Democracy etc.

[pa_broon74]

Given all the stuff thats been happening in the world of finance and the pretty brazen way bankers have behaved along with politicians, I have a question:

[Itchy]

Oh gawd no , universal voting by the public? ,

In a country that is well educared like Swtizerland yes in the UK no, as said many people quite simply are thick and do not understand things...


Re-last week oil has come down to sub $100 a barrel how come it isn't cheaper (petrol) , completely forgetting that the exchange rate against the £ tanked.


Or things like the death penalty , people like Angela Canning (innocent) would have been executed...

And remember people are selfish too and thus will vote for a largess for themselves , and thus which ever faction is the largest in the country always gets its way the two largest factions currenly are

workers about 30 million

and OAPs about 12 million.
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[Itchy]

Also the problem isn't bankers , its actually an effect caused by the public , the banks troubles are caused namely by liar loans.

People lie on their loans , borrowing more than they can afford , they get loaned money , they can't repay it back = bad debt

this is what affects the balance sheets and confidence...


The big problem was some banks stamped this cruddy debt you know like 200K loans made to people on the dole (it did happen) AAA as if it was excellent debt.

They could get away with this debt because house prices were rising as even if the person on the dole with 200K loan got repo'd they would still be able to sell for more than the loan outstanding.


Then house prices tanked and that getting away with stopped....

Banks suddenly held assets all ranked AAA and didn't know the wheat from the chaff , banks didn't know who held the bad debs and thus raised LIBOR and stopped lending to each other , this killed NR who depended on this.



My solution?

Non universal sufferage, ie

why should people who do not contribute have a say?

Only people who earn by giving something back can have a say.


This is the Heinlein democracy model in that anybody who is not a citizen has ALL the rights bar voting and participation in politics, and before anybody says if the book start ship troopers only said government service not military service , and thus anybody who wanted citizenship had to have the government find something for them to do to fulfil their service/
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[D O G]

[Kickstart]

Hi

Trouble with any kind of referendum on all issues is that there are some things which need to happen but which nobody wants to happen. Biggest example would be taxes. Some tax is needed but virtually nobody wants to pay it.

Maybe one idea would be that national politicians are given larger pensions, but are barred from other sources of income once they have left office.

Beyond that I tend to feel that there is little there for them to do and so if anything it should be made far more difficult to enact legislation. Maybe replace the House of Lords with another elected house, maybe with a part of it elected every 2 years and with the power to reject legislation (not just reject it once or twice before they can be bypassed). While I am no great fan of the idea of hereditory peers, I think that peers (whose job is to keep the politicians in check) selected by politcians is a far worse idea.

Failing that keep the current system but bar anyone from seeking election who is or has ever been a member of a political party.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Itchy]

[D O G]

[Kickstart]

[Itchy]

Yeah but soldiers of athens were encouraged to shag each other to 'bond' the soldiers together so they would fight more effectively as a unit.
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[Hetzer]

A good start would be for those lying Labour scum to honour their promise of bringing in proportional representation. But then I guess they changed their mind as soon as they saw they were getting the landslide majorities (from a minority of those elegible to vote in reality).
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"There's the horizon! Ride hard, ride fast and cut down all who stand in your way!"

[Itchy]

[Kickstart]

[Kickstart]

[pa_broon74]

Talking about legislation, how many new crappy laws have been put on the statute book? For the most part they've just tinkered round the edge of existing things so we don't really notice; thats pretty bad.

But take something like ID cards (don't want to focus in on technicalities but...) The government (with this and so many other issues) confuse those that are to stupid to care/don't care/or are just generally misinformed as supporting any new law.

Ok, we have a few hundred thousand signing a petition on the number 10 website saying no to the ID card scheme, but they turn round and; 'yes, but what's a couple of hundred thousand out of 30 or 40 odd million voters, so no, you're not a majority neh neh neh etc etc etc...'

Say we went down the internet voting route.

A) Not everything should be voted on in this way (tax for example) but how do you pick and choose? (I do think ID cards should be voted on in this way.)

B) Would there be any mileage in having this sort of referenda and forcing the government of the day to heed the results? For example, the petition function on the #10 website. Maybe if enough people signed it, it would triger a proper referendum on the issue.

On the topic of parliament, I'd favour replacing the upper house with a lottery based system, but not everyone would change at the same time meaning there'd always be experienced folk kicking around to help out newly 'elected' people. I reckon they could sit for maybe 2 years, sort of like national service.

If they like it, they can try and get elected to the lower house as an MP after their two years is up.


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Didn't catch anything.

[Robby]

I rather like the idea of Damofo_DOG's idea.

We do have the issue of having a lot of stupid people, but they still have a vote, and are still allowed to express their desires democratically. Just because we think it's a poor idea, or don't like their idea, doesn't matter. That's what makes it a democracy.

If you exclude stupid people you're just making another society where the elite make the decisions, and how do you define the elite...

There would be poor decisions made, there would a certain amount of anarchy, and likely a degradation in public services, economy, life expectancy etc for a fair while.

However, it would be ours. We would have the ability to change it.

Interestingly, some government policymakers investigated modelling opinion on policy decisions using second life. The results were quite positive, with around 80% of the respondents reacting similarly to real life. Around 10% just wanted to cause anarachy and mess stuff up, and around 10% were far more empathic than in real life.

So based on that idea, doing it only shouldn't propose a massive problem, the majority of voters would still take it seriously even though it's just online - rather like a fairly small percentage of ebay buyers become non payers using the excuse "its only ebay, not real life".

[D O G]

[Itchy]

[pa_broon74]

I think the thing is there is no perfect system, humans just mess it up through hubris, pride, greed or whatever other negative human trait.

At best, all we can hope for is the lesser of two evils.

Maybe we should put dolphins in charge, or blue whales... ("What does the honourable ummm whale propose to do about rising inflation." "I have no idea, can I have some more krill please?" [said in whale song though])

I don't think it would work with everyone being able to vote on everything, to many fuckwits kicking about. More oversight with the current system? Maybe a committee of people picked by lottery from a pool of prechecked/qualified people to do the oversight?


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Didn't catch anything.

[Robby]