Define "elites"Because current politicians have proven themselves to be extremely competent. I think too many people have some "savior politician" complex and just want to be ruled by elites. I'd say given the right chance "normal" people can represent us just fine.
I agree with most of the things you say, ranked choice voting for example would be a major improvement to our system.
Term limits are a mixed bag. There are advantages and disadvantages to it. On one hand it means that you always have relatively inexperienced politicians in office, that have low engagement with their office, making them much easier to bribe or influence since they know that they are going to be gone soon no matter how well they do. It removes some of the incentive to do things that are good for the country instead of what is good for you personally.
I don't really know what you mean about 'open primary' as most states already have a fairly open primary system. I would like to know more about this idea.
Gerrymandering is a bane on our system, and should be done away with, but coming up with a system that enough people agree on is challanging.
Also, the election laws allow for independents to run, nearly every election has some independents running. It is just that they can't win like 90% of the time, and even when they do win they can't accomplish anything, because winning and doing anything after requires coalition, and that is really just another name for party. Almost every political system breaks down into some form of party system. Even ranked choice voting systems trend towards two main parties with a handful of sub-parties that circle those main two.
I do know that implementing almost any of this is next to impossible. It would probably require a Constitutional Amendment, and in the current political climate that is just not happening and if you could change the political climate enough to make it happen it probably would not be needed. That is the problem we currently face, the reasons we need change are the very things that keep the change from happening.
Now to the topic of the thread. Sortition is simply a terrible idea. It has never worked on almost any level. It does not even really work in the jury system. The fact is not many people are really suited to politics. The problems we face today are not simple ones. Finding solutions to them will require a lot of sacrifices, and that means a lot of negotiation to find a happy balance for who makes those sacrifices. That sort of negotiation is a learned skill, and one that is quite rare.
Because current politicians have proven themselves to be extremely competent. I think too many people have some "savior politician" complex and just want to be ruled by elites. I'd say given the right chance "normal" people can represent us just fine.
I agree that it should all be equal in that regard. If independents need 10k signatures to be on the ballot then so should a Democrat. But, do you think it would make much of a difference? It would not be hard for the major party to jump through any hoop you set, and if you set the bar too low then you just end up with madness as you have 10,000 candidates for each position. The rest of the biases are more a repercussion of the system then something rigged. The independents have almost no chance of winning no matter what the rules are as long as it is a first-past-the-post system. That has to be changed first before any of the rest of it really matters. But you and I are probably more in agreement here then at odds. Change the voting system and the rest will probably follow naturally.Reps and Dems have been writing election laws for 150 years that have closed and rigged the system. One example is how in Arizona a Rep or Dem needs around 100 signatures to get on a ballot while an independent needs around 10,000. (I don't remember the exact numbers off hand but it's something like that). That's just one example out of 100s, in most states, where it's difficult for non Reps and Dems to participate. And then you have all the other structural obstacles and biases (like the media, etc) that adds to a rigged system.
Fair enough, I'm all for a good thought experiment. I enjoy challenging my premises and hearing counter arguments to me opinions.It's more of a thought experiment and an attempt to create discussion on ways to deal with a perverse system. People need to get out of the little boxes they've been socialized into and have a little more imagination.
That's the whole point, people don't need to be suited to politics for sortition. The entire idea is to remove the politics aspect and focus on governance. I think average people can negotiate and compromise better than slick politicians in smoky back room deals and outside interests trying to get re-elected.
I think that the current group of politicians have proven themselves extremely competent. The question you are missing is what are we wanting them to do? Actions speak louder than words, and the action that American uses to tell their Politicians if they are doing a good job or not is the vote. Since the average length of service for the current congress is 4.7 terms, it shows that overall the American people think they are pretty competent.
Our political system has seen us thought 2 world wars, several depressions, major terroristic attacks, several plagues, and countless other minor and major catastrophes both natural and man made, and through it all we are still one of the greatest powers on the planet and our technology is achieving things that were purely in the realm of science fiction in my youth. Americans live in the closest thing to a utopia that mankind has ever created. So, yeah. Not so bad after all.
We get the government we choose. Congress represents 'The People' because that is who we are as a people. A person can be good or bad, people are universally horrid.If you think Congress represents "the people" I'm not sure what else there is to say.
We get the government we choose. Congress represents 'The People' because that is who we are as a people. A person can be good or bad, people are universally horrid.
Democracy is not voting. Democracy is rule by the people, although this is usually implemented as a representative democracy. That's fine, I'm not trying to get rid of representative democracy or voting, I'm saying democracy can and should include other features.
As bad a job as we may do in electing representatives, the idea that you randomly choose people, including those who have dementia, mental illness, or are just plain stupid, is far, far worse.
Obviously that wouldn't be the case. As mentioned there would have to be some requirements. Registered voter of course. Age? Sound mind? Felony? Debt? Other? I'm sure people could argue the standards/disqualifications.
Sound mind? How about not being of below average intelligence, which, by definition, is a condition that afflicts half the population? Are we going to hand out IQ tests in addition to psychological assessment tests? Because having say, 90 IQ, does not qualify you to understand how to, say, reform healthcare or tackle climate change. Because they are complicated issues.
I frankly don't give a shit if I sound elitest here. I want to be governed by people who know what the hell they're doing. And if you think the people who govern us now are bad, just wait until we have 200 people as ignorant as Donald Trump in the House of Representatives. What a hoot that would be. Idiocracy at its finest.
Didn't you learn anything from the experience of having a stupid person in the White House these past 4 years?
I can't wait to see the international financial derivatives regulation that's going to come out of the office of Uncle Vinny from Queens.
Intelligence is overrated... a lot of people are smart, but they do terrible things with it... or nothing at all.
I have more faith and I believe a cross section would be fine. Sometime such people have better common sense than so-called intelligent people. We let below average people on juries to decide if the state should execute a human life, I'm pretty sure having a few lower IQ people in the House won't drive us off a cliff. There are already checks and balances in place.
Right... I'm sure the House is full of experts on the subject. In fact, they're so full of experts on everything, I bet they don't need the lobbyists and staff that actually write the laws.
By the way, such regulatory matters are mostly an executive branch thing, created and carried out by people that really do know the stuff.
Right... I'm sure the House is full of experts on the subject. In fact, they're so full of experts on everything, I bet they don't need the lobbyists and staff that actually write the laws.
The specific rulemaking is done by the executive branch but that's with extensive direction by the legislature. There's a reason why Dodd-Frank is 850 pages long.By the way, such regulatory matters are mostly an executive branch thing, created and carried out by people that really do know the stuff.
Indeed, intelligence doesn't guarantee good governance. But a lack of it certainly guarantees bad governance, when the issues to be addressed are simply too complex for the average person to grasp. You don't hire people with no knowledge of auto mechanics to fix your car, and you don't hire people of below average intelligence, which is half the population, not merely "a few," to run your country.
LOL at "common sense" and your cheap populism of the common man routine. "Common sense" says that if it's cold outside your house, the planet is not warming. "Common sense" says that since you can't see the curvature of the earth at ground level, the earth must be flat.
You're like the voter who says he'd rather elect the guy he would want to have a beer with rather than the snooty intellectual who talks down to him, because it's better for your low self-esteem. Welcome to the modern day GOP voter base which is precisely why we're heading toward idiocracy already. Your idea would only accelerate that.
Juries probably should be experts. Manipulating the jury is literally the purpose of lawyers, else the judge would just list the facts of the case and the jury would come to a logical conclusion.g
You're taking some exaggerated worst case scenario and twisting it. Elitist fearmongering. Let's take such thinking to it's logical conclusion: Half the population are below average so juries should only be experts. In fact, half of voters are below average so lets have experts pick the politicians. And on and on... it's a dead end. I'm not appealing to populism, and advocating more democratization.
Based off what I've said, the 435 people would not be a bunch of morons. And we'd still have all those genius experts you think are in the Senate and Executive and Judicial.
It's funny, one common problem in states that have moved to strict term limits for legislators is that most of the legislation is being written by lobbyists or by groups like ALEC who define "model" legislation that is then copy/pasted by state legislators.
When you kill institutional knowledge and experience that gap has to be closed from someplace and it's going to be by the very groups you seem to be concerned about having influence. Your ideas would further empower them instead of doing the opposite.
Juries probably should be experts. Manipulating the jury is literally the purpose of lawyers, else the judge would just list the facts of the case and the jury would come to a logical conclusion.
I'd rather just have citizens vote on issues directly, like an online vote. Every issue, individually. Don't bother with representatives at all, at least not for lawmaking and policy changes.
I think a better way would be that anybody who wants to vote has to pass a massive civics and reasoning test that would weed out people like you.Sortition: In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, and aleatoric democracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates.
Greek democracy was largely based on sortition.
I believe our democracy is broken as political cults engage in toxic permanent campaign with divide and conquer tactics while putting the true long term health of the country way down the list. What we need is SORTITION! Turn the House of Representatives into a REAL representative legislative body. Make it a lottery-based system with citizens drafted by (mostly) random sample… 1 year terms.
This would help move away from special interests, cronyism, corruption, oligarchy, and the horrible party bullshit that’s dragging us down. A legislative body free from election and party pressures, free from power hungry stuffed suits with ulterior agendas and no inclination to reason or compromise.
Another benefit of sortition is that it encourages a type of citizenship that I promote... a true "republican" type of citizenry in the classic sense.
You and fskimospy are basically making the same point, I but do not agree. There would be some challenges to a 1 year term (maybe 2?) but I believe they can be overcome. There are plenty of bright people that can build models that are feasible.
This is impossibly naive. With essentially untrained and incompetent legislators there for only a brief time the role of lobbyists and staff, the people with actual knowledge and expertise, will be dominant. The legislators will be entirely dependent on them to do anything and will have essentially no institutional knowledge to know when they are being snowed. It's a recipe for disaster.With sortition, the very nature of staff/lobbyist roles and interaction changes. Most of what they do now is pork, drug deals with other politicians, partisan favors, etc. With sortition they still play a role, but it's smaller and more focused.
How would they be overcome? These problems aren't minor ones, they are essentially existential.
This is impossibly naive. With essentially untrained and incompetent legislators there for only a brief time the role of lobbyists and staff, the people with actual knowledge and expertise, will be dominant. The legislators will be entirely dependent on them to do anything and will have essentially no institutional knowledge to know when they are being snowed. It's a recipe for disaster.
You and fskimospy are basically making the same point, I but do not agree. There would be some challenges to a 1 year term (maybe 2?) but I believe they can be overcome. There are plenty of bright people that can build models that are feasible.
With sortition, the very nature of staff/lobbyist roles and interaction changes. Most of what they do now is pork, drug deals with other politicians, partisan favors, etc. With sortition they still play a role, but it's smaller and more focused.