There are 2 ideas that should result in BETTER Democracy PERIOD:

[JanMichael]

Double posted in GD-Politics to test a theory that I have:

Seriously... a band of 500 or so monkeys throwing darts at a "Policy Map" could have made better policy choices over the last 40 years than the band of professional politicocks have in reality "accomplished'.

A sense of PURE randomness MAY have led to a NO vote on Iraq, or the TeleCON deal of 1996, or "welfare reform", or the 2003 tax cuts for the filthy fucking rich. Mmmm k?

So why not take INFORMED stratified (weighted by attributes like sex and education etcetera) random selections of the PEOPLE ie. MICROCOSMS or SAMPLES to make some of the decisions that effect EVERYBODY?

Please take a look at this site about Citizen Panels/Jurys and Deliberative Polling!


Please. Please take a look. I beg of you please try to see how we might better extract the will of the involved, the affected/effected, as opposed to the will of the rich, powerful, persuasive, fake "Of The People" types, entrenched and their personal benefitial aims....and the corporations that rule us now economically.

Do you really believe in the will of the People and Humanity or just what the television tells you?

Informed "people" under deliberative conditions are, well, pretty freaking progressive!

Have faith in Humanity. The crap we have now is rule by the powerful and influential, not US, which in my opinion is NOT democratic nor is it the best way to have decisions made that effect us all.



PS~ I bet you two beers (virtual beers dammit) that this gets less than 15 reponses. It's either too deep (ie. the status quo wins again) or too complicated (ie. the status quo wins again) or the regulars are too entrenched in power politics (ie. the status quo wins again) to take notice.

[Redstone]

1. Or the lack of response could just mean that you're not making

any sense. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you that.

Could you please re-state your position in English? If you did that, maybe people might understand and respond.

Redstone

[welshTerrier2]

2. you might want to include ...

the link you mentioned but didn't provide ...

[JanMichael]

3. Whoops! I just edited the post to include the links.

I forgot to c/p the code. Thanks for pointing that out:-)

Now after seeing the concepts what do you think?

[welshTerrier2]

5. very interesting ... i have some initial concerns ...

i'm going to need to do more reading on both of these topics before i can form any real opinions ... both are very interesting ...

anything we can do to promote democracy, i.e. giving the people a real voice, is very positive ... but, perhaps that's the concern i have ... with the caveat that i need to better understand both of these systems, it seems like they tend to concentrate power in "samples" ... this seems to create some risks ...

the greatest concern i have, and it's a very preliminary reaction, is that it could potentially further relieve the average citizen from an obligation to be informed and to participate ... my representative sample of experts will tell me what to think and how to vote ... or, worse yet, i don't even need to vote - that's all been taken care of for me with a non-biased, highly scientific sample ... i find that strangely undemocratic ...

the problem of an ill-informed citizenry with power infused into far away "representatives" is indeed a very real problem ... providing a process to ensure a better informed public is a great idea ... i like the idea of forming panels to dig deeply into issues ... but still, ultimately, the objective should be a well informed public - not just a well-informed panel of citizen experts ...

and what assurances are there that a small group isn't more easily manipulated than the public at large?? what would the power and influence of this group be once they reached a finding? how secure is control over the initial sampling process? what effect would the interpersonal dynamics within the group have on policy recommendations and should this be an influencing factor at all?

i liked this idea from the "deliberative polling" group but think perhaps it should be incorporated into our election laws for all citizens rather than just a sample: "Carefully balanced briefing materials are sent to the participants and are also made publicly available."

the problem both of these approaches seem to be trying to remedy is an ill-informed public ... i'm all for that ... i would like to severely restrict the kind of political speech that would be allowed on TV and radio ... there would be no "insinuating announcers" ... there would be no cute little babies ... there would be no aircraft carriers or flags a-waving ... just stick the candidate on TV and let 'em say their piece ... there's no guarantee they would be informative but at least we would cut out some of the nonsense ...

what are your thoughts on these proposals? my bottom line, strictly as an initial reaction, is that i'm concerned it takes the public out of the game and substitutes a scientific sample in their stead ...

[JanMichael]

6. The entire public can never be truly informed on specific issues.

It's just not feasible. Nor realistic. That is the problem with asking people to vote when they simply do not undersatnd postions or issues. It's unfair to expect of them (A new road or development project is beyond the scope of too many potentially effectd people to rely on self-knowlege. Honestly they are often beyond the scope of the politically appointed local board members. They often go on "gut" feelings) and creates the huge disengagement that we have on the national and especially local levels.

Your questions of oversite of the selected groups are answered in both links but you'll have to drill through them.

Please understand though that the groups used are stratified random samples that could be derived by outside agencies or independant groups, ie. non-profit citizen sampling groups.

A sample like I've described is also described on the sites. It's incredibly represetative much more so than what we have now. There are no proffesional politicians involved which is perhaps the biggest plus.

On the issue of impartiallity that's all a part of a professional facilitation corps.

They exist now and I've seen the methods (Rudimentary compared to the concepts I'm pusshing here!) at play through my work. They work even on the basest levels.

They are all about transparency and demand the corrupted politicos to observe them via oversite boards. Even with that the trends are almost always to the Left or to the Ptogressive/Community/Altruistic sides.

[welshTerrier2]

7. "It's just not feasible. Nor realistic."

perhaps that's true ... it's certainly been our history ... still, i find it incredibly depressing to "give up on the masses" ...

i'll spend more time tomorrow drilling through the details ... it's great that you've raised the issue ... clearly, we need to be open to ideas like these ...

as i said above, my initial instinct is to tighten election laws to disallow lies and distortions from candidates and parties ... i really hate to abandon the idea, whatever its miserable track record, of letting each and every voter have a say ... there's no denying your point, though, that it probably just isn't either feasible or realistic ...

i'll follow-up when i learn more ...

[JanMichael]

8. Ah but a stratified random sample is FROM those uninformed PEOPLE!

So it isn't giving up on THEM but giving up on what runs us now:-)

Plus with what we've got now I agree with your ideas.

All people have the capablitity of making serious dcisions barring severe mental ailments.

This just takes a sampling and gives them the background, then gives them the opportunity to make a decision (Citizens Jury), or be polled (Deliberative Polling) in a more deliberative/participatory way.

[JanMichael]

9. kick

[JanMichael]

4. To post #1 it's in English just without the links! Sorry for confusing you

:shrug: