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02825: Re: [WDDM] Law

From: Alexander Kassios <kassios(at)gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 13:19:50 +0200
Subject: Re: [WDDM] Law

The advantages and disadvantages of the Swiss Initiative process are very well described in the paper:
An Interactional Model of Direct Democracy : Lessons from the Swiss Experience by Johannes Reich.

Dear Hamid, we are facing the exact same problem here in Greece.
How to take the governance back, and if I may add another factor, what system do we propose to substitute the old one.
Both are issues of power.
Solidarity of the masses is key. A united front will have the political strength to progress into reforms.
What should be the reforms? Very clear demands on specific democratic processes that you believe are necessary. Referendums at the minimum. That is least you should be aiming, if you want to people's control over political actions.
This isn't so easy to achieve, since demands tend to be economical rather than democratic and people have a tendency to get divided into smaller groups. So working for unity and propagating clear democratic demands are my bet for a better future.
strength to you,

Alexander

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 5:01 PM, <Bruce Eggum> wrote:
Egypt and those country's are demanding [IMHO] "the right to petition their government". I wish them success.
Many of our country's have that. We do in the USA. The problem is we have no process to develop the petition/initiative by the people to submit.
We must focus on written structured methods to process Initiative/Petition.
Once developed and the most popular determined, than as Jiri so rightly states they must go to Referendum for actual election confirmation and implementation.     Bruce Eggum
I agree Alexander, the Swiss have developed Initiative/Petition a bit and we can use their experience to further develop Initiative/Petition process.



On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 8:17 AM, <Jiri Polak> wrote:
I don´t see any other way than insisting on the principle that any democratic Constitution, to be valid, must be approved by referendum. Constitutions that have not got such approval are not democratic and the respective systems are illegitimate. People ahould consequently avoid referring to such systems as "democracy". This label is used thousand times each day in all possible contexts, which hypnotizes people to believe that the respective system has been chosen by a majority and, consequently, that the only alternative is some sort of dictatorship. This is one of the biggest bluffs in history. To call this bluff should be the starting point of any DD or 3D movement.
Sincerely,               Jiri Polak
----- Original Message -----
To: wddm@world-wide-democracy.net
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 1:15 PM
Subject: RE: [WDDM] Law


Making a system to let people to change or create laws is the easier part of the problem.
The more difficult is to ask people in power to accept it and prevent them from sabotage against such a system. Unfortunately these kind of people like Mubarak in Egypt don´t like influence from
anyone else but themselves over laws. They control resources, police and military and are not friendly to logic and arguments and societies best.
Do you have any suggestion about how we can get back the power from these kind dictators and
give it back to people?

Regards
Hamid

Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 07:42:01 -0600
From: bruce.eggum(at)gmail.com
To: wddm@world-wide-democracy.net
Subject: Re: [WDDM] Law

Yes Hamid, but we need a system for the people to change law.
That is possible with Initiatives, the most popular sifted to the top.
The most popular brought to referendum, and voted up or down by the people.
Those voted up are immediately implemented.

Regards, Bruce



On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 6:48 AM, <Hamid Mohseni> wrote:
Thank you it was interesting for me.
Fortunately we don´t need to write all laws from beginning and only change them
when we get problem with them.

Regards
Hamid



Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:30:48 -0800
From: parrhesiajoe(at)gmail.com
To: wddm@world-wide-democracy.net
Subject: [WDDM] Law


DIscuss or discard.

Much of the discussion around government is centered around a bunch of axioms that we each accept, that guide our decisions as to what type of government to support.

One of those axioms is so deep that it rarely evokes discussion, and that is the role of law and language, and how they relate to justice.

Let's take a single issue, for the sake of discussion. Gun control.

Our goals are simple. We wish to protect ourselves... both from guns and with guns. A strong majority of people do not want a blanket ban on guns. A strong majority of people also want to limit the spread of rocket launchers and BFGs in general.

We start into this issue, thinking... "What laws should we craft to give the people the type of environment they wish?" and "How should those laws be passed?" and "Who should have the authority to pass those laws?"

Then we start into... What the laws can and cannot do... How to elect... who to elect... how laws are passed... waiting periods, disclosure periods, safety mechanisms for bad law... etcetera

But, LAW is only one way to approach prohibition of antisocial behavior. When I say anti-social, I mean in the subjective sense... If you ask ten people in a room if Alice should be allowed to do, "X", 8 of them may say, "NO". We ask the same question about "Bill", and only 4 people object. This happens more than we like to consider... perhaps Alice is a mass murderer, or a dalmation, or a psychotic person. Perhaps Bill is a decorated police sargeant and a community activist.

Now imagine a perfect world... where the system makes sure Alice knows she will be punished for "X", and if caught, the punishment will be fair, by the judgment of a large majority of observers. The system also lets BIll do "X" with a reasonable certainty that he will not be punished... and an overwhelming majority of people support this outcome.

Laws serve our desire for Justice. They are a means to an end, and must be viewed in that context.

But laws are often brutish. Many rights get prohibited because a small subset of people abuse the privilage. Additionally, many people are allowed to do things which society would punish, in the spirit of justice.

The Bible tells of a time when man lived under the Law of the Old Testament. There were hudreds of laws that dictated who should do what, and when... and how intensely. As the story goes, the Laws dictated whether someone would receive salvation. Many people did some VERY dick things, completely under the law. Child abuse, torture, rape, fratracide, patricide... all legal.

THEN ONE DAY, God send his Son (or himself... that part's confusing) to earth to speak a new message. My Pastor used to say that Jesus is the path to heaven, and Jesus is love, and that all I had to do, in place of all those wierd rules... was to accept Jesus into my heart and to abide by a simple rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The golden rule.

Our Pastor, Mike, would say... "We lived under the strictures of the law, and now, we live under grace."

It is SOO many years later now. I have nearly been full circle in my relationship with that carpenter... through Christianity, Atheism, Agnosticism, and now a quiet, unknowing "umm... I dunno". I find real wisdom in the pages of the Gospel, even though I don't know if God wrote it.

As a society, I wish to live under grace. When I reflect on my few years, alive on this rock... I can say with grim certainty, that I knew just about every time... when I was being selfish, being dishonorable... harming others. Sometimes I did very small harm for great personal gain. I lied about being sick so I could attend an event.

And sometimes I acted out of anger, fear or jealousy. I lashed out, venting testosterone and smelling of whisky, and I did wrong. I did significant harm... for horrible reasons. It is often the case that I lied to myself at the time, purposefully misjudging risk or effect... but after... I always knew when I was a dick.

And it is striking how consistently my peers judge the particular actions of individuals. Though they may not be of outstanding moral character, they know when they are being BAD.

There are hundreds of thousands of laws and codes. I do not know 1/10th of 1% of them, and yet I walk around every day with a fair certainty that I am not breaking any of them. And the cops don't know the law. I have friends that were arrested for video taping the police. Thrown out of court, of course, but they got arrested... NOT for doing harm, but because Law and Justice have become disjointed. The cops that arrested my friends knew that my friends weren't harming anyone, but they thought that someone wrote down some rule, post 9/11, that made their actions illegal. The police cannot be expected to know every law... no one can...

Does it make sense to subject ourselves to a code that we cannot memorize, with the ability to punish us, when almost every action that we actually wish to prohibit could be covered by, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". And truly, when we find a law that does not conform to our idea of fairness and reason... and that simple golden code... we say, "Well, that's a stupid law".

We are usually right.

This question is important because it seems VERY likely that you could have a just society with ONE LAW, and a system to ask society whether it would be okay to do something... just in case there is any gray area.

Computers can give us ANYTHING we require in support. They can help us deliberate about rules... they can help us craft better laws... they can help us elect competent people, or they can help us in other ways. Imagine if you could ask a group of anonymous poeple to evaluate a simple situation to give you an opinion.

Here's the low tech version of the same concept.

I want to put mock machine guns on my car. I'm a Mad Max fan, and I want to drive around in a post apocolyptic Camaro... with model machine guns on the hood, and things that look like missile launchers... Mostly all gun metal gray. I think most people would think it was awesome... BUT... I might make some people wet themselves. In the hypothetical world, I live in a society without laws, and if people strongly oppose something you are doing, they can make you stop. It is generally accepted that you can go to the town square and pull twelve names out of a hat. Once you have those ten random names, they are summoned individually to speak with you. The discussion takes place in a Catholic confession booth, so niether party can see each other. Then I tell them what I want to do, and they say, "Yes" or "No". A third party records only their answer, and noone sees any each other.

After the votes are tallied, they are handled like this. If ten people (out of 12) said, "NO", I am FORBIDDEN to carry out the activity. If I make the car, and someone has a problem with it, they will see this judgment when they complain, and I am almost certain to be punished for it. If ten people said, "Yes", I am similarly protected. If I make the car, and someone complains, the next Jury to handle the complaint will see that I asked permission, and got it. The complainant can still make his case against me in a blind jury, but the power of 10 is not limited to punishing me. I can make a case that this complaint is driven by spite and malice, and an unreasonable intolerance. If ten blind jurors agree, they can make the compainer wash my car for a month, force him to donate $200 to a charity (of his choice), or make him wear a chicken suit (or anything else they find appropriate). But, it could be that I was a DICK. Perhaps I added machine gun sound effects, and he's my neighbor... and I really enjoy seeing him jump when I pull the faux trigger.

You see, by now, why this system is unreasonably impracticle on pencil and paper. The process with an Andriod or IPhone is much simpler. We could make jury duty as simple as answering your phone when it rings. We can say, you have to participate fifteen minutes a year. When you're available, you hit the available button. It rings, and a guy says, "I want to do a Mad Max theme car". You ask questions. His concept pictures can be scrolled through. And then you say... "Um... Sure. That sounds okay". This can be as anonymous as we want it. If we want only random third parties to be able to verify identies, we can do that, too.

Really, we can have any system, with unlimited complexity of communication, with any requirements.

Law is a means to justice, but certainly not the only means.

Why would I attack law? Einstein said, a system should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

A system with a code of conduct rather than a set of established law is simpler. When we break a law, we should reflect on the fact that there are a hundred thousand other laws that we are willfully following, although we nothing of them. Those are the good laws... the ones that don't need written down. For the laws that we break that harm in subtle ways... good laws, for which there is good reason... we seldom know of those, either. We don't leave the oven on at night... but should there be a law? If someone constantly leaves the oven on at night, endangering others in a dormatory... should the non-existence of such a law prevent the community from petitioning for social redress? No.

A system where we do not have to legislate is superior, if it is possible. It rids us of the necessity to have a legislative branch, entirely. We can refocus the branch, and the jobs of our elected officials (if we choose to retain them) to phisophical, peaceful, practical and productive purposes. We could just give them each a budget and tell them to go wild... no rules. "Here's ten million dollars. Go do something with it... that's why we elected you!!". Maybe elect ten scientists a year... a few philosophers... and about 15 tv script writers... perhaps some dancers... Or, since they're optional... we could just elect farm animals, and eat them at the end of the year. Vegetarians could elect Garbonzo Beanz.

The only laws we learn about in history are the really, really crappy ones. Some of them are REALLY crappy. You don't learn about the good laws, because it was what people would have done anyways. Villages didn't used to have laws... they just let you complain if someone harmed you... and the council or the people would hear your claim and decide if any action was necessary.

Impossible in places larger than a village... until the IPhone. Mature, tested algorithms can give us as much anonymity or repudiability as we desire. The widespread adoption of smart phones and computers means this is already possible.

Harm no one...
If you are unsure, check with the community... in less than a minute.
If someone wrongs you, ask for help. Try to be tolerant, but the community will help you if you have an issue.

Justice... there's an app for that.

This critique of Law is not mine... it's a compilation. It's from Nich. Ethics mostly, plus On Liberty, Human Action, and Democracy, the God that Failed. There's a touch of Chomsky... that's the bitter part.
The idea of a justice app is too simple to take any credit for. I stole the anonymous third party repudiation idea from OpenId.org and a bunch of dudes at Microsoft. Code of conduct is stolen from the Quakers, a Jewish commune, the Sudbury school and Socrates. There's probably a way to work in tuples and run-off voting systems... I'll keep thinking on that.

Nothing is to be preferred before justice - Socrates




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