[EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Afternoon, Juho

re: "Ok, maybe this is a bad implementation of a party system."

That's a non-sequitor.  The point I made was that "Joining a party is 
profoundly passive."


re: "I agree that often democracies do not work as well as we
      would like them to work. But democracy is so far the best
      method we have, and it includes the idea that societies are
      at least supposed to do what the voters want.

Don't be misled by the propaganda that inundates us.  Political parties 
are quasi-official institutions designed to acquire the reins of 
government.  They do not create democracies, they build oligarchies 
(political systems governed by a few people).

In party-based systems, control of government is vested in the party 
leaders who select the candidates for public office and arrange the 
resources for their election.  As a condition of their sponsorship, they 
require that the candidates support the party, thus giving the party 
ultimate control of the elected officials.

The party system is in no sense democratic.  The prime movers, those who 
control the party, are not elected by the people.  In fact, most people 
don't even know who they are.  They are appointed by their party and 
serve at the party's pleasure.  We, the people the parties are supposed 
to represent, have no control over who these people are, how long they 
serve, or the deals they make to raise the immense amounts of money they 
use to keep their party in power.

When we allow political parties to usurp the power of governing a 
nation, it is foolish to imagine that the people have retained any 
rights.  It is a tragedy that so few of us recognize (or are willing to 
acknowledge) that we have relinquished our right to govern ourselves to 
unknown people who proclaim themselves our agents.

Fred