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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Hi Terry,</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">I'm responding to your 4/10 post, which is quoted at the bottom of this message. In brief, you expressed a concern that proxy systems would empower Glen Beck style ideologue media ideologues. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">I think that this is a key point, well worth discussing. I had your post in mind (along with a conversation I had years ago with a friend who raised a similar concern, probably with Rush Limbaugh's name instead of Glen Beck's) when I wrote subsection 5.7 of my paper, which is copied below. A draft of the paper itself is available at <a href="http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/proxy2010.pdf" target="_blank">http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/vm/proxy2010.pdf</a></font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">my best,</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">James</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">=====</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">5.7. Demagogues and debates</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> One of the more plausible criticisms of proxy systems is that they may allow irresponsible demagogues, such as ideologue media personalities, to gain more official power than they would otherwise enjoy. For one thing, whereas plurality makes it difficult to win an election when you are very far from the ideological center of your constituents, proportional representation systems do not share this constraint. To the extent that proxy systems offer more diversity and more exact proportionality than most other PR systems, we may expect to see more ‘fringe elements' serving as representatives. Since there are few barriers to entry associated with becoming a candidate, some people who are already famous might be able to translate that fame into voting power, without the
need to form a political party or spend further resources on a campaign. Thus, celebrities, extremists, and even ‘celebrity extremists' could potentially become representatives.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> This criticism can't be completely dismissed, but it can be addressed. First, the primary goal of this system is to be as democratic as possible. Because people are fallible, the rule of the people can at times lead to unfortunate results, a fact which no political system can promise to cure. Second, although political extremists may have voting power, they will not be able to pass politically extreme legislation, since bills need a majority to pass. Thus, if people feel more satisfied, and more like their views are being heard, when they are represented by someone whom most people consider ‘outside of the mainstream', then it is difficult to assume that this is a bad thing. The very things that make this possible, i.e. low barriers to participation and diversity of
representation, can also be seen as extremely positive. In many cases, this diversity should lead to a public dialogue that is more robust and freewheeling than what is currently the norm, which could be extremely refreshing, and cause a great many more people to find the process engaging and interesting rather than stuffy and cynical. </font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Of course, the quality of discourse, and of democracy itself, depends not only on the system of formal political power, but also on the quality of the media, the education system, etc. If the media excessively empowers celebrities at the expense of ordinary citizens, then this fact will be reflected in the political system, to its detriment. If politically extreme groups merely preach to their own converted, then we'll miss out on many of the benefits of diverse public dialogue.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> Describing an ideal political media structure is beyond the scope of this paper, but clearly one of the key elements is that representatives of different political groups should have both an opportunity and an incentive to engage in substantive discussions with each other – discussions that go beyond grandstanding and towards finding compromise and common ground, and in the case of disagreement, identifying and in some cases challenging the fundamental basis of that disagreement. </font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> To help this along, it might avail us to have a system where every seated legislator (and perhaps even some large proxy holders who don't have seats) is required or at least strongly encouraged to participate in a series of one-on-one debates or discussions. For example, suppose that each legislator was asked to participate in five debates per year, with each debate lasting about two hours. For any given legislator, so long as more than five people wished to challenge them to debate (these people could be other legislators, or just regular citizens), these debate slots would be scarce, and thus once again it would make sense to use a proportional representation method such as STV to allocate them. (The use of PR rather than a majoritarian voting system would guarantee that,
even if legislators were members of some kind of majority coalition, they still wouldn't be able to stack their debate schedule with comrades and thus avoid any real challenges to their views.) There would be no limit to the number of debates in which one person could serve as the challenger; thus, for example, in addition to the five debates in which they were themselves challenged, a single legislator might serve as the challenger in dozens of other debates. </font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> As for the formats of the debates themselves, they should be organized by a politically neutral authority, and they should be performed with fact-checkers on site to keep the discussion firmly grounded in reality. Topics would be initiated not by moderators but by participants; for example, each might have the opportunity to ask four questions of the other, and the discussion from each question would be given a period of fifteen minutes or so. Rather than having a limited time per response, candidates should have a limited time per discussion period. This way, the participants can have something approaching a normal conversation, asking and answering questions, making short statements of just a sentence or two, and following specific trains of thought to the end, rather than
giving lengthy speeches that only partially respond to each other, and leave most issues unresolved in the end. Participants may pause their clock – and the video coverage – to consider their replies and to ask questions of the fact checkers, but of course they shouldn't be allowed to have aides feeding them responses during these times. The videos of these debates, when completed, should be made available online. Compared to current presidential debates, which tend to be rather frustrating to watch, and which only vaguely approximate what one might call a substantive discussion, these debates should be quite engaging, and thus hopefully fairly popular with viewers. </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">=====</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Terry Bouricius wrote:</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">Abd and Michael Allan,</font></span></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">I have been intrigued by Delegable Proxy, or Delegate Cascade (not clear </font></span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">if there is a difference) for some time. I can really see how it might </font></span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">work well in small free associations (where members are free to join or </font></span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">quit).</font></span></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">I am curious if either of you have a response to a concern in larger </font></span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">organizations, especially those with power (let's say governmental use, </font></span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">rather than Free Association) that media-savvy demagogues (e.g. Glenn </font></span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">Beck) might not gain oligarchic-sized proxy holdings, and what effect that </font></span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">would have on deliberation?</font></span></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">Is there some notion of requiring personal contact with one's proxy, to </font></span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">prevent concentration on "stars."</font></span></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Courier" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Courier;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">Terry Bouricius</font></span></div>
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