[quote]pookie wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Pookie,
People get really hung up on trivial side issues, like gay marriage or abortion or language laws (in Quebec) that really have little impact on their day to day lives.
I think it’s one tactic that works real well for political strategists, to stir up the debates on side topics they know will inflame passions, but that are really of minimal import in the grand scheme of things.
[/quote]
So very true
[quote]pookie wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
It’s only a testament to the incompetence and ineptness of the Democratic party that there’s still a semblance of a race going on.
[/quote]
Spot on again.
[quote]new2training wrote:
pookie wrote:
It’s only a testament to the incompetence and ineptness of the Democratic party that there’s still a semblance of a race going on.
Spot on again. [/quote]
Pookie, you looking for a job in politics?
[quote]pookie wrote:
BigRagoo wrote:
So the big question is, how does a population get past that? Will we ever see candidates run with just their constituents’ best interest in mind, without their own agenda hiding behind false promises and lies?
Oh, that’s right, they’re not called politicians for nothing.
That’s a very good question. The “system” is set up to make it very difficult to form your own political party. It takes tons of money to even get off the ground, and many people think voting for a new party is equivalent to throwing their vote away - a self-fulfilling prediction, if everyone thinks that way.
Between elections, it’s also hard to get heard. You have demonstrations, but by and large, those are dismissed by the general population as being by fringe elements. It doesn’t help that many manifestants make a career out of it and are pretty loony to start with. Most people with a 9-5 job have difficulty devoting time to a cause.
You can write your representative; attend municipal and regional political meetings when these occur, but from experience, you get very little actually done from these. You can get noticed if you manage to bring a large enough group to a city council meeting that you can insure you won’t be ignored.
If it’s that hard getting heard at the lowly municipal level, imagine at the state or federal one. Individuals have no hope, other than to organize a large movement. And we’re back at not having enough time.
The problem is that even with bad government, we’re mostly pretty comfortable. We might hate paying this tax or obeying this law, but we don’t hate it enough to want to devote all our waking moments to fighting it. And the system is set up to require extraordinary measures to implement real change. [/quote]
You are absolutely right. It is too difficult for ordinary citizens to not just be heard, but seriously taken consideration.
[quote]vroom wrote:
new2training wrote:
pookie wrote:
It’s only a testament to the incompetence and ineptness of the Democratic party that there’s still a semblance of a race going on.
Spot on again.
Pookie, you looking for a job in politics?[/quote]
I was going to answer something like “I don’t think I could stand the required sliminess,” but if everyone thinks like that, and leaves politics only to the slimy and slime-tolerant, then we’re getting exactly what we deserve.
Still, there’s so much bullshit in politics, I’d be frustrated most of the time.
Event the low-level bullshit of office politics here at work grates on my nerves; I can’t imagine making a job of it.
I guess that’s a long-winded “No.”
[quote]BigRagoo wrote:
You are absolutely right. It is too difficult for ordinary citizens to not just be heard, but seriously taken consideration.[/quote]
Maybe we need a better system to replace the one we’ve got?
The internet is still fairly recent, but if everyone was connected, could you rule the country by letting people vote on each issue?
It’s often been said that you can’t govern by using polls, because people won’t want to take necessary, but unpopular decisions.
But could you, for example, have experts present the various sides of an issue - to educate people about the matter - and then have them select the option they prefer? Instead of voting once every 4 years, you could do it monthly or weekly.
The current system is supposed to be an imperfect representation of that. When it was not possible for millions of people to communicate directly with one another, many small groups would elect a representative to go and make their views heard in the government. Not a bad compromise, when the fastest news traveled by horseback.
But now, we can communicate with millions easily. Why not modernize the government? I know there would be tons of details to work out, but does the basic idea work? Does it suck badly?
[quote]pookie wrote:
I was going to answer something like “I don’t think I could stand the required sliminess,” but if everyone thinks like that, and leaves politics only to the slimy and slime-tolerant, then we’re getting exactly what we deserve.
Still, there’s so much bullshit in politics, I’d be frustrated most of the time.
Event the low-level bullshit of office politics here at work grates on my nerves; I can’t imagine making a job of it.
I guess that’s a long-winded “No.”
[/quote]
I feel pretty much the same way about the slime and bullshit.
I personally don’t enjoy public speaking so that might rule me out. However, I have gotten over that in the past, so I suppose it is possible.
I’m thinking about getting involved, but if it is anything like the rest of the so-called establishment, it would take years before having an ability to even exert a tiny amount of influence (such as getting ideas in front of policy makers).
[quote]vroom wrote:
I’m thinking about getting involved, but if it is anything like the rest of the so-called establishment, it would take years before having an ability to even exert a tiny amount of influence (such as getting ideas in front of policy makers).[/quote]
Maybe they can use you as a consultant for that big fence they want to build on the Mexican border.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
— Real answer starts here —
That’s always the problem. Time. How much time and effort are you willing to invest. Unless you’re pretty much willing to make a career (or close to it) out of it, you settle for the next best thing: Supporting a candidate who happens to share many of your views, or, most likely, vote for the least repulsive option.
I still like my internet idea.
[quote]pookie wrote:
BigRagoo wrote:
You are absolutely right. It is too difficult for ordinary citizens to not just be heard, but seriously taken consideration.
Maybe we need a better system to replace the one we’ve got?
The internet is still fairly recent, but if everyone was connected, could you rule the country by letting people vote on each issue?
It’s often been said that you can’t govern by using polls, because people won’t want to take necessary, but unpopular decisions.
But could you, for example, have experts present the various sides of an issue - to educate people about the matter - and then have them select the option they prefer? Instead of voting once every 4 years, you could do it monthly or weekly.
The current system is supposed to be an imperfect representation of that. When it was not possible for millions of people to communicate directly with one another, many small groups would elect a representative to go and make their views heard in the government. Not a bad compromise, when the fastest news traveled by horseback.
But now, we can communicate with millions easily. Why not modernize the government? I know there would be tons of details to work out, but does the basic idea work? Does it suck badly?
[/quote]
We started doing that after the Dimpled Chad incident of 2000. In 2004, and 2006 - most polls went to computer voting, but there was as much bitching about the computerized voting as there were about the hole poking machines.
I don’t think internet voting will be any less bitched about.
[quote]vroom wrote:
I’m thinking about getting involved, but if it is anything like the rest of the so-called establishment, it would take years before having an ability to even exert a tiny amount of influence (such as getting ideas in front of policy makers).[/quote]
You’d make a perfect candidate for the Seinfeld Party - you know - the party about nothing.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
You’d make a perfect candidate for the Seinfeld Party - you know - the party about nothing. [/quote]
Careful, nowadays that would be an improvement.
The side topics that don’t matter are the way the parties deal with differentiating themselves – and, of course, with motivating the base. As I said, they need to motivate them to come out to vote, but the mean distribution of the opinion of the base on issues usually doesn’t line up with the mean of opinions of likely voters.
That’s why Nixon had it right: campaign in the primaries to the right (or to the left for Dems), and then shift to the center for the general election…
The problem of special interests - including but definitely not limited to corporations - getting special favors is more a matter of motivation: you have a concentrated benefit and a diffuse cost, so those getting the benefit are much more motivated than those bearing the small (individual) cost.
And from the perspective of regulators, you have capture theory - they know who is going to employ them after they leave their government jobs. I don’t know much of a solution for this problem other than reducing the government’s power to regulate in a problem area…
You’re absolutely right – except it will be much, much more bitched about. Imagine how the JTF’s of the world would react to internet voting, given the reaction to the Diebold machines.
And of course, there would be very real security concerns around voting – and the problem of motivating people to educate themselves about various issues (assuming they could understand them if they undertook to do so).
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I don’t think internet voting will be any less bitched about.[/quote]
The current problems with computerized voting stem from bad implementation. Technologically, there’s nothing preventing us from doing it right.
For the sake of discussion, assume we can put in place a perfect, tamper-proof, fraud-resistant system. How does being able to vote all year long on whatever issue you want sound?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
You’re absolutely right – except it will be much, much more bitched about. Imagine how the JTF’s of the world would react to internet voting, given the reaction to the Diebold machines.[/quote]
Criticizing internet voting based on Diebold machines is quite a bit like evaluating automobiles in general based on a Trabant.
It can be done better.
Most of the security concerns are, I believe, a solvable problems. Just like counterfeiting money is possible, but very difficult, counterfeiting votes could be made to be a costly enterprise. And if there are many votes all during the year, the “worth” of each vote diminishes, since it does not affect so many issues.
Your point about education is more interesting. I’d point out that right now, we let people vote simply if they can prove citizen ship and date of birth. They can be just as uninformed now, yet that doesn’t seem to worry anyone too much.
[quote]pookie wrote:
For the sake of discussion, assume we can put in place a perfect, tamper-proof, fraud-resistant system. How does being able to vote all year long on whatever issue you want sound?[/quote]
To me, it sounds like a great way to “inform” the government, but I don’t want to empower knee-jerk reactionism or other crazy momentarily popular concepts.
[quote]pookie wrote:
rainjack wrote:
I don’t think internet voting will be any less bitched about.
The current problems with computerized voting stem from bad implementation. Technologically, there’s nothing preventing us from doing it right.
For the sake of discussion, assume we can put in place a perfect, tamper-proof, fraud-resistant system. How does being able to vote all year long on whatever issue you want sound?
[/quote]
No - there was much wailing an gnashing of teeth about the code, hacks of the code, as well as implementation issues.
Sounds like it flies in the face of representative government, and would just about gut the Senate of any power whatsoever. I am quite sure there would be a slew of lawsuits filed, and a constitutional amendment in the offing if we were to go to such a thing.
But for the sake of letting you get a tech woody - it would sound great on a local level.
[quote]pookie wrote:
…
Your point about education is more interesting. I’d point out that right now, we let people vote simply if they can prove citizen ship and date of birth. They can be just as uninformed now, yet that doesn’t seem to worry anyone too much.
[/quote]
True – but right now people are mostly voting for representatives who will decide individual issues. I think the education problem would be much more of an issue if we moved closer to direct democracy.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Sounds like it flies in the face of representative government, and would just about gut the Senate of any power whatsoever.[/quote]
Representative government is a solution to the problem of not being able to hear every individual’s voice.
If you can now solve that problem, why cling to old solution? You don’t ride a horse to the gym, do you?
As for Senate power, I’m not sure I follow. If the senators represent the people, then they get replaced too.
Yeah, I already stated that details would need to be worked out. I’d like opinions and viewpoints on the idea itself, not simply comments about the various difficulties in implementing it.
We could readjust it to that level then. Instead of replacing the federal government apparatus entirely, you could simply directly inform your congressman/senator/etc. of you views of various issues. He’d be better able to represent you if, for some reason, the mood of the population changes about various issues during the X years he’s there.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
True – but right now people are mostly voting for representatives who will decide individual issues. I think the education problem would be much more of an issue if we moved closer to direct democracy.[/quote]
Are you saying people are too stupid to govern themselves?
Maybe we could add a few safety devices, such as requiring an absolute majority (or even large) for particularly delicate decisions.
For example, going to war might require a double majority; whereas removing a few words from the pledge would be fine with any majority, as long as it’s the most popular choice.