I’ve always thought an interesting evolution of democracy would allow people to “delegate” their vote. Basically, every eligible citizen gets, lets say, 10 votes. I can then choose to delegate this vote to people I trust and respect for issues that I care about. If I care about improving the quality of the local public schools, I can delegate 3 votes to a local education activist. If I care about gay rights, I can delegate 2 votes to a gay rights activist organization, et cetera.
The people who I delegate the votes to are then charged with understanding my concerns and then further delegating their votes up the chain. Instead of having elections once every 4 years and remaining apathetic the rest of the time, delegation is done online and vote totals for each person update live and reflect the whims of the electorate.
For example, I don’t have a strong opinion on healthcare legislation because it’s so complex and nuanced. I care deeply about the issue but I don’t have the time to research and develop a strongly supported position. Under this scheme, I would find someone in my local community who I felt like had the same philosophical approach towards healthcare as I did and delegate my vote to them. They would then be responsibly for taking the votes they have accumulated and finding someone they trust understands their concerns to delegate to. Each delegate up the chain accumulates more votes which means they spend more of their time researching the issue and becoming subject matter experts. If, at any point, someone feels like the person they delegated to is not fulfilling their responsibility, they can instantly change the delegation.
It would seem to me like “the people” already have the power, they just don’t reallize that, use it, or take responsibility for it.
You can’t seperate ‘politicians’ and ‘people’, they are inseperable. You have the politics and the politicians you deserve. If you don’t like it, you have the power to change it. That’s how you got where you are today, and that’s how you will get to wherever you are tomorrow.
One thing I think might be a positive change in the US system would be to remove (or at least limit) the geographical representation, and instead have politicians representing ideas and value systems.
A congress with two major parties (Democrats and Republicans) and four minor parties (Libertarians, Tea Party, Greens and Socialists) would probably make for a more interesting, dynamic and representative government.
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Yes, I want my congressman to listen to my opinion rather than some lobbyist who is padding his pocket.
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Why would your opinion be more worthwhile than that of a lobbyist?? What do you think lobbyists are for, or represent?
Yeah, they do need to know more about the issues if their votes are going to be meaningful, especially if we are talking about some sort of direct democracy (which seems to be what you are getting at). Just your examples here show (me anyway) why it would be a bad idea to let Joe citizen decide (directly) anything of importance, since it’s clear they don’t understand the issues or details enough to make a rational decision.
No, they really don’t. They have the ‘right’ to elect representatives who, in theory at least, DO know at least some of the details about why a highway expansion project would be ‘tacked onto a bill for child care’. If we all had to vote directly on every issue like this then nothing would ever get done…or, everything would be attempted but there would be no funding for any of it.
I think it’s a truly difficult question because while I think freedom is a vital concept (the ability to have your voice represented) – there are too many ignorant/selfish/exploitative voices vying for power. You have to vote better people into office, and I think the only real way to do that is to have an educated citizenry that knows how to see through BS.
Bumper sticker babble.
Not even getting into what “better” would mean to different groups of people with different goals in mind, an elected official isn’t handed power on a silver platter to distribute as she/he sees fit-it must be earned through time and/or effort and/or guile and/or outright theft. Your “better people” would have to first have the drive and skill to gather this power through the usual channels, then willingly hand over this power over to the people they represent. It is next to impossible to get a totally ethical and uncompromising individual elected, but even if you accomplish this, it will take your pet honest official forever and a day to get into position to be handing any actual power over to us peons.