[EM] language/framing quibble

[Juho Laatu]

--- On Sat, 28/3/09, Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke at verizon.net> wrote:

> Good Morning, Juho
> 
> re: "I'd encourage maintaining some separation of the
> political
>      and business segments of the
> society.."
> 
> How would you go about accomplishing that?

I think there are many options. One
could start for example from setting
limits to use of money in the
elections (and between them). In a
more extreme scenario politicians
could just cope with their (high)
salary and those communication
capabilities that the society offers
them. Any donations to politicians
could be classified as bribes.

> 
> 
> re: "The triads and other low level approaches may do good
> job in
>      at least waking up some potential
> leaders.  It is however
>      not guaranteed that they or other
> competent people will end
>      up at the top."
> 
> Of course not ... and stating the obvious does little to
> aid our effort to understand complex matters.
> 
> We are talking about a method that gives every member of
> the electorate an opportunity to participate in the
> electoral process, to the full extent of their desire and
> ability; a method that takes control of elected officials
> away from political elites and puts it back in the hands of
> the people, where it belongs.  The method guarantees
> nothing, but it opens the door for competent people to rise
> to the top ... a prospect denied us by the current political
> infrastructure.

I guess also the current system
theoretically allows people to
influence although there may be
problems on the way and in the
system.

> 
> 
> re: "In practice all political systems have some
>      groupings/parties though."
> 
> There is nothing wrong with that.  In fact, it's
> healthy.  The problem is not that people seek out and
> align themselves with others who share their views, it is
> when those they align themselves with have the power to
> compel their support.  If the group can not attract
> voluntary agreement with the views it espouses, those who
> dissent must be free to form new alliances.
> 
> 
> re: "I have also spent some time in thinking how we could
> make
>      the party structure more dynamic
> and having more variation
>      than few monolithic blocks with
> established power structure
>      do offer."
> 
> Have you come up with a means we could examine?

I was mainly thinking about offering
proportionality also between different
segments of parties (in addition to
basic proportional representation)
and systems that will offer that also
in practice.

You seem to build representation
starting from individuals at the
bottom.. Another approach is to
allow parties to be divided in
smaller pieces that can be
controlled by the voters.

> 
> 
> re: "Since some kind of grouping of people and ideologies
> is
>      likely we better have means to
> heard them."
> 
> Is there a better way than letting each and every person
> advance their own ideology as effectively as they can?

I think yes since starting from
individuals and their individual
ideologies can be complemented by
offering also some tools for the
situation that arises when the
individuals start forming
ideological groupings. I'm thus
accepting the fact that there will
be groupings and that we need to
have models and tools to understand
their dynamics and control them.

Juho



> 
> Fred Gohlke
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