----- Original Message -----
To: wddm@world-wide-democracy.net
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 9:32 PM
Subject: [WDDM] Re: Charter and other
thoughts
Hi Mark,
Yes, the act of banning political party is a bad precedent for
the violation of an individual's freedom of association. If there is a ban of
one form of peaceful, no-violent association of an individual, it would be so
much more easier to ban another form, and yet another form, ....
Even successful prohibition on political parties as it is is unlikely to
eradicate political parties. It would instead transform visible political
parties into invisible ones. We already have so much troubles from visible
political parties which can be seen and identified. Invisible ones would most
probably make these troubles intractable. This point deserves more careful
thoughts.
Moreover, although party politics is undoubtably evil, what we are really
against is Rule by Representatives, whether such representatives are partyless
or not. There is no basis for us to believe that partyless representatives
would necessarily serve the people when in office, and not to rule them.
Most probably, partyless representatives would have to form partless gangs to
control the elected Legislature in order to have their agendas fulfilled. Then
we would go back to square one: the Rule by Representatives.
It is better to see the political parties wither away one by one
before our eyes when they become a serious liability to the election
candidates in the new political system.
Yes, the present document you refer to as the WDDM Charter is an
achievement for the community. Congratulations! to you and all who have worked
for it. It is undoubtedly a progress.
However, these are some of my reservations:
1 It has yet to obtain true majority endorsement from WDDM
members;
2 It does not encourage members to be active in WDDM affairs. Here,
encouragement actually means encouragement, not coercion in one form or
another. Basically, democracy means persuading people to agree with you, and
not to obtain complaince by legislation through the control of the
legislature.
3 Because it is so easily modified without a true majority, it
could be easily hyjacked by a small motivated minority with an private agenda
in the name of all.
Eric Lim (lpc1998)
"Mark Antell, editor CitizenPowerMagazine.net"
<citizenp(at)citizenpowermagazine.net> wrote:
Hi
Eric,
I surely did like your thoughts in response to PVR's concept of
'partyless democracy.' It strikes me that freedom of association
precludes partyless politics. Prohibition on parties has been tried in
Africa (Kenya I think). The results were terrible.
As to the
charter..... well, I think it's pretty good. Plus it has a
very clear
mechanism for modification, or even dissolution. If members
really don't
like it, it wouldn't take much to throw it out.
Mark