People not allowed to wote on laws. Is it DEMOCRACY?
- Thread starter Rasputin_RU
- Start date
Surfer said:
So who does the processing? Who decides how to rephrase the legal jargon?
Surfer said:
No, all that happens is that the politicians move to the group deciding how to sell the laws to the populus. Now how is this different from the situation we have today?
IceBus said:
Switzerland does not employ true direct democracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland
The swiss system allows people to either challenge or introduce the idea of a law, not much more.
It's also worth noting that the population of switzerland (7.4million) is rather different to the UK in terms of size, education and distribution.
rpstewart said:
Firstly it should be fairly straightforward to translate it from legalize into everyday usage. The processing is all automated; done by the computer system.
Secondly
"group deciding how to sell the laws to the populace"
ehh? i didnt mention anything about selling?
Your wristband downloads information on the background of the policy from a variety of peer-reviewed resources. (ie respected analysts in the field on both sides of the argument) Or are you saying its impossible to have reasoned debate? And have that discussion be understandable to the average man/woman on the street? This is so you can look at the arguments and then come to your own decision.
Surfer said:
The average man on the street isn't nearly informed enough about various issues that he should be allowed to vote on them. He can have an opinion, yes, but an uninformed opinion is worthless. Giving an uninformed opinion a chance to change something is deadly.
Also, if it was straightforward to translate all the subtle nuances of "legalize" into everyday language, why are laws/bills/legal documents phrased like they are? For the sheer fun of it?
WHat he said ^^^ the average english man on the street is an idiot and if they were allowed to vote on every issue or law we would have become extinct or be living in a Mad Max film.
We would all have 4x4 cars, wear tracksuits to work, Beer would be 30p a pint and everyone would have to like football.
We would all have 4x4 cars, wear tracksuits to work, Beer would be 30p a pint and everyone would have to like football.
Surfer said:
What your advocating is a Utopian ideal that could not be implemented in practice. There will always be a controlling organisation which decides how the information available to the population is worded and what is made available. It isn't possible for an organisation of any form to be unbiased, it will, regardless of anything that is said to the contrary, reflect the views of those involved in it.
rpstewart said:
ok perhaps not by any human but maybe an AI program? (not skynet!
) If you envisage a system where there is no controlling agents just the merits of the system which is balanced for each sector (community needs) True humans will always be biased and they will always vie for control over each other but we cant come up with a program that will represent each view accordingly depending on set neutral factors?(when i say neutral i mean it will look at the needs of each community in terms of priority, growth and balance etc) Just what are these preset factors and who decides what they are? I think a computational model which utilizes a combination of the "veil of ignorance" and "original position" ideals (rawls)to err is human obviously but if we program the best in man ideal's into an algorithm?
growse said:
the genus of the argument is enough to decide which option to choose or are you saying we all need to read through veritable pages and pages of legal documents to make any decision? Are you saying that understanding and decision-making is only for the privileged few who understand that "language?"
Yes the average man on the street is certainly not informed enough but they sohuld be. As a society we should be actively seeking ways which engage and involve all people in the process of decision-making of their community and society as a whole instead of having it be abdicated to a privileged few while the masses are kept quiet with their daytime tv and their weekly episodes of corrie and the bill
hrmm what kind of autocracy is that? one man one vote ehhh lolSurfer said:
It's honourable sentiment but I need to keep playing devil's advocate here. Who does the programming? Who decides what the algorithm determines to be right?
Take the media for example. An event happens and which newspaper or TV station you receive news of that event from will determine how you perceive that event because of the views of the reporter, the editor and the organisation as a whole. Now if you extrapolate that to your suggestion whoever produces the algorithm controls the flow of information to the population and hence has effective control over their opinions.
Of course you need to read the document in its entirety. If you are going to implement a piece of detailed legislation then anyone making a decision about that legislation has to be in possession of all the facts and details about it. For example when you take out a mortgage do you just read the bit that says it'll be £X a month or do you go as far as the bit that says "if you don't pay we take your house away from you"?Surfer said:
If the average man in the street was interested in taking part they would, unfortunately he isn't and that's why we get governments that are elected by 40% of a 50-60% turnout.Surfer said:
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Surfer said:the genus of the argument is enough to decide which option to choose or are you saying we all need to read through veritable pages and pages of legal documents to make any decision? Are you saying that understanding and decision-making is only for the privileged few who understand that "language?"
Yes the average man on the street is certainly not informed enough but they sohuld be. As a society we should be actively seeking ways which engage and involve all people in the process of decision-making of their community and society as a whole instead of having it be abdicated to a privileged few while the masses are kept quiet with their daytime tv and their weekly episodes of corrie and the bill
For example. A bill is introduced to the house that declares murder to be illegal (lets say, hypothetically, that it wasn't before) with the punishment as being the death penalty. Now, I don't object to the sentiment of the bill, which is that murder should be illegal. However, I do object to the implementation of this bill, and would therefore vote against it given the chance. My point is that a lot of the time, MPs don't vote against a bill because they object to what it's trying to achieve, they vote against it because they think it's a poor way to achieve it. If you want to try and transmit all the nuances of a law and it's implementation to every member of the population, most people probably won't understand what's going on.
Also, some laws affect very specific people. If a reform in the companies act was proposed, which affected only people who are sole traders, the large majority of the population won't understand the exact consequences of the law, or how it'll apply to the people it affects. The purpose of an MP is that that one person represents all of the interests of his people. If such a bill were to come along, that MP would probably consult with the representative for sole traders in his constiuency and base his voting judgment on his principles and what information that representative tells him. An MP is bound by the interests of all their constituents and therefore every MP pretty much has an interest in every bill that passes through parliament as it's likely to affect someone they represent.
If you were to leave such a bill to the masses, most people would vote at random because they don't care.
The sexual offences act 2003 dealt with (IIRC) 72 different offences - how do you sum up all the different changes into one sentence? If you were to split it, would you like to wake up in the morning and have 72 questions to decide on - presumably researching each one you don't quite understand before voting...
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I think it's fair to say it's never going to be workable to vote on every law. Maybe there could be some system in place that would allow parliament to put a vote out to the people if they think it will be for the best. So people won't vote on every law but if there's something big, with a lot of media coverage and that affects nearly everyone, they could put a vote out for it. For example the ban on smoking in public. It affects pretty much everyone since everyone goes out. And most people have an opinion on it.
Psyk said:
What, like the referrendums we had for joining the EEC or the establishment of the Scottish Parliament (and it's tax raising powers)??
The problem is that the government risks losing and so will very rarely hold a referrendum on an issue - for example the Maastricht Treaty was ratified simply by parliamentary debate whereas most of Europe held referrendums.
The big problem with direct democracy is that it assumes so many things that a simple glance around you suggest aren't the case (at least not in this country).
Little things like:
People have rational opinions.
People would only vote if they understood.
Intelligence is relevant to democracy
A majority must be correct.
And so on...
Little things like:
People have rational opinions.
People would only vote if they understood.
Intelligence is relevant to democracy
A majority must be correct.
And so on...
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I dread to think the kind of laws we'd end up with in this country if they were based on 51% of the electorate.