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I tried to answer this a few times but I am reserved to the fact that I am not able to solve this problem in a comment section. America's 200+ year old democra
by hermannj314 5y ago
I tried to answer this a few times but I am reserved to the fact that I am not able to solve this problem in a comment section.
America's 200+ year old democracy still has around 56% turnout for national and 27% turnout for local elections (quick Google 2020). This does not even address how poorly the current system still fails the 56% of people that manage to vote. It is not perfect.
If any alternative or improvement proposed to that system is held to a standard of 'must be perfect', I think they will fall short no matter how good the intention may be or how good it improves on the current way.
- codingdave 5y agoIf poor people cannot vote, it is voter suppression and not acceptable. This is not about reaching perfection, it is about not backsliding to exclude a major demographic.
- hermannj314 5y agoAgreed, I am sorry that my idea was presented that way. I was proposing modifying how we interact with elected officials, not modifying how we elect them. I realize there are bad actors actively working to suppress voters rights in many places in many ways. and I dont want to even be accidently hitched to that bandwagon.
- chr1 5y agoWhen people will be able to vote on individual issues, and will be able to introduce new law projects, the whole dynamics of voting will change. Because people will be able to trade votes. Buying a phone for someone so that your law gets one more vote will be very natural, so all the poor people will get new phones very soon. And that will not be a bad thing, because politician will not be able to buy votes then pass a law to take the same money back from people. In effect this will morph into a sort of UBI, where some people pay others to keep society running with laws that they think are beneficial for everyone. And people who think they know better will be able to gather in separate cities and try out the laws they think will be better.
- codingdave 5y agowat. The rich will pay UBI in exchange for getting to control the votes? I'm hoping this was sarcasm.
- chr1 5y agoBut the rich and middle class already do that in the form of paying taxes and government transferring part of that taxes to the poor. The only difference will be that poor will know exactly who is helping them, instead of thanking government and politicians, and half of the transferred money will not get wasted on politicians and bureaucracy.