How Should Democracy be Modified?

[Captain Cardio]

What ways could we tweak the basic premise of democracy, to lead to a better form of government?

There are many issues that arise from democracy, but what ways could we go about changing the idea of democracy, to lead to a better age for everybody?

It's a pretty abstract question, but what do you guys think?



One issue I'd like to contribute, is the idea behind voting. It seems that voting, which is a basic of democracy, leaves citizens individually powerless, as there is a microscopic chance of casting a tie-breaking vote.

And at the same time even if a citizen feels like they can control who is elected, once a candidate takes office, there does not seem to be much, if any, accountability for the politician to stick to what was advertised during a campaign. Is there any reasonable way to reconcile voting, with "A government of the people, for the people?"

[SoylentGreen]

That is not really democracy but the system of government.

You have an F.P.P. (First Pass the Post) system, with only two parties representing the majority. Where as we have a M.M.P. (Multiple Members Party) system in which each voter gets two votes and if politically savvy can use the votes to good effect.

Accountability and even availability of politicians is again, a system by which government runs and not really about how democracy works.
Your government does not allow an "open book election" like ours. In which the government has to reveal the state of the governments accounts so that politicians cannot make extravagant promises without having first to show how the promise will be payed for.
Where as with your system politicians can say what they like because no one can prove that the promise is unaffordable.

[Domino]

It would be a good thing to switch to instant run-off voting, in which the voter ranks the candidates from best to worst, an everyones ballots are then reconciled to find the most agreed-upon candidate. In this way, no vote would be thrown away, no matter how unlikely your first selections. This one change would forever break the stranglehold of the two-party system.

We should have some effective means of recalling our elected officials. This would prevent candidates from making impossible campaign promises.

For a crazier suggestion, I like the idea of Representatives-at-Large, elected through some given number of write-ins (perhaps whatever number of citizens a state needs to gain another Representative). If, say, a half million people write-in Rush Limbaugh, he's going to Congress! Likewise unto Ralph Nader, or Michael Moore, or Karl Rove.

[Technosoul]

Those are both worthwhile observations. Here we hear about affordable health care but what about affordable taxes? They can do a switch and bate scam. Offer tax rebates and then raise the cost of permits and fines, which we end up paying for even if relative to the price of food.

As they tax the rich the rich can simply raise the cost to us for products and services to make up the difference, or downsize jobs, so who is still paying?

Bottom line, the cost of living must be comfortable for the average family income. Even if we work at the minumum wage we should be able to make ends meet with a little extra to tuck away or to enjoy on a luxury. Forcing workers to have to sacrafice something from their normal budget is not reflective of a sound economy.

The weaker the middle class becomes their economical status and security the more need you generate for social programs to help bail out those family budgets form crumbling under the weight of profit motivated businesses, plus taxes.
The more social programs you have the more that will endanger of status of the wealthy members of the economy, effecting distruction form the bottom up.

Daniel discribed this for the king of Babylon. If you use weak clay as the foundation then the golden head will come tumbling down from the top. That is why the founding fathers built our economy on gold as the standard for it's foundation. Basing the foundation on the hope that the work force will pay more taxes in the future is like using wet clay. It looks good on paper but paper is not gold.

Currently the rich who have companies are the foundation that must be built upon so they create more jobs and raise the wages of middle class citizens and low income people. It is no longer about building up form a lower foundation, but about pulling up the lower sections from the top, boot strapping. (pulling self up by your own boot straps). The wealthy must take a responsible role in up-lifting the economy, via free will or taxation. But that is not what appears to be happening, jobs are outsouced, they want to import workers who do not mind lower wages, the replace humans with mahines and computers, they downsize operations so one person is doing three jobs. Resulting in distruction form the top down. Meanwhile the same companes up te cost of everything from gas, food, health care, credit card charges, and fines for traffic tickets ( just to mention the tip of the iceburg).

The average citizen cannot consume if they are not likewise fed. Simple.

Right now we must rebuild the number of jobs needed which can pay decent wages to both the educated and uneducated sectors of society. We must build it here again and make quality products. Stop buying from companies the make their products overseas. To heck with fair trade with other countries and concentrate on creating new jobs here. Of course we would still buy coffee and things we cannot grow here. But it is paramount that our people are doing productive things and being allowed to share the perks of such production.

And I am not talking about bringing back companies by distroying the unions so we must work for cheap wages in unsafe conditions. (like McCain might suggest).

Now private voters might be more concerned about self-interest. But a govenment must deal with the collective interest of America as a whole. Sometimes those two factors are at odds with each other relative to speical interests.

People gripe about pork projects, but pork translates to jobs, and the pig getting fatter is the average worker in a state that gets the most pork. Pork managment is also of primary concern because it can recycle gerneal tax funds back into the pocket books of the anverage tax payer who needs a job, which income generates more taxes later on to pay for the loan. (which loan is the pork offered to generate more work projects).

Later I will edit this post.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Technosoul Those are both worthwhile observations. Here we hear about affordable health care but what about affordable taxes?

If you think about it, corporations don't pay taxes. Consumers do.
But what about no taxes and non-discriminatory care?

Grandpa h.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Democracies tend to naturally fail over time. Athens turned out to be too weak in the face of Sparta, Rome turned into military absolutism, the man to my left was elected to end a democracy, and we have been drifting further from the founders' vision. Democracy is nice in it's original application, but nations change and fall, and then a revolution re-establishes a republic.

[xyzer]

One quick fix would be to shorten term limits? There is too much 'deadwood' lurking in the halls of our national congress. We shouldn't allow them to serve more than one term either. Under our current system nothing much gets done. Just tune in CSpan and watch the circus of words which are usually spoken to an empty chamber? What a joke.
grandpa..

If you think about it, corporations don't pay taxes. Consumers do.

Not so... investors in corporations pay taxes on their holdings and the corporate entity pays taxes on its earnings.

[RealRockingham]

One word: Democratically