[EM] language/framing quibble

[Raph Frank]

On 9/6/08, Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke at verizon.net> wrote:
> Good Evening,
>
>  re:  "Do you examine all the candidates carefully and pick one who is
> trustworthy and then pay little attention to what he does, or do you pick
> someone less carefully and monitor him closely and then kick him out at the
> next election if necessary."
>
>  We should examine all candidates carefully and pick the one most
> characteristic of our attitudes and aspirations and most likely to advocate
> issues in our interest.  If we choose well, the need for monitoring will be
> considerably lower than if we allow others to make the choice for us.
>
>
>  re: "Groups are just groups of people, they derive their value from the
> people who they represent."
>
>  That is not exactly true.  Once formed, groups take on a life of their own.
>  The group leaders exploit or dismiss divergences among the membership,
> depending on their own biases and their opinion of how best to serve the
> group.  As you say, though, their value is a derivative of the number of
> people they can claim to represent.  What this fails to recognize is that
> while many may support the headline ideology of the group, that ideology is
> a minor consideration in most legislation.
>
>
>  re: "I think making it reasonably easy for parties to form and having a
> system which doesn't discriminate against independents helps a lot with
> (preventing a party from attaining too much power)."
>
>  and: "A voting system that gives less of an advantage to incumbents is an
> improvement ..."
>
>  and: "Similarly, a system that weakens parties centralised power is an
> improvement."
>
>  I absolutely agree with all three points, but I also believe we must
> recognize that humans naturally pursue their own interest, so we must design
> our electoral process so that one's probity significantly affects their
> ability to achieve public office; we must change election from a carnival
> bathed in hyperbole and deceit to a sober, contemplative process; we must
> create a political infrastructure where David Geffen's assertion that,
> "Everybody in politics lies ...", is no longer a valid description of the
> politics in our country.

One option is to select the legislature at random.  Stratified random
sampling would yield a highly representative legislature.  The
population would be split into N groups, such that each group is
reasonably homogeneous and then 1 person picked from each group.  This
also reduces the benefit from corrupting the random process.  Also,
corrupting the stratification just increases the random variance, it
doesn't actually change the expect result.  Corrupting both means that
you get to pick the legislature.

This has the advantage that it eliminates the point in campaigning.
Every 5 years, a group of people get a mail in the post informing them
that they have been selected for 'legislature duty' .. though unlike
Juries they would presumably be paid.

The disadvantage (or advantage depending on your viewpoint) is that it
leads to a legislature made up of average people.

I have suggested that a way around it is to have a multi-stage
process.  The people picked at random are asked to select the 'person
they know who they would most respect to hold office' and that
generates a second group.  The rule would require that the person
picked is somehow connected to them, say friends or family members.
After a few stages, say 10, the final group becomes the legislature.

This should result in a reasonably competent legislature (assuming
each person picks someone more competent than themselves) and the rule
that you must pick a friend/family members for each link means that
campaigning is pointless.

This resulting legislature would then appoint the PM (or nominate 2
candidates for President) and approve any cabinet posts.

The big disadvantage is that it is unlikely that a person would be
re-elected.  This could lead to short term thinking.  OTOH, each
legislator would know that he will have to live in the country after
his term ends, so he won't want to mess up to badly.