[EM] `Democracy is a beautiful thing, except...'
Donald E Davison
donald at mich.com
Tue Oct 12 04:09:02 PDT 1999
------------ Forwarded Letter ------------
From: "Wayne Hall"
To: <donald at mich.com>
Subject: Democracy
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 17:56:58 +0300
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
| Q U O T A T I O N |
| "Democracy is a beautiful thing, |
| except that part about letting just any old yokel vote." |
| - Age 10 |
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
This was the most interesting part of your letter and I would like it to be
the subject of theoretical discussion some time, not just a joke.
DON'T LAUGH
DON'T CRY
UNDERSTAND
W. Hall
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10/01/99
Dear W. Hall,
I would agree that there is more to the quotation than what meets the
eye - than just a joke.
If you will write a single page "Theoretical Discussion" on the
quotation, I will forward it, with comment, to a number of lists and email
loops.
The ball is in your court.
Regards,
Donald
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10/05/99
From: "Wayne Hall"
To: "Donald E Davison" <donald at mich.com>
Subject: Re: Democracy
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:09:45 +0300
O.K. here is my single page:
For some years I have participated in a direct democracy discussion group in
Athens, Greece. On the strength of my links with the members of this group,
e-mailings have come to me from Donald Davison canvassing the merits and
demerits of specific types of voting systems. These mailings are accompanied
by a quote from a ten-year-old to the effect that democracy is a beautiful
thing "except that part about letting just any old yokel vote".
This quotation is for me the most interesting and the most
comprehensible part of the mailings that Donald sends me. Like Sam Lightman
I find most of Donald's explanation of the mechanisms of the single
transferable vote simply inscrutable. I freely concede that this lack of
understanding on my part reflects my own intellectual limitations, not
Donald's. But I am just as confident as Donald when I say that in sending
these e-mailings to me he is misapplying his intelligence (if his aim is to
win me to his cause).
At the practical level - rather than the level of abstract principle - I
don't mind admitting that I favour any electoral method that will make it
possible for David Trimble to remain Chief Minister of Northern Ireland. He
seems to me the best politician available for the job he is doing. He faces
the difficult task of applying policies that are unpopular but necessary for
the self-defence of his community (a community whose boundaries go well
beyond Northern Ireland). I am not sure that Trimble would be where he is
now if Donald's principle were applied that "the people should elect an
executive officer directly and the representative body should be allowed to
be merely a representative body." I don't think he would be. He is
distrusted by the majority of fearful people in Northern Ireland who are not
part of the UUP clique that surrounds him.
To return to the ten-year-old and remarks on democracy. My (and his)
problem with representative democracy does not have to do with the specific
unfairness of first-past-the-post as opposed to some more or less ingenious
system of proportional representation. They have to do with the fact that
modern representative democracy is based on universal suffrage, which by its
nature means votes by economically dependent and so easily corruptible,
overly impressionable and insufficiently informed and/or interested people.
In the Putney debates during the English Revolution, even such radical
participants as the Levellers (or at least a strong faction of them) thought
that "poor apprentices and living-in servants economically dependent on
others" should not have the vote.
Now of course nobody but a crank nowadays believes that the universal
suffrage which has been acquired by the population in developed countries
can be revoked. The point must be to give people more rights, not take away
those that they have now. The right which citizens must be given, then, is
the right to CHOOSE between being governed by politicians enjoying a mandate
as individuals or party members in a legislative assembly - and being
governed by politicians in a self-appointed assembly which has acquired a
collective mandate from competition with the assembly based on universal
suffrage. This would mean an end to the monopoly of representative
democracy. Not just a two-party political system with two competing parties
but a two-assembly political system with two competing assemblies, one
operating on the basis of representative democracy and the other on the
basis of direct democracy.
Who would have the vote for the direct democratic assembly? Those
participating in the whole enterprise of setting it up. Just like the
arrangement inside democratic political parties. Of course they might decide
not to choose deputies by votes. They could use sortition, or drawing lots,
as in the ancient Athenian democracy. It would be up to them. The point is
that every five years, or seven years, or whatever, the population would
have the right to choose in a referendum, which of the assemblies, the
direct democratic assembly or the representative democratic assembly, would
have legislative powers. The assembly not receiving a mandate could either
be assigned advisory and/or review functions, or it could be given no powers
at all.
In countries like the United States, without a monarchy and with an upper
house representing the states in the federation, the new direct democratic
assembly could perhaps be set up as a counter-Senate, demanding a referendum
that would ratify the abolition of the existing Senate and the
institutionalisation of the direct democratic assembly to take over the
functions of a second legislative chamber.
In Europe, where the parliament is unicameral, the direct-democratic
assembly could be set up as a new second chamber of the European parliament.
Many EU states are of course monarchies. The creation of a second chamber
would make it possible for there to be a co-ordinated approach in Europe to
monarchy (not, as there is now, a discriminative approach, apparently
implying that some monarchies [e.g. the British] are no good, while others
[e.g. the Spanish] are O.K.) European monarchies could be invited to
participate in the direct-democratic second chamber. The distinction between
royal and non-royal would not have to be preserved. There could the idea
that the function of monarchy is being democratised, delegated to citizens
with no hereditary claims on special privileged status. The second chamber
could be called the Crown Council. Or it could be given some other
non-monarchist-sounding name.
Donald Davison's ideas for better electoral systems are ideas which move
within the province of universal suffrage and representative democracy.
Those who are interested not in direct democracy but in improving
representative democracy are free to do as he does, to exercise their
intelligence on such schemes and to implement them to the extent that they
can get a mandate for doing so. None of this experimentation would be
prohibited under the scheme I recommend. But the point is that I am
interested in something quite different to what Donald is proposing. The
problems which have turned me against the political system I am forced to
live under are not being addressed by Donald, and that is why I say he is
misapplying his intelligence, if his aim is to get me, and people who think
as I do, to support him.
Is there a basis for further dialogue, or have we said all there is to say?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Donald writes:
Thank you Wayne for your letter on the Quotation of the Ten Year Old.
What the Quotation of the Ten Year Old means to me is that this
represents the bad side of the Young Person that is in all of us.
In each of us there is a young person, who has two sides - good and
bad. We love the good side of this young person for a number of reasons.
This side is our connection back to our youth - to our past. This side has
given us our sense of humor, which we will need everyday for the rest of
our lives. The bad side is different - can be unthinking - can be arbitrary
- can also be evil.
We become civilized when we learn to control this bad side, but we need
to be on guard, so that when this bad side does seep out, and it will at
times, that we recognize when it is happening and make necessary
corrections. The adult in us would not like for any harm to be done in our
name.
This quotation of a Ten Year Old is a symbol of the bad side that does
seep out of some adults who support election rules that result in the
disqualification of some votes. Which is the same as not allowing some
people the right to vote in the first place.
Each of us needs to recognize the influence of the bad side in the
features of an election method or the method itself. And it follows, that
we must refuse to support these features and methods.
Wayne Hall is recognizing this bad side in people when he touches on
the question of who gets to vote. Then Wayne goes on to talk about what he
would favor in a system of government.
I do not agree with Wayne that an election system should insure the
election of a certain person. The people need a system that will serve them
long after that person is gone. Besides, any such system most likely would
need to deny representation to some group or groups of people, in order to
insure the election of this certain person.
I also do not agree to Wayne's support of the monarchy. I oppose the
policy of accepting people into some position of representation merely
because they happen to be alive. Selection by rotation or sorition or
monarchy are all the same in this respect. And, they are all unacceptable,
because they do not allow the people to make any distinction.
Wayne makes the charge that his problems are not being addressed by me.
He is correct, I have not addressed the problems in his corner of the
world, and I am not going to address them.
My policy is for Wayne, and the people in his corner of the world, to
solve their problems. But, I would like for them to have the best system of
Direct Democracy - a set of good tools, to help them in their task.
Even then, not all problems may get solved. This is not a perfect
world - not all people do what we would like them to do.
Maybe, in Wayne's World, there are too many bad sides of Young Persons
seeping out of the adults.
Regrads,
Donald
PS - I am running about five days behind in my email.
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
| Q U O T A T I O N |
| "Democracy is a beautiful thing, |
| except that part about letting just any old yokel vote." |
| - Age 10 |
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
N E W S L E T T E R
Worldwide Direct Democracy Newsletter
Four Issues per Year by Postal Mail
Cost per year: Czech Republic 200 Kc, Europe 12 DM
Outside of Europe $10
Make check payable to: Mr. Bohuslav Binka
Mail to: Mr. Bohuslav Binka
Bellova 15
Brno 623 00
Czech Republic
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
N E W D E M O C R A C Y
A Source of Study Material for Political Change
http://www.mich.com/~donald
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
More information about the Election-Methods
mailing list