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02312: Re: [WDDM] Lata's Recent Comments

From: Bruce Eggum <bruce.eggum(at)gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:55:49 -0500
Subject: Re: [WDDM] Lata's Recent Comments

Instead of spending all that money to form a “party” which we would have little control of, why not spend the money building a people’s Assembly? With some advertisement, we could ask all citizens to join, and than send out monthly newsletters. Our initial goal would be to gather enough people to demand Initiative and Binding Referendum by the people. We than could Veto or Alter whacky legislation. We could also have input for planning, provide our idea’s and ideal’s regarding diplomacy, environment, health, education etc.

Bruce



On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 8:09 PM, <tstmastr(at)rio.com> wrote:
Hi, Jim.
  We could debate these sorts of issues indefinitely, I imagine. In my opinion, funding for the party would be limited to a fixed amount that every member would pay, the same for all, e.g. $200 per year in the U.S.  They party would strive to appeal to the majority of citizens by basing its platform on polls of the public and then party members.  If millions joined the party, they would have the funds to finance candidates for office at competitive rates and win in competition with candidates funded by special interest groups.  Citizens do not want to be served by government as members of special interest groups.  So the new party should not do so, not let special interest groups have power in the party.

Bill.
----- Original Message ----- From: Jim Powell

To: <wddm@world-wide-democracy.net>
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:45 AM
Subject: RE: [WDDM] Lata's Recent Comments



Hi Bill,

Even funding from within the political party will promote interest groups.
Instead of external lobbyists, they simply join the political party and do
the same from within.

Funding for the party should come from the tax base. It is a cost of
democracy the same as elections and paying the salaries of the politicians.

It should be illegal to have funding except from the tax base. The funding
would be based on the % of the previous vote with the top and second party
receiving the same amount. This would keep opposition strong.

For emerging parties, funding would be based on the number of signatures
obtained with any payment for this collection also being illegal.

Any representations should require multiparty involvement, even to the
extent of emailing the proposals

This would produce a system where the influence of lobbyists would be
severely reduced and the focus would be towards the broader electorate

This will not stop corruption but make it more difficult

Regards

Jim Powell South Africa

-----Original Message-----
From: William McConochie
Sent: 15 Sep 2009 10:59 PM
To: wddm@world-wide-democracy.net
Cc: Bill McConochie; Boris Mlacic; Mary Spilde
Subject: Re: [WDDM] Lata's Recent Comments

Hi All:
  This discussion touches on an interesting question in psychological
research:  to what extent is human behavior a function of individual person
traits, e.g. personality, knowledge, political worldview, religious
orientation and intelligence, and to what extent is it a function of the
environment in which the individual is behaving?
  Many writers from many disciplines are of the opinion re: U.S. politics
that what drives legislative decisions is largely, and perhaps primarily, a
function of the "environment", which dictates that accepting lobbyist
contributions from special interest groups is necessary to raise sufficient
funds to get reelected.
  To the extent that this is the case, there would seem to be room for a
new type of political party whose candidates are funded exclusively by party

member dues, with corresponding loyalty only to the party platform.  This
platform could be periodically redefined by sophisticated polls of the
public and party members to find out what the citizens what from their
government, "the common good".
  From my research studies, the common good thus defined is likely to be
very reasonable, pro-social, sensitive to the environment, reducing
militarism, etc.  90% of many groups I've studied want government that
serves them as members of the community overall, versus as members of
special interest groups.
  For additional details see Publications,
Politicalpsychologyresearch.com.
  Consider also opinions of experts in many other disciplines that
dovetail closely with these psychological research findings in Global
Survival;  The Challenge and its Implications for Thinking and Acting,
Laszlo and Seidel, Eds, SelectBooks, 2006.
  I'm always doing studies over the Internet to explore these issues
further, currently on these topics:  Humiliation; Social Activism; Liberal
and Conservative psychological traits; and a new topic, coming up, Executive

Ethics.  If interested, contact me.  Your students can get credit for
filling out questionnaires online, confidentially.  You receive their names
as participants and research project findings for educational purposes.
  Best regards, Bill McConochie, Political Psychology Research, Inc.

----- Original Message ----- From: Fred Gohlke
To: <wddm@world-wide-democracy.net>
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: [WDDM] Lata's Recent Comments


Good Morning, Lata

You are doing an excellent job of helping me demonstrate the way I
adjust my opinions as I gain additional information.  When you denigrate
the idea of living our ordinary lives in peace and security you put my
original impression that you are 'uncommonly thoughtful' to a severe test.


re: "When I talk about "democratic deficit" I talk about the fact
    that citizens have no meaningful ways of impacting
    governmental decisions, every four years they get to chose
    the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right."

That is a well-stated description.  I like the idea of calling our
present-day politicians puppets.  We'll do well to devise a method that
replaces them with our best people.


re: "... to say that representative politicians possess some
    higher gift of decision making as a form of expertise...
    does not seem plausible."

Your conclusion is pre-ordained by your phrasing.  There is a huge
difference between 'representative politicians' and political
representatives.

Who could deny that 'representative politicians' elected, as you say, as
puppets of vested interests, have no 'gift of decision making'?
Certainly not me.  But that is not the same thing as selecting political
representatives who demonstrate their ability to make decisions in the
people's interest.


re: "There is one thing I don't understand in your line of
    argument and I might as well ask you out right. I can
    understand you saying that it's wrong for you to impose your
    will on others because you lack the knowledge. But you can
    be briefed and you have just as much ability to understand
    what the experts tell you as a politician does. So to just
    say they are somehow superior to yourself in terms of their
    capacity to assimilate expert advice just seems like a cop
    out."

The issue is not whether I have as much ability to understand what the
experts say as a politician, it is whether I have as much ability to do
so as some other citizen.  I probably have greater ability than most
politicians, but I don't even come close to having the ability of some
of my peers.


re: "However, what really surprises me is the inconsistency. You
    don't apply that principle evenly. You say it's wrong for us
    to make binding decisions over others but we should find
    good people to make them for us! So, to me it sounds like
    you wouldn't mind living in a dictatorship where you don't
    have a say, as long as the dictator does a good job of
    deciding everything on our behalf and allows us to 'live our
    ordinary lives in peace and security'."

Like your opening paragraph, this assertion is nothing short of absurd.


re: "Let me ask you, what makes you think we have the expertise
    to pick good people of competence and integrity... and that
    we have the right to impose our chosen candidate on others?
    Is that not making a binding decision over others?"

Your phrasing distorts your question:

* if we select good people because of their competence and integrity, we
are not imposing them.

* We are not 'imposing our chosen candidate on others', 'others' chose
the candidate.

* We are not 'making a binding decision over others', 'others' are
making the binding decision for themselves.


re: "What makes you think you have adequate knowledge to be able
    to make that decision?"

Nowhere have I said or implied that I "have adequate knowledge to be
able to make that decision?".  Quite the contrary!  Everything I've
suggested is predicated on finding, among ourselves, the people who have
the requisite ability.



Society is dynamic.  The needs of the people vary, in nature and in
intensity.  The only ones who know what those needs are, and how best to
meet them, are the people, themselves.

Not everyone wants to participate in the political process, and even
fewer have a sensible grasp of the circumstances that face us.  On top
of that, our interest in political matters waxes and wanes throughout
our lives.  Even so, at all times, there are many people distributed
among us with the ability and energy to represent our interests.  We
don't know who they are, or where they are, so we need a means of
finding them and raising them to positions of leadership.

Fred Gohlke

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