51–60 of 76 posts
Hollingsworth would be running against Jeff Merkley, considered one of the more liberal members of the Senate, who won in 2008 by just 3 points. Essentially, he'd be running as a spoiler for the GOP.
The key idea is to have a public debate in which all issues can be thoroughly considered, conflicting interest groups can have their say until an agreement is reached.
The beauty of the "senators as secretaries" ideas is that we can measure their performance in much more detail. Did they implement each of the decisions the people chose? If not, then they get the boot.
Democracy works when the citizens care. We might not care about all things, but we care about the things that concern us. Discussion and debates + project development by interested volunteers is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than some stupid polarizing vote.
Am I the only one who thinks this is a terrible idea? Normal people don't have the time to vote on every single issue; we have our own jobs to do. A system like this just means he'll be voting with the loudest minority for everything that comes up.
> Normal people don't have the time to vote on every single issue It's really easy to have both direct democracy and the convenience of not having to vote on any given issue. You could grant the use of your vote to another citizen or a group of citizens. If you don't like how they vote you could instantly revoke their right to cast your vote on your behalf and go back to voting on every single issue. You could also g…
This idea is common in a lot of new ideas about representation (eg the German Pirate Party's Liquid Democracy http://liquidfeedback.org/) yet I'd argue it is also a really bad idea.
One of the key values of any democracy, and direct democracy in particular, is that it values and promotes human autonomy. Instead of being subject to arbitrary powers, the 'people' rule themselves - we are only subject to laws that we ourselves have authored (or delegated to others to author in our current cases). But allowing everyone to vote on everything violates autonomy.
Most people recognise that autonomy requires having some/equal say in matters that materially affect them. Yet few realise that giving others a say in matters that don't affect them undermines the autonomy of those affected. So while laws apply relatively equally to all those in a jurisdiction, the distribution of effect is far from equal.
Proxy voting allows those with little skin in the game to drown out those significantly affected by proposed laws. The fact that people don't have the time to vote on every issue, and so will only likely vote on matters important to them, is one of the major strengths of direct democracy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also believe that this is the wrong solution, but I agree with the spirit of it. The people need a voice on individual laws, but the vast majority of the American public will not (and should not have to) educate themselves on the ins and outs of every issue brought before the legislative branch. I think the right solution would be to allow the public to overturn laws. Let the House and Senate do their jobs, but ena…
I think if you did that you would get into much the same situation you see with the discussion over the tax/budget changes that are happening today. Its really easy to rally people _against_ something. Its a bit harder to get them to support it. I think you would find with a public veto that nothing substantial would pass through congress.
Am I the only one who thinks this is a terrible idea? Normal people don't have the time to vote on every single issue; we have our own jobs to do. A system like this just means he'll be voting with the loudest minority for everything that comes up.
It is a terrible idea. Too many decisions would be based upon an over-reacting emotional response to the latest disaster. The Patriot Act is one such stupid response that happened right after 9-11. Direct democracy permits the majority to trounce the rights of the minority. A better answer would be that candidates for public office could only accept campaign contributions from registered voters in the candidate's dis…
The patriot act wasn't a result of direct democracy, but getting rid of it would be much easier under direct democracy. Government involves both the creation and ammendment/removal of statutes.
Direct democracy is no more likely to lead to tyranny of the majority than representational democracy (slavery and segregation was an act of representational democracy if you recall). You are confusing two dimensions: direct representative with majoritarianism constitutionalism. Direct democracy is perfectly compatible with all the checks and balances of liberalism and a constitution.
Direct democracy enables citizens to vote for every service imaginable and vote to pay no taxes for them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/switzerland...
But the US government seems to be doing a pretty good job of just that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CBO_-_Revenues_and_Outlays...
This is the wrong soution to this problem. The _right_ solution is to quadrouple the number of senators and house members. This effort shows that yes via technology we can have more people voting on the important business of the country , but it doesn't mean we should ignore the benefits of representative democracy and pretend everyone will know everything about everything. The right solution is to water down congres…
I think that's more than a tad optimistic. If you quadruple the number of seats you also shrink the size of each district. With smaller districts the costs of campaigning would likely shrink, as would the amount each individual Congressman would need to raise.
This is the wrong soution to this problem. The _right_ solution is to quadrouple the number of senators and house members. This effort shows that yes via technology we can have more people voting on the important business of the country , but it doesn't mean we should ignore the benefits of representative democracy and pretend everyone will know everything about everything. The right solution is to water down congres…
Once per period, all of Archie's constituents are surveyed to determine if they still like what he's doing. They can change registration at any time, but this is the most convenient time to do it.
If Archie drops below 1M at any time, he goes back to one vote. If he drops below 500K at a survey point, he's no longer a Representative.
This is the wrong soution to this problem. The _right_ solution is to quadrouple the number of senators and house members. This effort shows that yes via technology we can have more people voting on the important business of the country , but it doesn't mean we should ignore the benefits of representative democracy and pretend everyone will know everything about everything. The right solution is to water down congres…
Let me make an alternate proposal. Suppose that we want 600 congresscritters and the population of voters is 300M. Dividing A into B, we get a simple ratio of 500K to one. Let's allow them to sign up directly. No reason for it to be limited geographically. If you like Representative Archie, sign up with him. When Archie gets 500,000 registrations, he gets a seat. Even better, we'll let more people sign up -- if Archi…
Edit:
So i realise why I like aspects of your proposal. Because it has a few of the principles of the Mixed-Member proportional [0] System mixed into it. I like MMP I really like it. I think that combined with a radical expansion of the number of representatives ( I think we should be closer to 100k then 500k, maybe as low as 50k ) would allow us to do many amazing things as a country. Also I would toss this wrinkle in. MMP is done at a state level and only state level political parties are recognized, and they are now official. They must follow rules to elect their leadership.
0. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU&feature=share...
