[EM] language/framing quibble

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Morning, Kristofer

re: "... would be good for the petition to include information
      about the level of the person who originated it."

My initial reaction to this suggestion was unfavorable, oddly, for the 
very reason you thought it worthwhile; fear that petitions coming from 
the lower levels of the 'pyramid' would be considered less important. 
On further thought, though, I agree with you.  As you point out, it is 
likely the distribution of petitions will be simplified by including the 
petitioner's level.  In addition, those who rose to higher levels were 
deemed more representative of the views of their peers than those at 
lower levels.  It is reasonable to give their opinions greater weight. 
One additional factor is that it may aid discourse among those who met 
to make selections.


re: "The assumption here is that if someone high up in the
      pyramid petitions the official, he has the support of many
      below him."

I agree this is a reasonable assumption in terms of how an elected 
official initially evaluates a petition.  However, the ease with which 
constituents may support or oppose petitions provides a means of 
confirming the assumption.  Since it is easy for constituents to support 
or oppose a petition, official performance will be better judged by 
actual support than by implied support.

Beyond performance evaluation, though, is the impact of petitions on an 
official's biases.  Petitions represent ideas and convictions.  They may 
counter ideas and convictions held by the elected official or reinforce 
them.  They may achieve merit on the breadth of their support or on the 
force of their reason.  Thus, the bidirectionality of the system not 
only provides a means of sanctioning, it also serves to influence 
elected officials' attitudes.  As you've pointed out, when participants 
move to higher levels they can not represent all the views of all the 
people who elevated them.  Petitions provide a means of energizing views 
which are commonly held but which are 'lost in transit', so to speak.


re: "... the pyramids exist ... and their composition is known to
      (at least) the public officials ..."

In my view, the composition of the pyramids and all petitions should be 
public information.  It is true this will make those who achieve the 
higher levels targets for influence peddlers but I don't believe such 
corruption will be as easy to achieve as it is at present.  Here's why:

Our political landscape is dominated by political parties and political 
parties are conduits for corruption.  Corruption occurs in static 
conditions and party professionals are like apples in barrels, 
susceptible to rot.  The Practical Democracy electoral method is 
dynamic; is has no organization or fund raiser to provide a corrupting 
influence.  Those who would corrupt our elected representatives can not 
do so en bloc, as they do with parties, they have to corrupt each 
elected official, individually.

There is an enormous difference between telling a party fund-raiser what 
laws you want in return for your 'contribution' and trying to corrupt 
individuals who have no need of campaign funds and who are selected by 
their peers for their intellect and integrity.  In addition to the risk 
of exposure, which is always a threat when approaching a target, there's 
the problem of effectiveness; corrupting a single official does not 
ensure enactment of a law in the way contributing to a party does.  This 
method may not completely forestall corruption, but it will certainly 
make it more difficult and less effective than it is now.


re: "My broad idea is that since the pyramid is exponential in
      nature, with a fixed chance of petition from each at the
      bottom, the number of petitions would increase exponentially
      as well, and so in order to sift through the mass, there has
      to be some sort of method for finding what's truly
      important, some sort of information aggregation and
      selection."

The constituents' ability to support or oppose petitions will probably 
have two effects:

1) It will increase public participation because those who would be 
unlikely to 'write a letter to their Congressman' may (and, in my view, 
probably will) support or oppose the petitions of others ... if it's 
easy to do so.

2) It will reduce the number of petitions because those who are likely 
to 'write a letter to their Congressman' may find that someone else has 
already done so.  Of course, in this case, pride of authorship may 
inspire parallel petitions, and that could lead to the murky waters of 
petition amendment.  I'll pass on examining that eventuality, for the 
moment.

Are statistics available to show how frequently citizens 'write their 
Congressmen' and can that data can be extrapolated to guesstimate the 
severity of the problem?  I'm not sure how helpful that will be, though, 
because events may cause a flurry of petitions that can not be anticipated.


re: turnover of elected officials

This is not directly responsive to your letter, but I'd like to mention 
that one of the provisions of the Sefton Petition is that "the random 
grouping mechanism must insure that no two people are assigned to a 
triad if they served together in a triad in any of the five most recent 
elections.  This provision not only makes it unlikely that a given 
individual will be returned to office repeatedly, it also ensures the 
ideologies of our elected officials are constantly refreshed.

In two-party systems, particularly, there is a periodic wrenching from 
one side of the political spectrum to another.  Neither side ever 
correctly reflects the true will of the people (which is, of course, the 
feedstock for the demand for additional parties and proportional 
representation).  The method we are discussing will elevate those who 
best reflect the attitudes and aspirations of all the people.  They will 
create a government that moves inexorably in response to the people's 
wishes.

Fred