right?
Agreed. This kind of thing scares me, especially if I've been listening to radio phone-in shows. The idea of democracy is that we elect the kind of government that we want, who roughly agree with our principles and ideals. Democracy is not about the 'people' making every single decision. The only people that will vote in each case here are people who are either (a) bored and unemployed (b) fanatic about a particular issue (c) generally believe they are right about everything. These are not the people who should be making decisions. I work hard at my job, and there's no way I have the time or resources to get all the information and insight I need in order to make major policy decisions.
Our democracies (I'm from the UK) aren't perfect, but its better than handing the lunatics the keys to the asylum.
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.
They get kicked out the country for grievous spelling errors.
Hopefully they have checks and balances built in to prevent such abuse. Here in the States, we call it the Constitution. YMMV.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
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.
Hmm, if they'd say no ILLEGAL imigrants, instead of no darkies, I'd move there. Oh, and anyone who comes first, then asks to stay is illegal. Apply first, then you're accepted, and we're golden.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
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'm probably picking nits here but the more democratic you are the more direct control the 'people' have over decisions. That is the reason the US is not a democracy. It is a democratically elected republic. In a pure democracy the polls rule, every decision is made by the whim of the people. In our information saturated world, that means that the media determines the outcome. Our fate would then be in the hands of Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh or even more disturbing - Al Sharpton. Personally, I like the idea of a Republic over a Democracy.
Of course, our (the US) elections are strongly influenced by special interests now anyway. But becoming more democratic would make that worse, not better.
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means
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
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.
If based on majority vote, it isn't the lowest common denominator, it's the largest common denominator. A thing to be marveled at!
That's a tricky one, for often it's a hen and egg problem. Many people who could work abroad and would actually be a meaningful addition to the workforce there (compared to "let me in and where's the social office" people) face exactly this problem. They can't come without having a job, and they can't get a job because they can't even come for an interview.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Despite what you (and Mussolini) think, I think that most common people are quite capable of making decisions that affect their lives.
I wouldn't necessarily call online voters lunatics. For example, Ron Paul supporters are some of the most well informed voters out there, and they are exactly the people who would make use of this. Quite frankly, I would call any voter who didn't vote for Ron Paul a complete idiot as they clearly don't understand how bad their country is doing, and whats driving the problems.
As far as the parliamentary system, I doubt every seat will be represented in this fashion, just some, or maybe none.
I think its a great way to lend support to issues that politicians are to cowardly to oppose such as the the war on drugs, censorship, wars with other countries, and expanding defense/security issues, loss of sovereignty to the UN.
I do agree though that certain issues shouldn't be represented in this way as it would get carried away.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
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.
You're thinking of the wrong demographics. All the assorted pressure groups will mobilise their armies of members, and get them voting on line.
Only read a couple comments before posting...
Before you debate about this, clear up your vocabulary. Democracy is everyone votes on everything. A Republic is where everyone votes to put Senators, Republicans etc, in power and then they vote on the issues. The United States, is NOT a democracy, Austrailia, is NOT a democracy, etc..etc... If you question my vocabluary, look it up. Most people don't get the difference between a Democracy and Republic and think voting in officals who make the law is a Democracy, which it isn't.
The SOL party appears to be truely pushing a Democracy, i.e. everyone votes on everything for their one vote. One of the problems with a Democracy is if the majority of the people voting (or the population majority if you have 100% voting population) are pushing one particular issue, be it racial issue, public floggings, etc., that issues wins, no questions.
So, make your statement about Democracy failing, public floggings, etc., if you are in a true democracy and the voters want that, you get it. It can be scary if the population in the democracy is scary, or if they are so ambivilent they just don't care and don't vote and you could get crazyness.
That has some interesting implications for the moral authority of democracies. People living in a democracy usually see themselves as 1) able to take part in shaping the laws of that, and 2) submitting their own desires to the judgement of the majority will (e.g. 'I wish to buy sex but the majority has decided this is wrong, hence I submit my desires to their judgement').
With regards to number one, this means it's evident that regardless of your will and thoughts, they are never going to be represented regardless of how many share them, due to the aforementioned "enlightened elite" that you posit the existence of (by definition they must exist, as you say direct polls would let the evil mob take over). It should mean that for a large number of people trying to even act within the political system or gather public support for their views is plainly meaningless, as they will be considered evil and every method employed against them by aforementioned enlighteneds regardless of how widely their opinions are held.
With regards to number 2, it means that democracies do not have the moral authority to demand submission on behalf of their people - because they by definition do not represent the will of the people (your own definition), they only represent the view of a minority. Submitting yourself to democractic laws is thus simply a matter of fitting into the world view of a minority that they enforce with punishments and rewards contrary to the majority view. The equivalent to this would be adhering to the rules of a dictatorship that you disagree with but argues strongly for their benevolence.
Is there anything I have written here that are not logical neccessities and guaranteed outcomes of what you have said? I am genuinely curious.
No, actually, that's the idea of a Republic. A true Democracy IS about the people making every decision.
IANYL, IANAL, TINLA, IANAMD, IANAP,
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?
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.''
By definition they have said "no ILLEGAL immigrants" since it's the legislative body and the fact that they are called "ILLEGAL" means that body has declared them to be. Assuming you are using the term "illegal" in the normal manner.
Our democracies (I'm from the UK) aren't perfect, but its better than handing the lunatics the keys to the asylum.
Actually, I honestly don't think it is at the moment.
Today, we have a Prime Minister, complete with new Cabinet, who has never been voted into that office by the electorate, and indeed who just backed down from holding an election to get a mandate. (Anyone who is about to bleat about a party political system where the Labour Party was elected would do well to remember that they were elected after Blair said he would serve a full third term. There is no rational way you can argue that the Brown administration has a mandate based on party politics. And even if they had been elected without that promise, our first-past-the-post system is so broken that you could hardly call it representative.)
Many of the less popular acts of government in our country are now coming down from above. At national level, we have the unelected European Commission running the show, despite the presence of the directly elected European Parliament, and imposing legislation on national governments. I find it sadly ironic that the government is desperately trying to wriggle out of a referendum on the big European treaty on the basis that it has certain key safeguards for national sovereignty in place, when those "safeguards" basically mean they can ignore the few bits of European law that actually serve the interests of the people: human rights, protection for workers, etc. Meanwhile, the government imposes all sorts of unpopular nonsense on the basis that Europe told it that it had to. Remember that our own European Commissioner is serial ministerial resigner and locally politically uncredible screw-up Peter Mandelson — so when they say "Europe told us to", this is the sort of person they're taking orders from!
This happens at more local levels, too. I live in Cambridge, where right now our County Council are pretty obviously setting up a hugely unpopular congestion charge in the city. This is being done despite widespread opposition among city residents and their elected City Council, who aren't even being shown the models from the consultants. It's also being done by much the same crowd who are already screwing up local transport because of a pet scheme of theirs, which can't possibly be enough to solve the problems they claim we're going to have a few years down the line even according to their own laughably physics-defying models, yet which is being implemented right now at vast cost in both taxpayers' money and disruption to local residents and businesses, even after thousands of local residents opposed the scheme and basically no-one without a vested interest supported it.
In other words, right now the basic decisions that are going to affect me as an everyday guy, at local, national and international levels, are all being made by people I have had no chance to vote for or against. And a great many of the big decisions they are making are in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, which would probably be enough not just to get rid of the legislation but to outright finish political careers in some cases if any remotely democratic form of voting were in place.
I do not believe in a 100% "one adult, one vote" type of system for every little decision, for the simple, pragmatic reason that no-one has enough time to consider all the issues deeply enough to make a sensible, informed choice. I believe in a representative government elected according to the basic principles of the people, where those in the civil service can do the detailed investigation where appropriate and decisions are made by the elected representatives on the basis of the information and any expert advice available to them. I also believe in checks and balances, and in particular that if interest in a particular issue is sufficiently widespread, it should be possible for the people to override the government on that specific issue immediately, rather than waiting for anothe
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
No, I think you need to clear up your vocabulary.
Your definition of democracy is correct.
What you call a "republic" is actually "representative democracy". A representative democracy is where we elect people to vote on bills for us instead of us voting on everything.
The real definition of "republic" is an entity where the head of state is not a monarch and the people have input into their government.
All your senate are belong to us.
If these things were really supported by the majority of the population in Australia then one would expect Australians to elect senators who held these positions. That is, there is no general reason to think that indirect democracy is less susceptible to tyranny of the majority than direct democracy.
In theory, the rights of minorities are guaranteed by the concepts of "rights" - such as equal protection under law. As the practice of slavery in the USA demonstrated, even having constitutionally guaranteed rights does not prevent tyranny of the majority.
The only situation where the least common denominator would be disproportionally represented would be on obscure issues that most people didn't have time to understand or care about.
For that reason, I would propose a modified system where the default is that the senator makes the choice but where there is a mechanism for people to override the senator on issues that they cared about. In the ideal system, a senator would have as many votes as the number of his constituents. For the issues that a constituent cared about the constituent would be able to specify his vote directly but for other issues the constituent would simply let the senator decide on his behalf.
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?
Communism presumes that all the members of the commune can effectively coordinate their actions toward a common set of goals. This matches what you said if and only if "good" is defined as the will of the majority of the group. This, BTW, is why communism doesn't scale: a small group may share common goals (i.e. concept of "good"), but the larger the group becomes the less likely it is that they will all agree on their goals and the best ways of achieving them.
Anarchism (any variant) doesn't presume any particular definition of "good", so it's meaningless to say that it relies on people being fundamentally "good". The most basic principle in anarchism is that no one has the right to govern anyone else (defn: "without rulers"). If anything, this could be taken as an assertion that no one is good, or at least that no one is better than anyone else, because if someone were objectively better they would at least have a rational excuse for telling the lesser beings around them what to do.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Hopefully they have checks and balances built in to prevent such abuse. Here in the States, we call it the Constitution. YMMV.
Our mileage here may vary, too, as the Republican party seems to be opposed to judicial review ("activist judges"), and is appointing accordingly when they have the chance. With jury nullification out off favor, that leaves nothing to enforce the constitution.
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?
The solution isn't. GTF out! I don't need a PhD to tell me that!
But apparently you need something if you think that Iran's stoking of that conflict is somehow going to turn into them happily embracing a democratic, peaceful, non-mysoginistic, non-retrograde neighbor. Leaving, abruptly, would be insanity.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
...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.
The notion that the civil rights of any minority are subject to revocation at the whim of 50%+1 of the vote is scary.
I don't expect good things from this move. Actually, I don't expect these loons to get elected, either.
And how DO you determine that they're following their rules? After all, it's not hard for them to cook the books on a poll, if they have some predetermined outcome in mind.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Oh and expect the state to take control of pretty much every aspect of life helped by "the government should" central planning drones.
Think I'll buy shares in some arms manufacturers and gas suppliers.
Deleted
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.
anarchism assumes that nobody will try to seize power. without rulers, or authority, there is nothing at all to stop anyone from seizing power & turning it into a totalitarian dictatorship.
therefore it cannot possibly work, long term, in a large group, unless everybody is 'good' & doesnt try to seize power through force, for their own gain.
Web Design
Is it any less of a flawed axiom to assume that elected leaders are, at their core, good?
An idea that seems to be popular with conservatives is that society needs a strong authority hierarchy where the good people at the top of the hierarchy control the bad people at the bottom of the hierarchy. This allows them to justify advancement though obedience because in their view the obedience to ones superior represents obedience to a higher moral authority.
The alternate view is that some people are good in some ways some of the time and that when one person is put in control of other people their needs to be a system in place to prevent the person with authority from abusing those under them.
Certainly, the modern representative democracies (what some would call "republics") do have substantial systems in place to prevent abuse of authority. It is not clear to me though that these systems would be any less effective at preventing abuses in a direct democracy than in a representative democracy. For example, it would be just as unconstitutional to pass a law limiting free speech in a direct democracy as in a representative democracy.
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
they're only running for the Senate, our house of review. So they won't be proposing any bills
Your Senate never writes any new laws? That's fantastic! If only our Senate worked that way. Also our House of Representatives.
We'd still let them vote to repeal old laws, though. And if they're good, then once the US Code fits into a single bound volume again we might let them vote to replace old laws with new ones.
Your definitions are not the ones in the dictionarNor are they in common usage by anyone but internet trolls who love to say "Gotcha! The US is a Republic, not a Democracy!". It is both.
A Democracy can be direct, as you describe, or representative, as the US and every one of significant size is.
A Republic is a nation whose head of state is not a monarch; a useful distinction a few hundred years ago, not so much today.
"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?
I'd like to be able to elect my senators. I'd also like to have the same number of senators for my province as every other province. Too bad that's not going to happen because it would transfer some power away from Ontario and Quebec.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
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.
If it is flawed to assume that humans are basically good, you need to explain why putting all the power in the hands of a small group of bad, self-interested humans is inherently superior to putting power into everyone's hands.
To my mind, if everyone is self interested and lacking in altruism, thats an argument for citizen-level democracy, not the current several year dictatorship that we get now between elections. The former is much less likely to get railroaded by a narrow special interest group.
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.
You are wrong about anarchism. It does not rely on humans being fundamentally good. Where Madison says "if men were angels they would need no government", we say "if men were angels they could be trusted to run a government". The fundamental problem with government is that people are flawed and power corrupts. Concentrating power in a single institution with a monopoly on the use of force only amplifies the damage they can do. Ambitious corruptible people will be drawn to that institution, and the rest of us have little defense against it. And so we want to see power decentralized to it's very limit, the individual. After all, if absolute power corrupts absolutely, negligible power should corrupt negligibly.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Sh... eats billions of flies?
You live in an anarchy - look around you and see the result.
Actually, all evidence suggests that social animals (such as humans, elephants, and other animals that live in groups), often act in their own best interest (evil-to-neutral behavior), but occasionally make sacrifices for others (altruistic, aka good behavior). Here's a great example from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_in_animals):
"Vervet Monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked."
This behavior is explained by selfish gene theory--if sacrificing yourself causes a large number of your kin to survive and reproduce, each of your genes will (on average) replicate faster than if you had not sacrificed yourself.
My point is that humans and other social animals are, by their very nature, "good" to some extent.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
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.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/republic You are quoting definition 3 for republic, I am quoting definition 1. As previously pointed out a representative Democracy can be defined as what the US actually has...or if by this definition.. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy Definition one can be set to mean representative democracy (elected officials) or direct democracy (everyone vote on everything). So before you go calling some an internet troll, look it up yourself. Your definition of republic is one of many, my definition of democracy is one of many, so I admit I was a little wrong and should have said we have representative democracy, which are at times called republics. You on the other hand were also wrong and brought about calling myself and others internet trolls. So I will openly admit that I could have been more precise, but in the circles I travel, the words are commonly, and correctly, used as I listed. You on the other hand were also wrong and right and resulted to name calling. I think we know who the true internet troll is.
"The notion that the civil rights of any minority are subject to revocation at the whim of 50%+1 of the vote is scary."
This is always the case in any kind of democracy. In many systems, the majority has established various roadblocks that prevent 50%+1 from doing anything too rashly. But if 50%+1 really want to do it and remain committed, either they can or it isn't democracy.
I contend that while slim majorities do plenty of stupid, fickle things, the average opinion of the majority over the long term is far more benevolent than it is typically given credit for.
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.
"The United States, is NOT a democracy, Austrailia, is NOT a democracy, etc..etc... If you question my vocabluary, look it up."
I am sorry if I hurt your feelings with the "internet trolls" comment, but that is indeed who I have seen this "The US is not a democracy" meme from in the past. If you would like people to correct your errors more politely, you might refrain from challenging them to "look it up". I did look it up, in my dictionary and now on the page you have provided. You are correct that definition 1 of democracy on that page includes both direct and representative democracies. So does every other definition on the page and in my printed dictionary. I still find no definition that supports your contention that the US "is NOT a democracy". That statement is not "imprecise"; it is incorrect.
You vehemently mis-correct others with such emphatic language, and you're upset that you get a snarky response pointing out your error? Grow up.
"Like communism and anarchy, it relies on the flawed axiom that humans are, at their core, good."
so does Democracy.
You know, I never considered that. Such a simple solution to people using force to grab power: just give up and hand the power over to them without a fight. </sarcasm>
Your argument is no different than suggesting poverty as the solution to theft, or suicide as the cure for murder. The problem is the loss of property, or life -- or freedom -- not the theft, murder, or false claim of authority that leads to such states.
They can try all they like; the system will work until someone actually succeeds. Perhaps you were thinking of pacifism?
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
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.
Actually, the Australian Senate can propose new bills. They just don't usually.
From parliament's website:
So you're either from BC, Alberta or Saskatchewan...
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Or Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, or Prince Edward Island. They all have too few senators, too.
But yes, I'm from Saskatchewan.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Oh, and Manitoba. I thought you'd mentioned it with all the rest of the West.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
I believe bills can be introduced in the senate as well as the house of reps, just not for taxation or appropriation.
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 way to stop blatant abuses like floggings or discrimination isn't to reduce the number of people who can vote on those issues; that only makes it easier to perpetuate the abuses. Instead, the solution is a constitution that places limits on what can be approved by a simple majority. You know, "Congress shall make no law..." and so on. You can still amend the constitution to get rid of those limits, but it requires a lot more than 51% of the votes.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
If you think that PEI is under represented, you seriously misunderstand the issue... they have four senators representing 138,000 people. Alberta has six, representing 3,473,984 people. Ontario has twenty four senators, representing 12,803,861 people. One for every 34,500 in PEI, one for every 58,000 in Alberta, and one for every 54,000 in Ontario.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
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.
Yes. A brown one with white spots. Or a white one with brown spots... whatever.
Australia is NOT a republic. We had a referrendum a few years ago on whether the country should become a republic (i.e people or government elect a head of state and less ties to England) or not and the majority of people voted no.
Australia is a commonwealth country. The head of state is the Governor General (a purely ceremonial role), who is the Queen's representative. I think the government makes a suggestion to the Queen of England on who to appoint and she or someone in her staff signs off on it.
As for form of government Australia is a representative democracy, like pretty much every other western country.
Today, we have a Prime Minister, complete with new Cabinet, who has never been voted into that office by the electorate, and indeed who just backed down from holding an election to get a mandate.
I'll admit my understanding of the UK system is a bit sketchy, but I was under the impression the position of Prime Minister was appointed by the Queen (typically the leader of the majority party) and Cabinet was then appointed by the Prime Minister (presumably under advisement from his senior Party members).
Or, in other words, the electorate has _never_ "voted in" any of the people in those positions, because that's simply not how the system works.
(Anyone who is about to bleat about a party political system where the Labour Party was elected would do well to remember that they were elected after Blair said he would serve a full third term. There is no rational way you can argue that the Brown administration has a mandate based on party politics. And even if they had been elected without that promise, our first-past-the-post system is so broken that you could hardly call it representative.)
Well they _do_ (apparently, I don't follow UK politics especially closely) have a mandate. That's the way the system works - people *don't* vote directly for certain individuals to be in specific positions (like Prime Minister).
The system here in Australia is basically the same, which is why I wonder about people who get so uptight about who is (or might be) Prime Minister. The point is that it doesn't matter because a) the Prime Minister could be (literally) anyone in parliament and b) individually, they don't hold any more power than anyone else there. It is little more than a ceremonial position and, ultimately, the Prime Minister's power comes from those he can influence, not inherently from his position as Prime Minister.
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
I'll admit my understanding of the UK system is a bit sketchy, but I was under the impression the position of Prime Minister was appointed by the Queen (typically the leader of the majority party) and Cabinet was then appointed by the Prime Minister (presumably under advisement from his senior Party members).
Technically, you're probably right, but as with much to do with Her Majesty, it hasn't really worked that way for a long time. The Prime Minister is always the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in Parliament. If the monarch ever appointed anyone else, we would be a republic by the following day.
Well they _do_ (apparently, I don't follow UK politics especially closely) have a mandate. That's the way the system works - people *don't* vote directly for certain individuals to be in specific positions (like Prime Minister).
No, they don't, except that in that case, they do: the position is so important that a significant number of people will elect a local MP based solely on which political party they represent, because that will decide the PM and therefore the nature of the administration.
In any case, as I noted before, the Labour Party ran on a platform that Tony Blair would serve a full third term as leader. There was an explicit promise that by voting Labour, people were not voting for Gordon Brown. When Blair stepped down, Brown became Leader of the Labour Party effectively via coronation within the party, and was duly appointed Prime Minister by the Queen. There isn't even a shred of democratic process in there.
For the avoidance of doubt, because if you're not from the UK you might not know this: the third Blair administration got in with the smallest majority of any party in recent history, didn't even win the popular vote in England, and if polling was even close to accurate, wouldn't have had a chance without TB. And then despite getting the support of only 22% of the electorate (and around 1/3 of those who actually voted), they got a clear absolute majority in Parliament, which has been used to further widely opposed proposals on everything from ID cards to congestion charging, often overcoming opposition from the other large parties who collectively received far, far more votes. The system is as crooked as they come.
The system here in Australia is basically the same, which is why I wonder about people who get so uptight about who is (or might be) Prime Minister. The point is that it doesn't matter because a) the Prime Minister could be (literally) anyone in parliament and b) individually, they don't hold any more power than anyone else there.
On the contrary. It will always be the leader of the largest party in Parliament, and anyone who watched the Blair presidency^Wprime ministership knows all too well that the PM has all the power if they really want it. That's one reason he was so widely disliked: he centralised power in 10 Downing Street like no-one who'd ever gone before, even to the extent of relying on these mysterious "special advisor" types rather than traditional Cabinet government. And from that position, he pushed through numerous reforms (and the occasional dubious war, obviously) without the support of the people or even, on occasion, much of his own government.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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.
I think we're talking about different issues. Compared to a "Triple E" Senate, PEI is under represented. One of the "E"s is Equal, or an equal number of senators for each province. This is to prevent acts that seriously hose a small province to the benefit of a large one. Senators should be the voice of the province in the federal government. Ontario is no more important in confederation than PEI.
Alberta should have the same number of senators as every other province. Personally, I think each province should have 10. No more, no less, only because it makes a nice round 100 senators.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Then I guess the USA isn't a Democracy. A Constitutional Amendment can be used to remove civil rights, but they take 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of all States to implement.
Measures before the Senate can be blocked by a 41% minority, if that minority is willing.
I can't say that either of these things upsets me terribly, since I'm more a King Log than a King Stork type, and retaining the Status Quo (which is the only thing that can be accomplished by the minorities in either example) is generally a good thing, or at least not too bad a thing.
The decision to make slavery legal in the USA was not done by a "slim" majority, but rather by an overwhelming one. It wasn't especially benevolent, either to the slaves or their masters, in the long run.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"