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There is no greater threat to our people than opaque government. Democracy and secrecy are mutually exclusive. We need you to vote on this issue but we will h

There is no greater threat to our people than opaque government. Democracy and secrecy are mutually exclusive. We need you to vote on this issue but we will hide all the relevant facts.

ethbr0 5y ago
Democracy has and always will exist in balance with secrecy. In fact, the polarization we often decry is largely because of transparency. It's harder to nail someone to a cross on partisan radio if it's "the committee decided this" instead of "x voted y."
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Do you think committees would make better decisions if their members could lie about how they voted? You might "solve" the polarization problem by making it harder to know who to blame, but I don't think that would solve the root cause of people's frustrations.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    Committees would make decisions that are less affected by populist pandering, resulting in a more centrist policy overall, and less severe policy swings between different administrations. Whether such decisions are better or not depends on the specific circumstances and one's subjective perspective. Populism generally translates to more extreme politics, but sometimes more extreme is what you need to dig yourself out of a hole. Conversely, less pandering to popular opinion generally means more insider arrangements and other institutionalized corruption.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      It would be nice to think that committees would be freed from the pressures of democratic accountability and could finally make the enlightened decisions they had always been yearning for, but I don't think that is the most likely outcome. Instead you would likely see the dominant party passing extreme legislation on 51/49 majorities, with every politician being able to claim that actually they were a centrist and they voted against the legislation (and it must have been disloyal members of the other party that enabled the vote to pass). In fact, the veil of secrecy might even allow members of a minority party to claim that they are against some extreme policy, but actually collude with a faction from the majority party to narrowly pass it, either because it benefits the politicians themselves (at the expense of their voters) or because the extreme outcome would motivate their supporters to re-elect them.
einpoklum 5y ago
Democracies need to ensure the vote doesn't become too much of a danger to the established social order, the privileges of the property owning classes etc. One of the mechanisms for this is secrecy; others are selective information disclosure, propaganda, cultural and religious signaling etc. And then there's more direct application of economic or physical pressure. If these weren't in place and effective, well... I am reminded of the famous maxim: > If voting could change anything, it would be illegal. I first heard this from Jello Biafra, but apparently it has been attributed to Emma Goldman, Mark Twain and is probably even older than that.

There is no greater threat to our people than opaque government. Democracy and secrecy are mutually exclusive. We need you to vote on this issue but we will hide all the relevant facts.

ethbr0 5y ago

Democracy has and always will exist in balance with secrecy. In fact, the polarization we often decry is largely because of transparency. It's harder to nail someone to a cross on partisan radio if it's "the committee decided this" instead of "x voted y."

dane-pgp 5y ago
Do you think committees would make better decisions if their members could lie about how they voted? You might "solve" the polarization problem by making it harder to know who to blame, but I don't think that would solve the root cause of people's frustrations.
- int_19h 5y ago
  Committees would make decisions that are less affected by populist pandering, resulting in a more centrist policy overall, and less severe policy swings between different administrations. Whether such decisions are better or not depends on the specific circumstances and one's subjective perspective. Populism generally translates to more extreme politics, but sometimes more extreme is what you need to dig yourself out of a hole. Conversely, less pandering to popular opinion generally means more insider arrangements and other institutionalized corruption.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    It would be nice to think that committees would be freed from the pressures of democratic accountability and could finally make the enlightened decisions they had always been yearning for, but I don't think that is the most likely outcome. Instead you would likely see the dominant party passing extreme legislation on 51/49 majorities, with every politician being able to claim that actually they were a centrist and they voted against the legislation (and it must have been disloyal members of the other party that enabled the vote to pass). In fact, the veil of secrecy might even allow members of a minority party to claim that they are against some extreme policy, but actually collude with a faction from the majority party to narrowly pass it, either because it benefits the politicians themselves (at the expense of their voters) or because the extreme outcome would motivate their supporters to re-elect them.

einpoklum 5y ago

Democracies need to ensure the vote doesn't become too much of a danger to the established social order, the privileges of the property owning classes etc. One of the mechanisms for this is secrecy; others are selective information disclosure, propaganda, cultural and religious signaling etc. And then there's more direct application of economic or physical pressure. If these weren't in place and effective, well... I am reminded of the famous maxim: > If voting could change anything, it would be illegal. I first heard this from Jello Biafra, but apparently it has been attributed to Emma Goldman, Mark Twain and is probably even older than that.