Isn't is already flat out illegal to accept bribes? Why would you expect this system to be different than the current one in this regard?
One person is inherently more corruptible than 535. Obviously, bribery is illegal, pay-to-play is illegal, and lobbying is dubious. And these things still occur regardless. My issue is that the system institutionalizes the idea that one member has more power than another. The whims of millions magnify the whims of one. This is already true, but in Congress today this is not an inherent function of the system; that influence is gained by the relations between members of congress and how they navigate it. Institutionalizing and quantifying it leaves it more open to abuse.
I'll point again at the 60% rule I proposed.
I will point again at Obamacare. 60% votes to repeal could have certainly been enough that, at some point, Obamacare would have been repealed. And yet there was no rule demanding something be replaced. And indeed, I can say with absolute certainty that if there were enough votes to repeal it, there would not have been enough to replace it. This is an extremely bad situation to be in. And yet people might do it if they worried about losing influence. It also ties back into my earlier question "How does this Parliament run, and how does it handle the fact the fact that members are inherently unequal in power?" How do they schedule things? You may think this is irrelevant, but hierarchy becomes even more important when you impose a specific ranking on people.
Fair enough, but I will say that 60% is not enough to totally insulate it from the tyranny of the polls and focus groups. More generally: This still means that the system still has the "Whoever owns the media owns Parliament".
If it's "totally insulated" from the polls, it's hardly a republic of any sort, now is it?
I didn't say "insulated from the polls", I said, "insulated from the
tyranny of the polls and focus groups". I don't mean elections, I mean the wrath of Big Data. We already worry enough about Politicians never doing something that's unpopular, but now they'd never do anything else. Which means, effectively, that this is just rule by public perception. Which just means that this is quite the opposite of no more campaigning: it integrates the campaign into every facet of political life! Every moment would be a show! No politician would dare do anything or reach out to others, and as long as they give the appearance of fighting for their interests in everything they do, they get to stay where they are! And since if they don't, they lose their position or influence, suddenly everything is a campaign. Hell even if the compromise once, they turn off their supporters in favor of... who? Are you going to switch to someone who compromised their views? No. If you are content with your person, you'd stay with them. Meaning any politician could lose power very easily without gaining anything for taking the bold and unpopular stance of trying to get something done, without gaining anything. Meanwhile, people would gain based entirely on performances in arguments. And guess what? Politicians are people. They're not going to stick out their neck for nothing. Neither would you, I hope.
My Congressional Culture refused to pass a budget for years on end. Years. I do not see the second part as a bad thing given how thoroughly the experienced legislators. After all, the activists and professional politicians are already fighting for influence and the professors are teaching the lawyers who round out the bunch.
I'm really sorry to say this but that argument is entirely irrelevant.
You can't just say "here is a problem, therefore this other system is good".
Let me give another example: All those good-as-gold brilliant statesmen cluttering the halls of Parliament decided that a margin of 3.8% was enough of a margin to make a binding decision on the long-term political and economic future of the UK. And then Brexit passed despite the leading lights of the media condemning it in the strongest terms. So apparently the experts don't see even 55% as being too low a threshold for this sort of thing and people apparently aren't so easily swayed by the media.
Maybe they just weren't listening to your media. The stuff that I heard on this side of the pond seemed to imply that there was definitely a market for Brexit. It's just one that you've dismissed. You may as well dismiss Fox News for the same reason, but they exist and do so well precisely because there
was a market for it.
I would hope that vote forwarding would defuse the single interest system by allowing voters to compromise less when choosing a representative.
This is arguably the most damning thing I could say about this whole idea, and it indicates your experiences are British-centric.
Here in America, our representatives have simply stopped compromising entirely. And there is reason to believe that this is exactly what their constituents want them to do. People want
other representatives to compromise. Not their own. If this system existed in the US you may as well just forget Congress existed entirely.
Helgoland's system ultimate weakness is paralysis. Paralysis is everywhere in the system, and in every objection, I've raised. Enacting bills and repealing them without replacing them, budgeting, the effects on marginals, the effects of the polls, all of it leads the basic idea that this system is a bastard of direct and representative democracy that will ultimately lead to sidelining the Parliament entirely in favor of Presidential Dictatorship. Don't believe me? You've already given the President crisis powers and budgeting. Budgeting! Do you know what that means? The President decides which laws are worth enforcing or not by simply not funding them. How could Parliament, for example, pass a reform of the Healthcare system if this system involved money? President has power over that. In fact, anything that the government does that involves money is off-limits. And everything costs money! But the problem is as soon as you let this Parliament have control over the purse, we run into the issue I've brought up and exists in the US: what *forces* people to be responsible, instead of just blaming the other guys? Nothing! At all! Even if a minority of the population makes a conscious effort to CONSTANTLY monitor their representative for stepping out of line and doing the right thing instead of the feel-good thing (which is a huge time demand, incidentally. I can barely follow our elections now, imagine if I had to hunt down a fellow with my exact positions), it won't even matter to the majority who don't monitor shit, and just vote for someone who, as you say, supports exactly what they want. If they even do that! What if people don't want to vote for their favorite person who isn't in Parliament at all and instead vote "strategically" and vote for an influential person who shares most of their positions? Then we are back to where we started, aren't we?
Demanding that the population be self-aware and educated about the issues enough to, as a majority (a 60% majority no less!), vote consistently against pandering is unreasonable. If they could, why not just be a Direct Democracy anyway?
The advantage of Direct Democracy is voters can vote directly on the issues, meaning no (or fewer, really) middlemen, theoretically less corruption, and a general sense of being more "democratic". The advantage of Representative Democracy is that it still ultimately derives its power from the people, but insulates the process of government from dramatic shifts in opinion, the tyranny of the majority, and the simple fact that a most of the population is neither educated about or interested in the precise details of issues and laws. This system tries to achieve both but accomplishes neither, as far as I can see.
I tried to be open-minded. I did. That is why I have tried very hard to hear what you or Helgoland have to say about Congressional culture because I believe that this system - while incapable of real greatness - could be workable provided a very specific mindset in government between government officials, and about government in general. Barring that, I think it would costly to implement, directionless, and could ultimately hurt more than it helps.
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Topic: A proposed new method of organizing a representative democracy (Read 1558 times)