Re: [WDDM] Re: Regarding rule by representatives

["Filia den Hollander" <fkdh(at)xs4all.nl>]

Hi,

Yes, it would be interesting to consider Emmanuel's proposal further.
Would it be do-able on a practical level ?





As regards to Mark's email, he wrote:
"The United States tried partyless representation in the early 19th
century; but the system quickly and naturally evolved to party
orientation."

That happened  t h e n , but these are different times (with internet, bla
di bla).

In The Netherlands, we had a period when it was (more or less) common to
think that we were moving away from party ideology, due to the higher
level of people's education as wel as individualisation. In fact, this was
one of our arguments towards more direct democracy / referendums. We
argued: Nowadays people agree on issue A with party X, and on issue B with
part Y. (Sounds like Emmanuel's writing, come to think of it.) That's why
we need referendums: they deal with issues and not with party politics
and/or party representatives. (Remember that The Netherlands had a tax
system of 'levelling' for a long time and that the Dutch were moving away
from the 'columns'.)

Now, to my (and more people's) frustration, we had in The Netherlands a
rightwing coalition and they, using 'terrorism' and 'ooh - the Islam!'
re-established a left - right division. (They did that, rather than
analyse properly the EU-anisation that takes/took over [overrule] national
law making.)

So, we could argue that the Dutch rightwing - Christian Democrats - more
or less deliberately enhanced the part system in order to keep power and
order. And, taking the argument in reverse -  Dutch society shied away
from taking the next (democratic) step.



Kind regards,
Filia den Hollander








> I have nothing to object to echarp´s letter.                  Jiri Polak
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "echarp" <emmanuel.charpentier(at)free.fr>
> To: <wddm@world-wide-democracy.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 4:23 PM
> Subject: [WDDM] Re: Regarding rule by representatives
>
>
> > Why not let the participants decide for themselves what level of
> > representation they want?
> >
> > Why not make it an individual choice on each issue?
> >
> > Let's say I trust person X on issue Y, and I don't have much time to
> > follow this issue on a day to day basis. I could just rely on%2