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Well, there is a way actually. But first you need to restore the power of the vote so that legislators are accountable to the people and the people alone. This

by alexqgb 12y ago

Well, there is a way actually. But first you need to restore the power of the vote so that legislators are accountable to the people and the people alone. This means dismantling the five main pillars that are used to nullify, misdirect, or otherwise diminish the power of the vote - both a a signaling mechanism that members of the electorate can use to unify themselves, and as a reliably severe punitive tool that the electorate can use to avenge themselves when their "representatives" betray their interests. Listed in no particular order, they are 1. Gerrymandering (aka partisan redistricting) 2. Closed primaries 3. Private campaign finance 4. The "revolving door" that allows private industry to offer well-paid sinecures to public "servants" who have systematically betrayed the public's trust. 5. Myriad restrictions on ballot access. It's important to recognize that while each of these pillars diminishes the power of the vote, the really insidious effect comes from their interaction. But those knock-on effects can all be stopped by addressing the fundamental - and fundamental anti-democratic - structures at their roots. Eliminating any one of these abominations tilts the balance back in favor of the good guys. All of them together can be lethal to the ambitions of people who's own ambitions are anathema to a self-governing republic.

woodman 12y ago
Well that would certainly be a preferable situation to where we presently find ourselves, but I don't know that the root cause is addressed in that. The root cause being the fact that one entity (government, class, group, whatever) is exempt from the rules. That exemption, no matter how apparently small, ruins everything. It is like drinking water from a reservoir where across the way you see a dude with his pants down taking a dump into the water. Oh, and the exemption can't be fixed - because it defines a state: the monopoly on violence. It is a logical flaw. I'm not that thrilled with everybody in the voting population having some small amount of ownership of my life either, especially when 42% of them believe in ghosts.
m_mueller 12y ago
Even though I'm not a US American (where this problem seems to be the gravest in the Western world, partly because of scale, partly because the US' system was the prototypal modern Republic where many lessons haven't been learned yet at time of the foundation), I've been thinking exactly that for quite a while - your list pretty much describes what need to be solved. But I have to ask - how would one go about doing this in the US? How do you change a system with such a momentum? Through the monopoly on violent force and largely complacent mass media the establishment's grip on the system seems to be air tight. And if you just wait until the shit hits the fan (I predict this will happen with enough doubling of damages caused by natural disasters that will almost certainly be coming in the next decades), it could turn both ways - the current system could be replaced with a way more horrible totalitarian regime as well as it could be fixed towards giving the power back to the people - the former is even way more probable when you look at history. The only case I know where drastic change has gone over relatively well is South Africa - everywhere else you look there was a huge struggle, usually war.

by alexqgb 12y ago

woodman 12y ago

Well that would certainly be a preferable situation to where we presently find ourselves, but I don't know that the root cause is addressed in that. The root cause being the fact that one entity (government, class, group, whatever) is exempt from the rules. That exemption, no matter how apparently small, ruins everything. It is like drinking water from a reservoir where across the way you see a dude with his pants down taking a dump into the water. Oh, and the exemption can't be fixed - because it defines a state: the monopoly on violence. It is a logical flaw. I'm not that thrilled with everybody in the voting population having some small amount of ownership of my life either, especially when 42% of them believe in ghosts.

m_mueller 12y ago

Even though I'm not a US American (where this problem seems to be the gravest in the Western world, partly because of scale, partly because the US' system was the prototypal modern Republic where many lessons haven't been learned yet at time of the foundation), I've been thinking exactly that for quite a while - your list pretty much describes what need to be solved. But I have to ask - how would one go about doing this in the US? How do you change a system with such a momentum? Through the monopoly on violent force and largely complacent mass media the establishment's grip on the system seems to be air tight. And if you just wait until the shit hits the fan (I predict this will happen with enough doubling of damages caused by natural disasters that will almost certainly be coming in the next decades), it could turn both ways - the current system could be replaced with a way more horrible totalitarian regime as well as it could be fixed towards giving the power back to the people - the former is even way more probable when you look at history. The only case I know where drastic change has gone over relatively well is South Africa - everywhere else you look there was a huge struggle, usually war.