[EM] [COVoterChoice] RB gives an equal chance of winning to not just all parties, but all combinations of programs,

[Dave Ketchum]

I assume this is from Colorado, and have no idea who else has seen it.

I see it as worth considering the thinking, although I AM NOT signing  
on as backing any of it.

On Jul 23, 2011, at 11:32 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:

> Knowing of IRV and Condorcet methods of counting ballots, the first  
> paragraph below makes me wonder how valid the the author's claims  
> may be.  The very last few lines help.
> .     STV - not used here - THANKS
> .     Condorcet - also not used here - think more whether this is  
> better.
>
> On Jul 23, 2011, at 3:59 PM, preferentiality wrote:
>
>> Ranked Ballot (voters ranking candidates in order of preference) will
>> give us (PRACTICABLE!) Instant TRUE Democracy for ALL the World, &
>> even put an end to all war forever.
>>
>> Because it gives an equal chance of winning to not just all parties,
>> but all combinations of programs, “RB” is the only thing that’s truly
>> both just & free.  Because it always elects the candidate most  
>> exactly
>> in the middle of all voting, RB is top-dead-center counter extremist,
>> & thus more anti-terrorist than all the many recent retrenchments
>> combined & thus will even disallow the tendency of (virtually two-
>> party) parliamentary systems to give the top to the biggest gang on
>> the block, sometimes with violently extremist results.
>
> Worth reading more - I am not buying the author's claims of  
> achieving perfection.  There are many topics for which more than two  
> possible choices seem worth debating possible value.
>
> Dave Ketchum
>>
>> RB is the sole unchangeable plank & bylaw of a Ranked Ballot Party,
>> the only practicable third party.)  We imagine running on the single
>> issue of RB, promising a citizens’ advisory board based on Organized
>> Communications, “OC”, small randomly assigned discussion groups
>> electing reps to higher & higher randomly assigned levels, by means  
>> of
>> RB, ‘til one small group, most exactly in the middle of all voting,
>> remains at the top, to guide us in the rest, which group by its  
>> merest
>> invitation to speak  inevitably names the perfect compromise & next
>> winner  That’s the instant part.  You do the same, from the most  
>> local
>> on up.
>> By the power of its example alone, RB will give us practicable  
>> instant
>> worldwide true democracy.  Virtually no democracy has ever been
>> attacked by another.  In a world of only democracies, there would no
>> longer be need of the counter-productive wastefulness of armies, war
>> or the preparation for war.  RB will bring us that & all else: a real
>> solution to terror, a perfect marriage of Freedom & Justice,  
>> Tradition
>> & Modernity, Palestinian & Jew, Free Market & Communalism, all the
>> fairness, payback & make-up one could wish for, clean back to the  
>> Cro-
>> Magnons, ecologically sustainable politics, what’s best for all
>> workers, instant global women’s liberation, world-wide luxury, a
>> rationalization of the drug wars, human unity, the Freedom of Justice
>> & the Justice of Freedom, perhaps the only possible solution to the
>> world’s only real problem, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (once  
>> they
>> both are made to have to adopt RB), even integrity. RB is to the  
>> horse
>> & buggy two-party system as shopping in the Mall of America is to
>> shopping in Soviet Russia.  The majority of the problems we face are
>> due to the heavy-footedness of the two party system.  RB lessens the
>> power of the extremes, whether authoritarian, economic or sectarian,
>> except through what they can gain by persuasion, which is only what’s
>> just.  While it would be equally useful for all else, RB’s real power
>> is perhaps most clearly shown in the case of Iraq.  Unless its
>> Parliament comes to select the Prime Minister by means of RB, it may
>> not hold & the country, region & world will be in danger of going to
>> war over some ancient grudge, oil well, multi-ethnic city, or
>> sabotaged pipeline.  While the new constitution does call for the
>> selection of the President by a 2/3 vote in the first round (even if
>> only by the parliament & not the people) (who may then decide who  
>> will
>> form the new government) & then by a run-off between the top two vote
>> getters in the second round, if that fails to move all three tribes  
>> to
>> nominate centrists, then the resulting handful of old men in a back
>> room will fall far short of RB’s ultimate retail politics.  RB would
>> be equally useful for all electoral systems (parliamentary or
>> presidential, the parliaments choosing their PMs by RB from among
>> their members, lest they produce another Hitler or other extreme)
>> coops, collective leaderships, tribal groupings, religious
>> confessions, political parties, associations or, even cabals.   
>> Whoever
>> gets there first wins.  For leaders to best represent their country,
>> or district, whether chosen at large or by a representative body,  
>> they
>> must be the perfect compromise, most exactly in the middle, as is
>> given by RB.  Yet because it gives minorities a real say in which
>> member of the plurality/majority gets chosen, RB is the only thing
>> that will lead Iraqis, or anyone else, to support any plan more than
>> inadequate confederation.   It will result in “phantasmagoric
>> subtlefaction”, real-time alternatives to all proposals, from
>> wherever: market, coop or social, or tribal, theological or  
>> universal,
>> answering infinitely more questions at a time than the two party
>> system’s “who is least bad”.  Both more Liberty & Justice can be  
>> found
>> in RB than in any ideology.  With brakes & reverse comes no more need
>> to suppress popular movements around the world.  RB will give us
>> subtlety, responsivity, light-footedness, long-sightedness,
>> objectivity, economy, unity, accountability, integrity & victory over
>> extremism.  Palestinians & Jews will give up fighting over a sliver  
>> of
>> desert & become members of global cooperatives, all the various forms
>> of hegemonism, whether up front, subterranean or unconscious, will be
>> given up, in exchange for leading the world to the light, & America
>> will finally realize the need for an adequate, howsoever minimal,
>> safety net as the price & foundation of a free market.
>> Help put this idea, in time, to as many as possible, before  
>> “Clockwork
>> Orange” (overpopulation), “1984” (high-tech dictatorship), cosmic
>> collision, tectonic, economic or environmental collapse, or  
>> literalist
>> or criminal contretemps.  The cost of a full page national ad
>> (sufficient to put RB to virtually all the world) would be repaid in
>> no time, once all that money gets put to actual productive use, at
>> pre-9/11 US annual defense spending of $10,000 per family.  Ten to  
>> the
>> power of ten (ten levels of groups of ten) would be sufficient to
>> organize & unite all mankind.
>> RB is very freeing.  Because it always chooses the candidate in the
>> middle, all who support it are perfectly top-dead-center, with no  
>> more
>> need to fear self expression.  Politics will become a family
>> discussion around the kitchen table, with no more jumping back &  
>> forth
>> between extremes, or absence of the economists’ requirement of
>> predictability for growth.  All that’s needed is to let go of the nut
>> & get your fist back out of the knothole, to free yourself, & to rest
>> in the knowledge that RB will give us perfect Freedom & perfect
>> Justice, at one & the same time, even if not necessarily in the form
>> imagined, as if anyone would then care.  For instance, no woman ever
>> got pregnant to have an abortion, but RB will make the point moot.
>> Good enough for New Zealand, Australia, Kerala India, Iraq, London,
>> Ireland, Cambridge Mass, Burlington & 95% of the townships of  
>> Vermont,
>> Pierce County Washington, St Paul & Minneapolis Minnesota, the Utah
>> Republican Party for the selection of statewide candidates, the
>> platforms of both the Green & Libertarian Parties & 50 college  
>> student
>> bodies across the US with more places coming every year, but not good
>> enough for the rest of us?  It must be in somebody’s interest!  How
>> can any wish it of others if they do not have it themselves?  Having
>> spent every spare moment from the invasion, to the vote on the
>> constitution emailing every Iraqi we could find about RB, we would
>> like to claim some little credit for the reforms they did adopt.  The
>> only imaginable definition of Freedom (& Morality) is “Do as you  
>> wish,
>> but harm no other”.  The maker & sustainer of this world (& cosmos!)
>> could have no need of one bit of it. The fiercer the history of the
>> planet, the sooner it would have been blissed out behind ethnic
>> homogeneity, & thus democracy.  Tax consumption, not investment, &
>> spread the productivity around.  All powers to their lowest
>> appropriate level.  All human evil is due to the out of phase
>> fluctuation of population & food supply, so no-one alive is
>> responsible for the mess we find ourselves in, except for what they  
>> do
>> now.   Justice is the redress of past violence, Freedom the current
>> absence of violence & Nonviolence the only basis of all Morality.
>> Just go out & collect signatures, asking those who sign to collect
>> them for you as well.  The more the merrier.   (The “additive” form  
>> of
>> RB is to count the first choices & if no-one has 50%, to add in the
>> next choices, & so on until someone finally does.)  “Consider that
>> which is common in the sight of all men.”
>> --