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There is a whole existing structure to influence government decisions and policies. First, there is are the Democratic and Republican party organizations which

There is a whole existing structure to influence government decisions and policies. First, there is are the Democratic and Republican party organizations which range from precinct workers up to the national committees. Typically, the only way to get elected to political office is to join and work your way up in the organization of whichever party is dominant in your area. Occasionally talented people join the non dominant party and win office, but it is rare. Second are the numerous groups dedicated to advancing this or that policy. They have members, collect money, organize, and influence elected officials at the local, state and federal level. Third are the various NGOs that work to influence policies in Washington. These include lobbying groups, think tanks, etc. Fourth, money talks. If you aren't contributing to the political organizations and causes you believe in, you have very little influence in a democracy.

tsimionescu 7y ago
Agreed, I didn't mean to imply that this would be revolutionary. But people who care about policy shouldn't be told to just vote, they should be told about the other mechanisms of influence as well, which are much more rarely discussed or brought up in this way.
nabla9 7y ago
Agreed. Working democracy is not individual opinion poll. In representative democracy voting in general elections is just small part of political activity. Surprisingly small amount of participation can have huge influence. Within political parties there are many influential positions where things are prepared and organized. When you get your say in the local chapter or some nationwide internal interest group, it really matters. I joined a party in my country. While I participate very little I do it steadily. I have probably 5000x to 10000x more influence in politics than average voter who only votes. Maybe 3-5 times a year I vote online or go to meeting where representative are selected or agendas are set and vote for someone or propose someone to some position. I don't do any work myself. I just find out the people I want to do the work for me. I donate little bit or send a encouraging email to someone who I want to become more active. Surprisingly small amount of grassroots political activity could completely change politics. It's just that people like to spend hours in the internet complaining about politics instead of taking part of it.
maehwasu 7y ago
This is (unintentionally?) a fairly strong argument against the desirability of democracy, at least as she is practiced in the US. This feels like a Unix poweruser telling grandma why she doesn’t need Dropbox.
- vsskanth 7y ago
  If you don't mind, could you elaborate on your opinion further ? IMO power users in democracy (lobbyists, influencers and special interest groups) will always have more leverage unless the population is educated and informed enough to be skeptical to not associate with an identity or ideology. The recurrence of such groups throughout history seems to indicate that this hasn't become part of our collective knowledge yet and I doubt if we will ever learn. Maybe the sense of collective identity is part of human nature.
- jancsika 7y ago
  > This feels like a Unix poweruser telling grandma why she doesn’t need Dropbox. If you meant to imply that the "Unix poweruser" is likely to make a weak argument through misapplication their own narrow expertise to a domain outside of that expertise, I agree. If you mean that Unix powerusers as a group so regularly missapply their narrow expertise that I can't even take on faith that they're picturing a human being when they utter the word "grandma", I agree. But then I don't understand the analogy to what you call a "fairly strong" case against the desirability of democracy. If you're unfamiliar with U.S. democracy from local to federal level, you should instead be assuming the OP wrote potentially true but incomplete (and, therefore, misleading) set of statements about a domain outside of whatever their narrow expertise happens to be. For example, there are a lot of local and municipal governments in the U.S. where elections are non-partisan. That is, elected officials don't belong to or get funding from political parties. Further, the "advocacy" groups in these areas are ones that typically organize citizens on the local or regional level to serve the community's needs. If you run the numbers on those voting districts you'll quickly realize that individual citizens there have a considerable amount of power to affect the conditions of the town or county where they live. A lot of those decisions aren't subject to outside manipulation and are mostly bound by a citizen's time, energy, and ability to persuade others of their position. What I just wrote is completely compatible with what Merrill wrote. But the important point is that you didn't intuit it from reading their post.
scarface74 7y ago
Democracy as it is designed in America doesn’t express the will of the majority, partially it was designed that way by the Constitution and partially because of corruption of the process via voter suppression and gerrymandering. Because the states with the smallest population have two Senators just like the most populous states and the electoral college. People in the Midwest have far more voting power federally than someone in California. It’s been shown time and time again in American politics that people will vote against their interest as long as the politicians can scare them with whatever the boogie man of the day is. As much as it pains me to suggest this, the only answer is more states rights and taking power and funding out of the hands of the federal government and let the free market decide by having states compete with each other about what type of state they want. Yes, I’m acutely aware of what “states rights” means in the south. My (Black) parents grew up in the segregated south. If the federal government wasn’t “subsidizing” the same states that vote against “socialism” they would have to have more economically (not politically) progressive policies.
- redtexture 7y ago
  > If the federal government wasn’t “subsidizing” the same states that vote against “socialism” they would have to have more economically (not politically) progressive policies. Restating, is this what you mean?: Federal "subsidies" allow states that vote against "socially" oriented policies to avoid implementing more economically progressive policies.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    (Hopefully this comes off as even handed. There are policies championed by the left and right that I don’t like). No, what happens is that the federal government ends up subsidizing more conservative states in ways that benefit them - farm subsidies, “disability payments” for people who could work, but can’t do manual labor and would need job training, make-work military bases and other military spending that the military themselves are trying to get rid of but can’t because the civilian government doesn’t want to lose the jobs, etc. Would states that are more welcoming of LGBTQ (who have higher income and education), have state provided health care (meaning a company could set up shop without paying for health care), taxpayer funded college/vocational education - attracting businesses and educated families, etc be more attractive than states that don’t? On the other hand, what would happen in states that wanted to pull companies out of California (like Texas) that made it easier to build houses? More recently, if you are an independent trucker, the last place you want to live is California. The new law that passed has made it almost impossible for people who want to stay freelance/contract to do so. (http://www.dailynews.com/truckers-file-suit-challenge-states-new-limits-on-freelance-gig-work http://www.dailynews.com/truckers-file-suit-challenge-states...) Can you imagine a country where each state had to compete more vigorously for people?

tsimionescu 7y ago

Agreed, I didn't mean to imply that this would be revolutionary. But people who care about policy shouldn't be told to just vote, they should be told about the other mechanisms of influence as well, which are much more rarely discussed or brought up in this way.

nabla9 7y ago

Agreed. Working democracy is not individual opinion poll. In representative democracy voting in general elections is just small part of political activity. Surprisingly small amount of participation can have huge influence. Within political parties there are many influential positions where things are prepared and organized. When you get your say in the local chapter or some nationwide internal interest group, it really matters. I joined a party in my country. While I participate very little I do it steadily. I have probably 5000x to 10000x more influence in politics than average voter who only votes. Maybe 3-5 times a year I vote online or go to meeting where representative are selected or agendas are set and vote for someone or propose someone to some position. I don't do any work myself. I just find out the people I want to do the work for me. I donate little bit or send a encouraging email to someone who I want to become more active. Surprisingly small amount of grassroots political activity could completely change politics. It's just that people like to spend hours in the internet complaining about politics instead of taking part of it.

maehwasu 7y ago

This is (unintentionally?) a fairly strong argument against the desirability of democracy, at least as she is practiced in the US. This feels like a Unix poweruser telling grandma why she doesn’t need Dropbox.

vsskanth 7y ago
If you don't mind, could you elaborate on your opinion further ? IMO power users in democracy (lobbyists, influencers and special interest groups) will always have more leverage unless the population is educated and informed enough to be skeptical to not associate with an identity or ideology. The recurrence of such groups throughout history seems to indicate that this hasn't become part of our collective knowledge yet and I doubt if we will ever learn. Maybe the sense of collective identity is part of human nature.
jancsika 7y ago
> This feels like a Unix poweruser telling grandma why she doesn’t need Dropbox. If you meant to imply that the "Unix poweruser" is likely to make a weak argument through misapplication their own narrow expertise to a domain outside of that expertise, I agree. If you mean that Unix powerusers as a group so regularly missapply their narrow expertise that I can't even take on faith that they're picturing a human being when they utter the word "grandma", I agree. But then I don't understand the analogy to what you call a "fairly strong" case against the desirability of democracy. If you're unfamiliar with U.S. democracy from local to federal level, you should instead be assuming the OP wrote potentially true but incomplete (and, therefore, misleading) set of statements about a domain outside of whatever their narrow expertise happens to be. For example, there are a lot of local and municipal governments in the U.S. where elections are non-partisan. That is, elected officials don't belong to or get funding from political parties. Further, the "advocacy" groups in these areas are ones that typically organize citizens on the local or regional level to serve the community's needs. If you run the numbers on those voting districts you'll quickly realize that individual citizens there have a considerable amount of power to affect the conditions of the town or county where they live. A lot of those decisions aren't subject to outside manipulation and are mostly bound by a citizen's time, energy, and ability to persuade others of their position. What I just wrote is completely compatible with what Merrill wrote. But the important point is that you didn't intuit it from reading their post.

scarface74 7y ago

Democracy as it is designed in America doesn’t express the will of the majority, partially it was designed that way by the Constitution and partially because of corruption of the process via voter suppression and gerrymandering. Because the states with the smallest population have two Senators just like the most populous states and the electoral college. People in the Midwest have far more voting power federally than someone in California. It’s been shown time and time again in American politics that people will vote against their interest as long as the politicians can scare them with whatever the boogie man of the day is. As much as it pains me to suggest this, the only answer is more states rights and taking power and funding out of the hands of the federal government and let the free market decide by having states compete with each other about what type of state they want. Yes, I’m acutely aware of what “states rights” means in the south. My (Black) parents grew up in the segregated south. If the federal government wasn’t “subsidizing” the same states that vote against “socialism” they would have to have more economically (not politically) progressive policies.

redtexture 7y ago
> If the federal government wasn’t “subsidizing” the same states that vote against “socialism” they would have to have more economically (not politically) progressive policies. Restating, is this what you mean?: Federal "subsidies" allow states that vote against "socially" oriented policies to avoid implementing more economically progressive policies.
- scarface74 7y ago
  (Hopefully this comes off as even handed. There are policies championed by the left and right that I don’t like). No, what happens is that the federal government ends up subsidizing more conservative states in ways that benefit them - farm subsidies, “disability payments” for people who could work, but can’t do manual labor and would need job training, make-work military bases and other military spending that the military themselves are trying to get rid of but can’t because the civilian government doesn’t want to lose the jobs, etc. Would states that are more welcoming of LGBTQ (who have higher income and education), have state provided health care (meaning a company could set up shop without paying for health care), taxpayer funded college/vocational education - attracting businesses and educated families, etc be more attractive than states that don’t? On the other hand, what would happen in states that wanted to pull companies out of California (like Texas) that made it easier to build houses? More recently, if you are an independent trucker, the last place you want to live is California. The new law that passed has made it almost impossible for people who want to stay freelance/contract to do so. (http://www.dailynews.com/truckers-file-suit-challenge-states-new-limits-on-freelance-gig-work http://www.dailynews.com/truckers-file-suit-challenge-states...) Can you imagine a country where each state had to compete more vigorously for people?