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I tried to cover a good few that aren't specific to the U.S. (Pirate Party, Communist etc.), but my knowledge outside of those are limited.

This post wasn't intented to start a flamewar, I have confidence that everyone in this forum is mature and intelligent enough to respect everyone else's ideas/beleifs.

There's a reason this is under 'General Ramblings', it's not intended to be taken really seriously, I was just a little curious.

Hi,

I think that for (some) countries there should be a much greater distinction between "representative democracy" (where the people are meant to be represented by democraticly elected representitives) and "A Democracy" (where everyone can actually have a vote on any issue, without the need for representives).

I'm also hoping that eventually technology like the internet will make "A Democracy" possible in practice, and we can tell all the politicians to retire. All you'd need is a way of submitting a proposal, a way of filtering the proposals (to remove duplicates and anything that doesn't comply with requirements), some people responsible for creating "for" and "against" information about each proposal (so citizens can make an informed descision), a way of collecting the votes and a way of enacting the proposal if it's accepted (a few lawyers I guess).

It really doesn't sound that hard to me, although there would be a few complexities - everyone would need access to internet (where I live the public library privides this for free anyway), you'd need to publicize any changes (TV, radio, newpapers, etc do this already anyway) and everyone would need a unique ID to prevent them from voting more than once.


Cheers,

Brendan

Brendan wrote:I'm also hoping that eventually technology like the internet will make "A Democracy" possible in practice, and we can tell all the politicians to retire. All you'd need is a way of submitting a proposal, a way of filtering the proposals (to remove duplicates and anything that doesn't comply with requirements), some people responsible for creating "for" and "against" information about each proposal (so citizens can make an informed descision), a way of collecting the votes and a way of enacting the proposal if it's accepted (a few lawyers I guess).

That might work; that is, if everyone was perfect, and they're not. People are not smart enough to govern themselves. However, if you have several hundred educated people voting, discussing, and vetoing each other it keeps things in balance. Therefore, preventing the dumb people from making dumb choices. That's why representatives work. They allow the people to almost govern themselves, yet not quite. (Like training wheels. )

I'm personally a Fascist through and through... for the most part. I do have strange Communist tendencies, like getting up late and having long hair. I also beleive strongly in no patents, but am not such a bit advocater of all Hard Work being open sourced so some amateurs can decide that they approve of the algorithms.

So when you balance that out, i am somewhere in the middle, where i wish to shoot all people i consider scum, while maintaining all peoples human rights.

Brendan wrote:some people responsible for creating "for" and "against" information about each proposal (so citizens can make an informed descision), a way of collecting the votes and a way of enacting the proposal if it's accepted (a few lawyers I guess).

This is where it breaks down. Who makes the unbiased "for" and "against" information if nobody is actually neutral since everybody votes? If you do have exceptions, how do you know you can trust them not to have a second agenda? How do you prevent oscillating opinions, for example, by some big disaster occurring shifting people's priorities for the next 6 months?

Why a basis democracy cannot work: If asked whether you want to pay taxes or not, you'll get an overwhelming majority for "no taxes". A few days later your Utopia breaks down for lack of funds.

Exagerated of course, but it is an unfortunate fact that the average human being lacks the knowledge and intelligence to make educated decisions on a nation-wide scale. Basis democracy means the country is run by the yellow press.

The average human being has the knowledge and intelligence to make educated decisions on a nation-wide scale, but he has more self-interest in making decisions that benefit himself and hurt others. On a nation-wide basis, these end up looking very stupid.

I'm a social-democrat to somewhat-leftist on an international scale of economic opinions, but on the social scale I'm an outright Libertarian. Hands off my unrated copy of "Turistas"!*

* - I don't actually like slasher films, but it serves as a brilliant example of free-speech issues.

Solar wrote:Why a basis democracy cannot work: If asked whether you want to pay taxes or not, you'll get an overwhelming majority for "no taxes". A few days later your Utopia breaks down for lack of funds.

Exagerated of course, but it is an unfortunate fact that the average human being lacks the knowledge and intelligence to make educated decisions on a nation-wide scale. Basis democracy means the country is run by the yellow press.

You have an extremely limited grasp on realism don't you. One minute people's general rigths and how a real democracy should be allowed to work is your concernt. The next you are making the obvious point, people are far too stupid to vote on public issues.

Of course, you are right, people's intelligence, and an overwhelming amount of self centeredness would destroy any democracy of that sort within the hours. Fortunately we have a select few arseholes running our respective countries without the power to change anything quite so drastically for the time.

Unless what they want todo is arest people without charge for as long as they please of course... that they can do sa much as they like now.

Tyler wrote:One minute people's general rigths and how a real democracy should be allowed to work is your concernt. The next you are making the obvious point, people are far too stupid to vote on public issues.

Sorry? I can't follow you there.

Fortunately we have a select few arseholes running our respective countries without the power to change anything quite so drastically for the time.

The fine difference between a Democracy and a Democratic Republic. It gives me the creeps when people don't make that distinction and talk about the "western democracies" as if we weren't run by lobbyists.

Solar, you're German. You have no right to talk about being run by lobbyists. Consider yourself as having a better class of problem.

I don't have a politcal affilation (:shock:), we are democratic republic.

What's Pirate Party?

inflater

inflater wrote:I don't have a politcal affilation (:shock:), we are democratic republic.

What's Pirate Party?

inflater

The Pirate Party is a party that exists in Sweden, the U.S. and elsewhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party