[EM] non-binding direct democracy system

[James Green-Armytage]

Ernest Prabhakar <ernest at drernie.com> wrote:
>Um, as someone who lives in California with our hyperactive referendum 
>system, I'm a little unclear about what is so 'new' and 'exciting' 
>about your system.   Increased direct democracy has helped address some 
>problems, but overall it hasn't done very much to solve the state's 
>chronic political problems.    
>The only "innovations" in your proposal 
>seem to be the use of proxy voting
>and making it non-binding, neither 
>of which seem like they'd increase participation or impact over what we 
>have today.
>Perhaps you could be clearer about what problem you're trying to solve, 
>and how it improves over existing alternatives?

I (James G-A) reply:

Mr. Prabhakar,
	Well, for one thing, my proposal would bring referenda to the federal
level, where at present they are to my knowledge either scarce or
non-existent. Also the idea is to use direct votes for guidance on most of
the political issues that are controversial and important at a given time.
I wasn't really thinking about the state and local level. I suppose that
each state or town has it's own procedure for referenda, and to be honest
I'm not familiar with any of those systems in detail. If I was, I might
have some constructive criticisms to make. 
	The problem I'm trying to solve is the problem of people having only a
very diffuse and indirect impact on government policy. It seems like
people have to choose between two ready-made packages, such as "democrat"
and "republican", or "Kerry" and "Bush". Just choosing between these two
packages totally glosses over even the slightest bit of nuance that might
exist in people's political beliefs. Basically it's an oversimplification
so drastic that it's dangerous. I'd like to take the issues one by one so
that we could get some clarity. For example, I'd like a vote on different
kinds of tax policies. How progressive an income tax do people actually
want? Are people interested in starting a wealth tax rather than an income
tax? Is anyone interested in shortening the work week? Is there a majority
in favor of invading a middle-eastern nation? Is there a supermajority in
favor of some sort of anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment? Could we
get a majority in favor of higher animal rights standards or better
environmental enforcement? How about legalizing marijuana, or at least
lowering prison time for posession? What about the death penalty,
affirmative action, abortion? All these are separate issues which don't
deserve to be lumped together into winner-take-all packages. So what I'm
interested in is using these direct votes as guides towards overall policy
direction. 
>
	In general I don't understand the reason for your apparently derogatory
tone. Why is the word "innovations" in quotes? I didn't even use that
word. You seem to be suggesting that my proposal is laughably unoriginal
and simplistic, which I really don't get. In this proposal and the other
one it makes reference to, there are a few ideas which I have never seen
anywhere else. How many new ideas does a list posting need to have before
you refrain from making fun of it?

James