Several of us made an honest effort to answer the OP. Not many, but a few. You might want to take the time to read your own thread if you want people to participate any further.
And I appreciate those few. The Nuh-uh-our-version-of-democracy-is-flawless crowd kinda drowned you out, dont you think?
Yes, that’s it.
Fortunately, in a democracy, I can’t impose my political delusions upon you and you can’t impose your political delusions upon me - unless one us can convince a majority of other people that are delusions are true. Democracy keeps the real crazies out of power.
Show me a historical democracy that’s had a government as crazy as any one of several examples of historical non-democracies I could name.
[QUOTE=silenus]
But I would favor a system that prevents anybody who has ever watched Honey Boo Boo from ever breeding, much less voting.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Gyrate]
You get one vote per election period, and you can either use it to vote in the election or for your favorite American Idol/Big Brother/other reality show contestent on television. Either you vote for reality television or you participate in the electoral process, but not both. That ought to winnow out a lot of the idiots.
[/QUOTE]
:rolleyes::rolleyes::mad::rolleyes::rolleyes:*
I know some very intelligent people who watch American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. I even know a couple who watch Honey Boo Boo. (Don’t know anyone who admits to watching Big Brother, though. :p) I watch Amazing Race, though not every episode and of course there’s no audience-voting for that show.
I really don’t see why having a guilty pleasure as one of one’s entertainment choices makes one an idiot. I particularly don’t see why the talent-contest type shows (Idol and Dancing) or something like Amazing Race is lumped into the guilty pleasure class at all. :dubious: Unless one also thinks that attending or watching a sporting event or concert (or maybe just the “wrong” sport or kind of music) is a sign of idiocy that merits disenfranchisement as well. :rolleyes:
Ooh, ooh, Mr. Kotter, I got a test: if you post something on the Internet with a typo in it that spell-check would catch, you can’t vote. 
*Right now I feel the need for a super-rolleyes, with the eyes spinning like an old-fashioned slot machine.
I suspected that someone would respond thusly, so let me point out that the “idiots” being winnowed are the one who are willingly giving up their electoral vote in order to decide which celeb can best do the cha-cha. Right now you can do both with relative impunity; when it’s an either-or proposition and you’re still trying to save Sanjaya, you’re an idiot.
“Representative” means that the represented choose their representatives, which they do not under your model. Hence, it’s not representative.
But that’s simply not an equal say. You have either no say, if you aren’t selected, or a powerful one, if you are. There is nothing a non-selected citizen can do to effect change in his leadership; that’s not democracy.
No one made that argument. Our democracy is not flawless, it’s just the least flawed.
Okay, but to be fair, if we disenfranchise everyone who watches reality TV, we also disenfranchise everyone who’s ever posted that they don’t watch television.
It is called “Franchise.”
We do something like this now, using money rather than voting. Poor people have to use all their money for food, clothing, and shelter. Rich people have a lot left over that they then use to influence elections, or bypass elections entirely and just buy politicians.
It’s like saying you have as many votes as you have dollars, and you can use those dollars to either eat or exercise political power. That’s called “freedom.”
Yeah, but you’re only looking at one tail. Democracy cuts off both the far crazy/inept and the far ethical/brilliant, and locates decision-making among the +/- 1 sigma that most resemble the overall electorate in all its normal distribution glory.
This system works great as long as problems aren’t difficult, because then it’s a good trade to miss out on the best in order to avoid the truly dangerously foul. But as governance becomes more complicated, you start to really suffer from leaving the best candidates in the “I wouldn’t want to have a beer with him” bin.
Yeah, people who get the best grades in medical school have power in hospitals far out of proportion to their numbers. What a terrible state of affairs.
Ah, contempt for the common man: hallmark of political extremists of all stripes for centuries.
At heart, it’s contempt for pluralism, and pluralism is the heart of liberal democracy. The fanatic is so convinced of his own ideas that no others should be tolerated, for they are clearly wrong. The failure of others to adopt his views must be attributed to a defect in the person (they are morons) or the system (rich people just buy the elections), never flaws within the ideas themselves, and never the natural result of individual human variation.
Speaking as a liberal myself, not only do I find the OP’s suggestion impractical, I also find it reprehensible. The purpose of democracy is not to provide the best government, nor to make the best policy decision. It is to prevent tyranny. It is to establish a government based on consent on the governed. It doesn’t matter if the governed are doofuses or dimbulbs or any other term of disparagement starting with D. I refuse to even consider a governmental system in which the people do not have the same say, regardless of their intelligence or their propensity for falling for lies.
Practicing medicine isn’t a right.
We already have a great system for this. Every person gets one vote – as it should be. Those especially interested / passionate about the results of the elections can influence the opionions of those around them and how they use their vote. As Kepler points out, sometimes people spend their money. They donate dollars to candiates or causes. People can also donate their time, volunteering for a campaign organization. And even more informally, each person can talk to the people in their circle and influence those people’s decision on how to cast their own votes.
Everyone participates, or chooses not to participate. And everyone has some way of trying to sway the participation of others through money, time, or conversation. I can’t really think of a way that better represents the struggle of differeing ideas to gain promenence in the public arena. As you pointed out, both sides are all struggling against those who vote for “Ooo nice hair” when the other side happens to have the nicer hair. Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle.
Forgot to mention this earlier: we don’t really have a one man, one vote system now, thanks to the electoral college.
Two points. (1) Many of the provisions of Glass-Steagall had withered away over the years due to a series of bank-lobbied loopholes, so that the final repeal in 1999 was more a culmination of mistaken regulation, rather than a sudden change. But more importantly,
(2) To say that Glass-Steagall repeal and related blunders were the work of “brilliant” people rather than morons is to miss the point. These blunders were the work of Congressmen bought and paid for by the banking industry. Had policy instead been made by “brilliant” economists who had America’s best interest at heart I doubt if government policy would have been so very very sweet for the bankers.
Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel-laureate economist) opposed G-S repeal. Paul Volcker (renowned FRB chairman) opposed G-S repeal. Some populist politicians including Ralph Nader opposed G-S repeal.
I don’t know how these comments speak to the “average voter is a moron” debate, but I’d prefer voters, moronic or not, to respond to balanced facts and sincere politicians, rather than the purchased policies we see in today’s America.
Um, *half *of extremists. The other half romanticize ignorance. The Khmer Rouge adored the common man.
Don’t confuse privilege with merit. There are silver spoon idiots and commoner geniuses. We need a system that recognizes that a genius born into poverty is still a genius and an idiot born into privilege is still an idiot, not one that maintains the fiction that a genius born into privilege is not a genius and an idiot born into poverty is not an idiot.
It’s one man, one vote in that each citizen can vote once and only once, which is what the OP wanted to change, via stripping the vote from some, giving extra votes to some, or both.
The electoral college is reflective of our federal system, we vote as states as well as as individuals. This isn’t irreconcilable with representative democracy.
No, all. The Khmer Rouge claimed to act on behalf of the common man (the old idea of the vanguard), while holding that the common man was incapable of ruling himself and had to be forcibly shepherded into primitive communism for his own good. Even the most benevolent dictator still believes his subjects need a dictator.
Better still, a system that recognizes that all men deserve equal say over who rules them, whether genius or rube, and which makes the rulers accountable to the ruled.
First of all, that applies to only one race, the presidential race. It doesn’t nullify the principal for the rest of our elections.
Second, we need to get rid of the Electoral College. It’s bullshit.