[EM] language/framing quibble

[Fred Gohlke]

Thank you for writing that, Brian Olson, I felt it but wouldn't say it.

My impression, from trying to follow some of the discussions on this 
site, is that there's little, if any, interest in democracy.  Instead, 
the esoteric schemes proposed here seem intended to empower minorities 
(factions, really) at the expense of the majority.  Would that there 
were more interest in Dr. Jane Junn's admonition that we "... reenvision 
the incentives for political engagement to be more inclusive of all 
citizens."[1]

Although there is an ample harvest of political commentary, it is mostly 
mundane.  We will not improve our electoral processes until we step 
outside the common assumption that our political system is adequately 
democratic and start to establish a rational basis for considering 
alternatives that might better serve society.  For example, we might ...

1) consider the working paper entitled, "A 'Selection Model' of 
Political Representation", (By Dr. Jane Mansbridge, Working Paper 
Number: RWP08-010 Submitted: 02/24/2008, John F. Kennedy School of 
Government, Faculty Research Working Paper Series).[2]

2) ponder Dr. Alasdair MacIntyre's assertion that "... everyone must be 
allowed to have access to the political decision-making process" to 
experience the internal goods that enrich society and benefit the 
community,[3] and Dr. Jurgen Habermas' description of 'public spheres' 
as places where private people gather and articulate the needs of 
society.[4]

3) study the Report of the Commission on Candidate Selection (a board 
composed of the leaders of five large political parties in Great 
Britain) that investigated why parties are not representative of the 
people.[5]  (Mr. James Gilmour, on this site, called my attention to 
this report and I'm deeply grateful to him for doing so.)

The cited material (1) offers academic support for exercising care in 
selecting candidates for public office; (2) provides a philosophical 
rationale for understanding that such a change would have a dynamic and 
significant impact on those who participate in the process; and (3) 
shows that political parties, themselves, recognize their inability to 
represent the people.

As Dr. Mansbridge points out, trust in government is plummeting in most 
developed democracies.  It is time to look beyond the platitudes that 
harness academic inquiry to existing political structures; it is time to 
consider the benefits that will flow from making politics a project 
shared by the entire community; it is time for objective analysis of the 
profoundly anti-democratic nature of partisan politics (in spite of the 
storm of calumny it is sure to unleash); it is time to show that 
democracy is not a vague, hypothetical state, it is citizens talking 
amongst themselves ... as in MacIntyre's "community" and Habermas' 
"public sphere"... with a purpose.

Fred

References:

[1] http://www.tc.columbia.edu/news/article.htm?id=4479

[2] http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP08-010

[3] http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/p-macint.htm

[4] http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/habermas.htm

[5] http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/downloads/Candidate%20Report.pdf