From: | "Bruce Eggum" <bruceeggum(at)gmail.com> |
---|---|
Date: | Mon, 21 May 2007 01:22:15 -0500 |
Subject: | Re: [WDDM] Response to PVR - Regarding rule by representatives |
Once
again WDDM is misunderstood. World Wide Direct Democracy Movement was
established to help individual Nations and States to develop "Direct Democracy"
in their Nation / States if the people desired it.
Direct Democracy is the people having the "control" of their Nation / State.
To
accomplish this WDDM advocated a system similar to the Swiss, where the people
retained ALL control of their government.
This
never meant that the "government" would be destroyed. Indeed most Nation /
States have a HUGE amount of programs and people to oversee, finance and
account for. To accomplish this government needs an objective infrastructure.
Would you prefer "employees" to run this infrastructure or elected officials?
I
suggest elected officials (your representative) who could be removed easily by
recall and totally accountable to the people are the best "officials" of the
Nation / State infrastructure.
The
people than could "meet" (electronically using a system which provides for
voting on initiatives and plans for the Nation / State.) Those approved by
referendum would than be delivered to the "government" with instructions to
apply and institute them..
Certainly
it would be ridiculous that we all vote on whether to send the ambulance to 101 Oak street nor
should we decide whither to fill the pot holes on Lawn Drive. Nor can we budget the costs.
This is what government infrastructure does. If attacked, we (should) have
already made provisions for appropriate response, and may need to immediately
consider further response needed. But to "attack" or begin a war would need
approval from the entire electorate.
Our
"representatives" would make necessary decisions. If we disagreed, we could
hold an initiative and referendum to change that decision and perhaps change
the decision making criteria to keep that mistake from happening again. This is
management, and if the people are going to manage, they will have to consider
these matters and manage.
WDDM
advocates democratic voting process, 50% + 1 which allows the many different
people views to be considered. However decisions must be made and the simple
majority is the democratic rule WDDM advocates. Super majority would often kill
needed decisions when you have three - four alternatives. There are other
methods such as a double majority which may be better for things such as
Constitutional Amendments etc.
Minorities
must have Constitutional rights and ways to bring their concerns and needs to
the government and be considered in an equal way which can also be developed in
the infrastructure.
There are some whom desire an Anarchy method of government. That is not the way of WDDM. The example of Anarchy being used in Oaxaca Mexicoshows the problems with Anarchy. Anarchy does not allow direct communication with the government, by petition or otherwise. Anarchy does not allow a person belonging to the Anarchy Assembly to be a representative or member of government. Anarchy holds a meeting and votes, than a month later votes again and again. This constant change of method / process and failure to complete agreed process results in a mob making demands, but not willing to follow through on the long haul.
Government needs a process to follow consistently. It can be changed / improved but it can not be changed on the whim of a mob mentality.
So, we have democracy, and we develop Swiss style I&R to allow the people the final say in all matters.
We maintain "Representatives" to carry out the work as assigned by the people.
Party's are simply factions with different beliefs. Party's have no place in government. Party's or other factions may advocate their position by advertising or bringing their ways to the people for consideration, however they should not be a direct part of government.
ALL Elections need to be publicly funded and no contributions (buying votes) are allowed.
Well, that is my view.
Regards, Bruce Eggum
To cover every item of Government, by having people vote on all of it is
just not real, you would have the average citizen saying that we were crazy.
In Australia we Government departments that handle some items, we have local
government that handle some items, we have state government that handle some
items, we have federal government that handle some items and we the Governor
General that handle some items and this is their fulltime jobs, average
person will have their own jobs and then will be expected to vote on all
issues of government.
I personally think that the selection process of our candidates is the most
important, ask yourself who is behind the scene's ensuring that they get the
right candidate they want, l believe it would be a good thing if we could
move away from political parties.
From my ongoing studies, politicians a just serves to higher powers, the
higher powers ensure they get their person, some a groomed from school to
the office of being a politician, and the media is the weapon that keeps
them on track.
From what l have been looking into, it is about 2% of the population, that
control the world, they believe they are something special, and the rest of
us are nothing more then cattle, and their servants, to challenge them you
risk your life.
Personally l believe more and more if we could broke the control of these
people, we may start getting the sort of governments we want, and the
government processes we want.
Regards
Martin Jackson
http://realitypoliticsgoodgovernment.blogspot.com/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Antell, editor CitizenPowerMagazine.net"
<citizenp(at)citizenpowermagazine.net>
To: <wddm@world-wide-democracy.net>
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007 10:56 PM
Subject: [WDDM] Response to PVR - Regarding rule by representatives
> Hi PVR,
>
> You've stated a position clearly: "We need to put our trust into somebody
> to take care of our concerns."
>
> I disagree with that position. And I think that most of us in WDDM
> disagree with that position.
>
> We don't want to be governed. We want to move from representative
> democracy to direct democracy.
> Mark
>
> PS. Yours is a legitimate, honest, and widely held position. Though I
> disagree with what you say, I'll defend your right to say it.
>
> -----------------------
>
> Vijayaraghavan Padmanabhan wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>> Continuing from my previous letter, an important matter to be decided
>> before we formulate a mission statement is to decide whether by aiming at
>> Direct Democracy, we are doing away with the concept of 'rule by
>> representatives'. This particular view is held by some advocates of DD.
>> While this may be the ideal theoretical goal, it may be nearly impossible
>> in practice. We need to put our trust into somebody to take care of our
>> concerns. This is the natural order of things in life. What we need is to
>> have a mechanism where our representatives are directly accountable to
>> the people and can be recalled at any time if sufficient people feel so.
>> I request that members express their views regarding this since this is
>> important to formulate a workable mission statement.
>>
>> PVR
>>
>