31–40 of 105 posts
“I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.” -- William F. Buckley. Now more than ever. See "Franchise" (1955) by Isaac Asimov for an efficient version.
“I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.” -- William F. Buckley. Now more than ever. See "Franchise" (1955) by Isaac Asimov for an efficient version.
I'm afraid that mr Buckley would be shocked if he actually met and had a conversation with the first 2000 people in the Boston telephone book.
Most western democracies already have a two-chamber system (commons/lords, congress/senate etc), but those two chambers are elected in very similar ways. Instead, we could make one of them elected by sortition, while keeping the other one a traditional democracy.
I'd personally split the sortition part into per-area committees. There'd be a main committee with members taken from the general populace, whose only job would be to create the rules of who can be chosen for which committee (e.g. only qualified doctors for medicine). That main committee would also manage inter-committee disputes, in cases where it's not obvious whether a particular committee should be given the right to vote on a particular bill.
The best we can hope for is that those with the most power have our interests at heart.
The issue with randomly selected representation is that the support staff start to become the ones who effectively make the decisions. This is the same issue with term limits (which to be clear, I'm in favor of, but we have to go in with our eyes open), which is that e.g. the congressional staffers gain power, especially if they persist across the end of the term limit. In these kinds of cases, you almost need term l…
Yes, that's a variation of : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state
The issue with randomly selected representation is that the support staff start to become the ones who effectively make the decisions. This is the same issue with term limits (which to be clear, I'm in favor of, but we have to go in with our eyes open), which is that e.g. the congressional staffers gain power, especially if they persist across the end of the term limit. In these kinds of cases, you almost need term l…
And if you try to place limits on staffers, then you’ll find even more legislation being drafted by lobbyists.
The issue with randomly selected representation is that the support staff start to become the ones who effectively make the decisions. This is the same issue with term limits (which to be clear, I'm in favor of, but we have to go in with our eyes open), which is that e.g. the congressional staffers gain power, especially if they persist across the end of the term limit. In these kinds of cases, you almost need term l…
And if you try to place limits on staffers, then you’ll find even more legislation being drafted by lobbyists.
I think this idea (which is properly called sortition) would work even better if combined with the normal kind of democracy. Most western democracies already have a two-chamber system (commons/lords, congress/senate etc), but those two chambers are elected in very similar ways. Instead, we could make one of them elected by sortition, while keeping the other one a traditional democracy. I'd personally split the sortit…