Drengor
Well-known member
With the advent of the Internet the dream of Direct Democracy becomes quite a bit more believable, but if we talk through what that would mean I think we'd be eager to come up with something a bit more stable. This is a long one. By no means am I 'right' about this, I've just thought a bit about it and figured I'd throw this out here. If anything this is less of an advocation for a Direct Democracy, and more shinning of a light on all the ugliness it requires, and maybe it will convince people that we should just stick with Representative Democracy, and put our political dreaming towards better things.
The one biggest flaw I find in a democracy is that an uneducated vote is equal to an educated vote. With a thoughtless Direct Democracy popularism would take hold, even stronger than it does today. The rich would still pay 'politicians', expert speech givers, to sway the opinion of the masses. The only difference is the rich wouldn't have to bundle all their issues into digestible packages, but would rather be able to spin a narrative to the mass's liking for each individual issue.
Maybe that would lead to the end of the 'Us and Them' mentality of a two party system, should the masses take it upon themselves not to give in to such hateful motivations in voting and think more personally, critically of their own beliefs about each issue, but this wouldn't be guaranteed. Certainly it would not hold true for every voter. If anything, one of the things those rich people would pay those speech-givers to do would be to fan the flames of the mentality, while also continuously befuddling the line between the sides in an effort to keep the masses passionately indifferent to what they're specifically voting on in each issue, while working to maintain the voting blocks on types of issues.
More close to home, what issues would you like to have Direct control over? International policy? Domestic law? Social policies? There's buckets and buckets of issues out there, all with buckets and buckets of related information. While we all certainly would like to hold a significant vote towards heartfelt issues, or more precisely, the deciding vote, we just as certainly aren't very interested in being forced to have a say in each and every issue. Just think about it, currently having a significant vote towards these issues (congressperson, lets say) is a full time job, with a sizable office of assistants at one's disposal! I know I don't have that kind of time, and so a functional Direct Democracy must be voluntarily participation towards each issue individually. One can have a say on any issue they wish, but is not expected to have a say on every issue, or even most.
Next on our journey to a Direct Democracy is that same fundamental flaw: uneducated and educated voters. One of the few benefits in this regard to a Representational Democracy is that with a concise group of significant voters, we as a society can try our best to surround them with educated opinions and supply them with as many facts as we have at the ready to make the right choice. Imagine if USA's congresspersons made votes immediately after an issue was brought up! No research, no fact checking, no theorizing, no science based policy! Not the future I'm after, and I hope others too. And so our proposed Direct Democracy must cling to some kind of meritocratic minimum of education. Only those citizens who can show a baseline of competence about an issue would be allowed to voluntarily vote on the issue.
That's where the gears start to slow down. That's the biggest step left, in my opinion, though not the last. How do you determine whether someone is competent on an issue? Reading comprehension? At the very least they must be required to read a few paragraphs, a few essays, about the subject. These descriptive essays have to be non-partisan, written from an educators perspective. Facts presented must be true, and reliable. A body of trusted individuals must preside over, create, and distribute these introductions and fact bundles. Naturally we'd vote for these individuals, but you might be scratching your head right now and think "hey, that sound's like we'd still be electing a certain group of people with some impressive power over the significant votes" and you'd be right! We'd still have a group of congresspeople surrounded by the worlds most educated, but instead of us calling them to get them to vote our way, they'd be calling us to make sure we weren't the idiot in this situation! You know, if they cared enough.
What power would this new congress have over the voting masses besides making sure we were educated? Would they themselves get their own one vote each, since they themselves must be educated up to their own standards? What about if an issue that has clearly a scientifically provably best course of action is brought up - would there be someone with the power to simply solve it to that end? Would it be this new congress? Or would we still put such things to a vote, allowing the new congress to do its job of setting the minimum educational requirements for the vote to such a level of all but necessitating the proper vote? That last answer sounds to me the most morally correct, but it's also the most bureaucratically demanding (slowest, most costly) option.
All this while the willfully ignorant put up one hell of a fight about why their voices are being silenced all because they refuse to eat up the fake news. And while individually wrong they'll raise an important potential rebuttal. What if the new congress is corrupted by some rich folks? What if they lie to us in our supposedly true and reliable fact packages? Well for one it won't be any worse off than the current system, and by being such a more involved and bureaucratically demanding system it will naturally be open to more scrutinizing. No longer would congresspeople be able to say they've been educated and not show what their education was when they vote. Their only power would be to show us the very education we seek, in all its documented and sourced nakedness, and anyone with some free time will be able to do their own first-hand research and sound the alarm. Any argument down this rabbit hole dead-ends save for the admittance that a voting population will be unable to discern a lie from the truth if none among them is smart enough in any of these issues. Our only option there is not to call foul to the evil powerful, but to go out and learn enough to be able to discern the lies.
And with education mostly discussed, we can return to our voluntary notion. What do we do when we come to an issue with very few educated volunteers? A quorum must be reached! What is the quorum of the United States? In what lots described as the most passionate presidential election in recent memory, voter turnout fell to some 57%. The city of New York's latest mayoral election had a turnout of less than 22%. I can only imagine these numbers would dwindle on many issues of little importance. How would we get enough citizens to bother voting? Would we demand it as a civil service in a manner akin to jury duty? If an issue has less than a quorum of educated persons, would congress would go around appointing random mandatory voting orders until a quorum is reached? Would voters be compensated for the time this would take out of their day? Would this influence the masses to simply not volunteer at all, and just await until voting orders (and offers of compensation) were offered? Surely an election would still be open to new volunteers willing to prove their education as these ordered voters did their homework! And so it only makes sense that a quorum's worth of voting orders is always given out.
These issues, namely participation and education, would require immense efforts from us, even with our technological advances in communication and cooperation. It's certainly attainable, simply a question of at what time will we decide it worth our tax dollars to pursue this kind of determined, detailed democracy. I wish it were as simple as us engaging some kind of fantasy hive-mind where group consensus could be achieved around the globe at light speed. Alas, things aren't that simple, and some things that seem nice just aren't worth the effort.
I'm think lots of us here dislike the current system of Representational Democracy, and I'd assume lots of those of us would also shy away from Direct Democracy for similar reasons, but if you've got anything to say about what I've said, or about the comparison of the two, or a potential transition from one to the next, let me know!
The one biggest flaw I find in a democracy is that an uneducated vote is equal to an educated vote. With a thoughtless Direct Democracy popularism would take hold, even stronger than it does today. The rich would still pay 'politicians', expert speech givers, to sway the opinion of the masses. The only difference is the rich wouldn't have to bundle all their issues into digestible packages, but would rather be able to spin a narrative to the mass's liking for each individual issue.
Maybe that would lead to the end of the 'Us and Them' mentality of a two party system, should the masses take it upon themselves not to give in to such hateful motivations in voting and think more personally, critically of their own beliefs about each issue, but this wouldn't be guaranteed. Certainly it would not hold true for every voter. If anything, one of the things those rich people would pay those speech-givers to do would be to fan the flames of the mentality, while also continuously befuddling the line between the sides in an effort to keep the masses passionately indifferent to what they're specifically voting on in each issue, while working to maintain the voting blocks on types of issues.
More close to home, what issues would you like to have Direct control over? International policy? Domestic law? Social policies? There's buckets and buckets of issues out there, all with buckets and buckets of related information. While we all certainly would like to hold a significant vote towards heartfelt issues, or more precisely, the deciding vote, we just as certainly aren't very interested in being forced to have a say in each and every issue. Just think about it, currently having a significant vote towards these issues (congressperson, lets say) is a full time job, with a sizable office of assistants at one's disposal! I know I don't have that kind of time, and so a functional Direct Democracy must be voluntarily participation towards each issue individually. One can have a say on any issue they wish, but is not expected to have a say on every issue, or even most.
Next on our journey to a Direct Democracy is that same fundamental flaw: uneducated and educated voters. One of the few benefits in this regard to a Representational Democracy is that with a concise group of significant voters, we as a society can try our best to surround them with educated opinions and supply them with as many facts as we have at the ready to make the right choice. Imagine if USA's congresspersons made votes immediately after an issue was brought up! No research, no fact checking, no theorizing, no science based policy! Not the future I'm after, and I hope others too. And so our proposed Direct Democracy must cling to some kind of meritocratic minimum of education. Only those citizens who can show a baseline of competence about an issue would be allowed to voluntarily vote on the issue.
That's where the gears start to slow down. That's the biggest step left, in my opinion, though not the last. How do you determine whether someone is competent on an issue? Reading comprehension? At the very least they must be required to read a few paragraphs, a few essays, about the subject. These descriptive essays have to be non-partisan, written from an educators perspective. Facts presented must be true, and reliable. A body of trusted individuals must preside over, create, and distribute these introductions and fact bundles. Naturally we'd vote for these individuals, but you might be scratching your head right now and think "hey, that sound's like we'd still be electing a certain group of people with some impressive power over the significant votes" and you'd be right! We'd still have a group of congresspeople surrounded by the worlds most educated, but instead of us calling them to get them to vote our way, they'd be calling us to make sure we weren't the idiot in this situation! You know, if they cared enough.
What power would this new congress have over the voting masses besides making sure we were educated? Would they themselves get their own one vote each, since they themselves must be educated up to their own standards? What about if an issue that has clearly a scientifically provably best course of action is brought up - would there be someone with the power to simply solve it to that end? Would it be this new congress? Or would we still put such things to a vote, allowing the new congress to do its job of setting the minimum educational requirements for the vote to such a level of all but necessitating the proper vote? That last answer sounds to me the most morally correct, but it's also the most bureaucratically demanding (slowest, most costly) option.
All this while the willfully ignorant put up one hell of a fight about why their voices are being silenced all because they refuse to eat up the fake news. And while individually wrong they'll raise an important potential rebuttal. What if the new congress is corrupted by some rich folks? What if they lie to us in our supposedly true and reliable fact packages? Well for one it won't be any worse off than the current system, and by being such a more involved and bureaucratically demanding system it will naturally be open to more scrutinizing. No longer would congresspeople be able to say they've been educated and not show what their education was when they vote. Their only power would be to show us the very education we seek, in all its documented and sourced nakedness, and anyone with some free time will be able to do their own first-hand research and sound the alarm. Any argument down this rabbit hole dead-ends save for the admittance that a voting population will be unable to discern a lie from the truth if none among them is smart enough in any of these issues. Our only option there is not to call foul to the evil powerful, but to go out and learn enough to be able to discern the lies.
And with education mostly discussed, we can return to our voluntary notion. What do we do when we come to an issue with very few educated volunteers? A quorum must be reached! What is the quorum of the United States? In what lots described as the most passionate presidential election in recent memory, voter turnout fell to some 57%. The city of New York's latest mayoral election had a turnout of less than 22%. I can only imagine these numbers would dwindle on many issues of little importance. How would we get enough citizens to bother voting? Would we demand it as a civil service in a manner akin to jury duty? If an issue has less than a quorum of educated persons, would congress would go around appointing random mandatory voting orders until a quorum is reached? Would voters be compensated for the time this would take out of their day? Would this influence the masses to simply not volunteer at all, and just await until voting orders (and offers of compensation) were offered? Surely an election would still be open to new volunteers willing to prove their education as these ordered voters did their homework! And so it only makes sense that a quorum's worth of voting orders is always given out.
These issues, namely participation and education, would require immense efforts from us, even with our technological advances in communication and cooperation. It's certainly attainable, simply a question of at what time will we decide it worth our tax dollars to pursue this kind of determined, detailed democracy. I wish it were as simple as us engaging some kind of fantasy hive-mind where group consensus could be achieved around the globe at light speed. Alas, things aren't that simple, and some things that seem nice just aren't worth the effort.
I'm think lots of us here dislike the current system of Representational Democracy, and I'd assume lots of those of us would also shy away from Direct Democracy for similar reasons, but if you've got anything to say about what I've said, or about the comparison of the two, or a potential transition from one to the next, let me know!
