Wanabe wrote,
“I'm talking about politicians. They are well informed but do nearly the opposite of what the majority of people want.”
But not always and depends on which politician or even party that you’re referring to. Moreover, if this is a hard job for well-informed politicians, imagine the problems and temptations for local communities!
Wanabe wrote,
“You can't speak of certainty in my envisioned system it doesn't exist yet.”
In your system human incentives and political behavior would somehow change? Political environments always change-people rarely do! I was addressing those issues. Please re-read.
Wanabe wrote,
“You talk as if people have no free will of any kind. It's ridiculous.”
Actually, I’ve been one of the few on this site that has argued for a minimally risky view of free-will. However, people do have well-known behavioral patterns: people can be greedy; hateful; possessive; go along with simpler ideas for convenient sake; envy what another has; can be horribly and dangerously selfish; can kill abuse or be apathetic etc. People are all of these things. Yes, people are certainly more than these-but they are not less than these either! Any political ideology must address these if it is to be considered a serious effort for social reform.
Wanabe wrote,
“The problem with USA democracy is that money is involved in the decision and law making process. It should not be this way, and does not have to be this way. We can have a system where there are no lobbyists, and no money in politics, only votes. We write the law and punish offenders.”
Or, you shift power AND money to belong to we the people! Business interests and those in power (which are usually the same group of people) will not let rest the advantages to be had at the expense of the commons! Won’t happen because too much money can be made. People have to begin voting for people and supporting policies that return and restructure how power is derived and how our economy is to be managed. Until this happens-nothing changes! Until we have strong labor unions and pro- labor movements; strictures on what big business can do politically, alter our attitude about productive property and how economic value is actually created-we gain nothing by abolishing the federal government or shifting voting patterns from one group to another. Ideas and votes around populist progressive issues are the first and foremost plan of attack.
But money is always an issue in politics and always will be! The question is will we have a government that forces businesses to meet our consumer demands reasonably through genuine social and political negotiations with labor, communities, and individuals or will we just have more of the same: people voting but our right to happiness is subjugated to the more dominant value of private property and private property owners? After all, these private owners control our economic lives as well as our political lives!
Wanabe wrote,
“We do have the time to do research, we spend most of this time watching TV. It's just laziness. By giving people an important task in their government they will recognize the gravity of the situation and responsibly research. Their laziness will actually effect them directly now and they will change.”
Lol! Wanabe, their so-called laziness and overall apathy affects them now! In the State of Florida, for example, laws were passed that affects many-many Floridians: immigration ‘so-called’ reform; voting reform, which restrict s ever more Hispanics and poor people from voting; stand your ground laws, which has nearly tripled the so-called justified homicide rates in that state, and the list goes on and on! Woman in Kansas City now have to watch out that the ‘rule of thumb’ laws are again tolerated, i.e., husband’s beating their wives as legitimate private disputes. The nonsense goes on-believe me. In each of these, and many other, cases people’s lives were directly affected-yet the majority sat on their hands when it came time to vote! When the top 1% is getting new windfalls through increasing tax cuts or expanded loopholes and the public benefits are cut in order to pay for the cost of running government (by the way-both local and federal governments are doing this) most people are found to either agree with this measure or do not care. Those that do and understand how this will leave us ever more impoverished are actually a minority next to these two categories of voters!
You assume too much in your system. The fault we’re in is no small part ‘our’ fault now! Representatives did their jobs when in the 1930’s much needed programs were used to put millions to work. After WWII representatives served the public at large by passing the G.I. Bill and by passing a number of other measures that exploded the middle-class. In the 1960’s serious social reforms were made to advance economic modifications and bring civil rights to millions of Americans who had never had any equal social standing in American society before. In the early 1970’s Nixon signed OSHA into law-a measure that ended up protecting and saving millions of working American’s health and even lives. Even in the Reagan era, his administration raised taxes eleven times in order to address serious or relevant needs of government and the people! Representatives will do their jobs when the people respond and hold them accountable. It is an exaggerated history to think that they never do nor can in our form of democracy.
If scores of people’s lives are now affected by their lack of political concern-simply knocking on their doors and telling them that they now have to vote won’t somehow magically compel them to put down the remote control, cease watching the porn on the internet before the wife comes home, or make them have more time from an overloaded work schedule to properly research anything. Until you put economic AND political power back into the hands of the people, little is likely to ever change! As long as people are restrained by heavy economic burdens and feel confined in their own personal lives, they’re likely never to become activists for larger change. Give them more power over their jobs and communities, where the rubber meets the road, then you’ll see more participation in the bigger things.
Given this reality, by changing those who’ll decide policy will be an indebted, worn out and overworked population-all you’ve done is make it easier for bigger business to manipulate the language of the bills more easily. Since people have no social or economic controls in your system, these reforms are pointless. You have to change people’s incentives at the atomic social level of individual and community ownership before anything is likely to change from economic wealthy power holdings to we the people! When people have control over their lives-actual control-they tend to become more involved. To do that in our society, though, you have to alter how we govern ourselves economically! Period!
Wanabe wrote,
“You disagree but everything you mentioned here point to power players not the people being the problem.”
Umm… no! Re-read the post more carefully! It is BOTH power players AND the influence they have on a certain public. I made this rather clear!
Wanabe wrote,
“I'll say this as plainly as I can. Direct democracy does not need reforms it only needs voters. The problems you highlight are ones that exist in a representative system of democracy not a direct form of democracy.”
Yeah, but wanabe you nowhere explain what these voters vote on, how they vote, or who crafts these bills for the public to vote on, who massages or frames the language of these bills; how will employers affect voting habits-or can they; how can local large businesses influence the outcome of votes by telling those communities that if they do not vote in the way that benefits company interests-they’ll leave the community impoverished; who decides on everyday banking policy, which affects corporate-trade-and consumer sales and investment to the tune of millions of transactions per day; who governs EPA regulations or enforces them and at what point, which, by the way, are daily decisions that affect millions of employers and landowners; if congress enforces bills passed, how are they to do so since these new laws often require daily oversight and the creation of jobs, sometimes from the private market via contracts; who is going to write and revise policy around these laws as it concerns the administration make up and governance of these laws; will Armco here in Ohio be able to tell the little town it’s in just how much pollution they’ll pour into their community or else they’ll leave their community or the state; how will we daily renegotiate trade policy since this is often the province of Congress; who will decide what mergers will be advantageous to consumers by wading through a mountain of accounting details and fiscal models and arguments-how will the public possibly understand this; will communities be able to vote and block teachers and educators from making better decisions??? Who debates? There are often at least two sides to every issue—how will the public decide on who gets to debate and why? What if GE Aviation wishes to pass on some of the cost of doing business to Springdale, Ohioans or threaten job cuts or perhaps, once again, leave the area and maybe even the state-what powers will these people and communities have to stop or negotiate with them?
You have NO answers to any of these, and other, questions! If it is possible to manipulate, obfuscate, and pass on economic and legal responsibilities to others, which in your system one can easily see how that would be done, what checks or balances will the voting public have? What checks and balances will businesses have against the voting public? Will minorities not have the check and balance of the Bill of Rights to protect themselves against parochial prejudices merely because we want direct democracy? If they have none and voting damn all-then if some voting results spins a community into the gutter, how is this better? If Hamilton County, which has the large city of Cincinnati and Highway 75, decides to pass a tax on any incoming commercial freight in order to help pay for education in that district, say,-which will raise costs of the products north of that less wealthy district, how can, say, Butler County respond? Are their hands to be tied? What if Toyota wishes the Federal government to reduce taxes on their imports-but others would argue that doing so would lead to more finished Toyota products being imported rather than made here, what are the local workers in the Colorado plant to do? Since most of us could care less about that issue, why not move on to issues that only affect where we live?? In such cases, larger states would have greater influence on national policy. Is this fair? What of the economic issues concerning the people of Alabama? Do they not matter as much simply because their population is smaller? Doesn’t this, then, lead to larger populated regions dominating the interests of smaller regions?? Don’t we want checks and balances to prohibit these possible abuses? Simply telling me that it won’t happen explains nothing! It only reveals the faith you have that it won’t-nothing more! Obviously, given this list of questions, abuses, manipulation, preference of larger more well financed populations etc. could easily have the rule of the day! This is but one example. You deal with none of this!
Wanabe wrote,
“There can be a Constitution with out having a representative body as the government. Democracy does work alone, the rich have just never let it.”
I agree! Hence why there must be checks and balances! But here nor there, you’re still left with the above questions! Again!
Wanabe wrote,
“All people only get one vote regardless of their money. The influence the rich have over things are irrelevant when the people think and vote for them selves because they have been given the power to change their circumstances via their votes.”
Again, doesn’t address the problems mentioned above for one. Two, the rich still can frame their causes in the wording of popular language. Your system only gives people voting power. This isn’t the same as power over their lives. When people have rules safeguarding their liberties and rights to pursue happiness over the property rights of the few, then perhaps they’ll have greater value for the bigger issues that affect others as well as themselves. But until this economic situation is reformed-democracy has no fuel! If we learned anything from our current crises, it is that democracy in any state it’s in can be overcome when the system in place favors your rights to property over my right to pursue happiness!
Wanabe wrote,
“We protest the corporations not the government we force the government to represent the people not corporations by shoving the laws of the government in their face.”
Yeah, but when they own the means of influence-be it in the present one or what would even be more so in yours because there’s nothing checking their influence or economic controls, all they need do is influence (through threats) a tired and overworked populace what they’ll do if they don’t go along! See the problem? People can vote all they want, but if there’s no ownership over the commons by the people, which there’s not presently or in your system, then, in the end, it is pointless! People have to also have rights over their WORK and rightful access to what they create, i.e., value! Otherwise, the owners can do whatever they wish-representative government or direct democracy-it matter little.
If when I was a child and I opposed my parent’s decision, I could protest all I wanted to. I could cry, whine, call them names and so on. They had the real or actual power in the end. Tell corporations whatever you’d like. As long as they own labor and the products of labor, they’ll be dictating to you-thank you very much! Make a law by popular demand? No problem, they’ll leave and take all the wealth that this society created for them-with them! See the problem?
Wanabe wrote,
“The boggy man of wealth influence should not deter or alter our goals, only our methods to those goals.”
They shouldn’t but they do-and you’ve given no clear details as to why they wouldn’t all the more in your system! You even oddly note just how the wealthy boogeyman prevented a system with checks and balances from promoting democracy-how do they think that mere popular voting would stop them from making mincemeat of your system then? There’s no moral or rational reason why such people dominate now-but they do! That is the point in the end!
Wanabe wrote,
“Where the wealthy stand in terms of power changes completely as all people would have an equal vote. Their corporations may well be dissolved by a vote.”
Hmm…Oh yeah, AND they’ll be able to still own your work value, place of work, threaten your community with withdrawal, appeal to other more friendly communities, and write and own the very media that will advance their agenda. Yeah, not much-huh?
Not to mention that merely dissolving corporations by voting brings up numerous legal and economic problems. Who will own the corporation’s property, production, and stocks? How would CEO’s and Board members deal with a panicked investment public that just seen ten big state populations out-vote forty others, and, as a result, sent the market into a downward spiral? What obligations would the voting public have to the innocent shareholders of that corporation? Any?
Again, large states like New York, PA, California, and Texas may care less if a corporation in Kentucky goes under! But, say, the two-thousand workers in Kentucky might care! Again, your system is so oversimplified it deals with none of these rather complicated issues!
You cannot just dissolve away a corporation. Under current law they’re considered legal persons! Of course, this has come down to us from a series of Supreme Court decisions-but that’s neither here nor there. Again, you have to address how we are to construct ‘ownership’ in this world and not some fictional- imagined one where current law is wholly inoperable. Democratic socialism can at least operate and be useful here. Whereas current property law advantages certain owners over all other groups, we at least have reasonable resources to fit the current system into one of more labor and community ownership. This would make democracy the direct and only direct course of action. When businesses have to negotiate with consumers, labor, and communities in order to use their resources to increase wealth, then no rule of property ownership may be use used to manipulate outcomes. Democracy wins!
Wanabe wrote,
“The people will manage their own power, you are tying very hard to say basically that media controls our lives and we have no free will, and this is just ludicrous. Things appear this way now because we live in a broken system where the people are not represented.”
And yet, strictly speaking, people can be more active and place far greater demand on their representatives-but they do not!
I never said that the media controls our lives and that we have no free-will! I wrote about an overworked and poorly educated society combined with a biased media-often tilting towards a more middle to conservative view that oversimplifies complex stories and panders to certain sets of emotionally charged views for sales sake. This gives the average American, who makes around 30,000 a year (or that’s the mean income)-in a family of four-a fairly accessible way of seeing the news. Obviously, most people are simply too tired and constrained by everyday life to be involved in making “good” or well-thought out political decisions. I’m addressing statistical realities that we commonly see all around us and for which many of us are experiencing. I’m not referring to some otherworld where merely changing who votes-somehow re-creates social reality!
Also, how can people manage something they don’t have? People need more than protesting and voting to motivate them where they are! The vast numbers of people in this country make far less than 70,000 a year, have accrued debts well into the five to six figures, own no property (when figured by debt to wealth ratio), have no say in how their employers manage their lives, see either jobs evaporating or new cheap service jobs coming into being, the price of consumer goods (and everything else-really) going up, see CEO’s -and other financiers- making millions and even billions of dollars in a downturned economy and the list goes on…To turn to these people and say something like, ‘hey you guys, you can now vote directly-and spend lots of your supposed copious spare time researching complex social and political issues—forget about getting that second job to pay the bills or your house payment-or that fact that you have no idea how you’re going to manage the bill this month, sit on your computer and study political issues, often framed by wealthy businesses-no doubt, and make a difference somehow,’ and expect them to jump to and change entire life patterns without any improvements on their own lives here and now, is utter fiction!
By the way, don’t misrepresent my criticism merely because you seem to have some difficulty negotiating around the stated challenges to your position.
Wanabe wrote,
“History does not tell us what's possible only what has happened. All your talk about how government has worked is irrelevant to a direct democracy.”
Ah… I keep forgetting all that we now know about history, human political behavior, and even current economic and legal realities do not apply to your viewpoint! I think we agree!
On a more serious note, however, if you wish to know what political movements, attitudes, and what influences there have been that corrupts democratic government, and you wish thoughtful people to take your views seriously, then you might want to explain how your view avoids these reasonable concerns. Merely saying that no history ever or any objection cannot be applied to direct democracy is hardly convincing-the logic of the statement undercuts your advocacy of it! How can you say that criticism of direct democracy is not valid because its never been tried but promoting it is fine even though we have no way of knowing this either? If we are not permitted to use reason, history, or what have you to analyze direct democracy, then we may have no good reason to reject it-but we have equally no good reason to accept it on the same grounds!
Wanabe wrote,
“Your entire argument rests on mis characterizing my arguments and your single sentence quotes of me show this.”
Single sentence quotes of pretty much all that you wrote-well within context. I pretty much addressed all or most of your post-with citations. But because you assume so much in each sentence in order to make your case-I take your posts a part bit by bit in order to show the inner parts of the rationale motivating the larger argument. This isn’t misquoting-its analyzing.
Where have I mischaracterized your view?
Wanabe wrote,
“My system does not preserve corruption it allows people to act against it immediately, knowing that it will always be existent in some form. My system allows for transparency.”
I know the argument! I’m unsure why so many think that repeating the same old notions somehow avoids my previously stated criticisms. My argument was that you assume (see the word ASSUME-please) what people will do now that they can participate in voting directly. I have supplied lots of reasons to doubt this notion. You assume that the system will somehow provide ready and clear transparency to voters, and yet, you nowhere explain how! You do not outline who writes, promotes, or in what mediums such communication about these bills take place. You simply repeat the same worn out notion: well, people will just see now that they all will go to their computers to vote! That’s provides NO reason-only your belief that’s what people will do! Well, that’s fine if that’s what you wish to believe. I have good reason to doubt that’s what people will do! Provide reasons.
I fear that your commitment to the belief of there being no need for checks and balances and that direct democracy will remedy all social maladies where such political corruption is concerned has come up short. To my many concerns and questions-you’ve left yourself with no resources for response. You only have belief in the power of direct democracy and it is your only explanatory tool! Without providing the reasons or means of how you somehow know this blessed possible-future event-we have no reason to buy into the narrative of a good idea—well, good, if we didn’t live in this world!
Eric D.
April 30th, 2012, 3:49 pm
