i have been trying to think of a system that would work better than the one we have and i have come up with this so i wonder what you all think

first off we abolish the back bench and have the minsters are reduceded to just forming policys and adminstering the laws in there departments. They are voted on for a job rather than by an area so we dont end up with lawyers runing the sports minstry ect

the laws are drafted by either the departmenst and the minsters or inderviduals (like a private members bill, in this case you would need a set amount of surport to put it forward so that you dont get REALLY far out bills cloging the works up)

ALL laws are voted on by the PEOPLE rather than representives, ie using a touch screen system in place for that purpose in every house (and then give the homeless houses so they can vote too)

absentee votes would be abolised because you use a password system to get into the voting terminal from ANYWHERE (ie if your at a friends place). (just a quick point here at the moment in australia you dont need to provide id that you have voted, just say who you are and where you live and that you havent voted before in this election and they cross of your name, if your name is crossed off twice in different places then they work out who did it and charge them)

so whats wrong with this idear people?

Voter apathy will reach new highs in your state.

you DO realise its illegal NOT to vote here

you just carry that on

ALL laws are voted on by the PEOPLE....
Commitees are cul-de-sacs down which ideas are lured to be quietly strangled. --don't recall who said it.

Utopianism is the opposite of dealing with the cold, hard facts of Reality: not much different from being young, without the responsibility of raising children.

Children are not given the right to vote for very important reasons.

It's good that many adults don't choose to vote, for the very same reason.

1) how informed do you think the general public is? Do you want these same people deciding laws based on popularity?

2) your idea is basically a mandatory daily polling system. How accurate do you think the existing polls on the internet are?

3) who comes up with the laws that are voted on?

4) do you think the average person will enjoy having to work AND make daily decisions for his country? How long before an illegal randomizer auto-voter hits the market?

Basically people are lazy...they bitch about their representatives, but how many actually get concerned enough to contact that representative. or bettter yet, get a lot of other people to contact them, to let them know how they feel on specific issues? Do you really want to have to do that rrepresentative's daily job...he has an office to do research, contacts, etc, to make a (hopefully) informed decision...do you?

I don't see true democracy working...the technology will allow the voting, but it's not practical. Just improve the representation system...

3) who comes up with the laws that are voted on?


the laws are drafted by either the departmenst and the minsters or inderviduals (like a private members bill, in this case you would need a set amount of surport to put it forward so that you dont get REALLY far out bills cloging the works up)



as for the rest YES i think the public should make the laws

and if they are uninformed MAKE them informed

no i have never contacted my local member, when i have a problem i go to the minister in charge rather than the idiot we have sitting for deacon

how do you improve the representive system

the only way i can see to remove apathy is to show people what its like

adam keeps saying he wants 2 classes of citizens then fine

the first class have HUGE peneltys for not voting and they get the screens ect, they have the power

the second class have no political rights, its illegal for them to complaine about anything and they just put up with what they get

you make it a simple matter for people to change class and see how many people stay in the second class

The Neilson's have given us "Reality TV".

Are we wanting to be governed by the same people who think "Reality TV" is Reality?

Sounds good... but I don't think that it will work much better then the one we have. The problem with our system is not how it is based and composed, but rather how people use it. People are the engine of the system. People should work together to make it work, but that doesn't happen. Since we always try to get the best to ourselvesa, we finish by screwing the whole system. ANd since this system is completly based on greed, then it is very unlikely that it will ever work. What we need to change is not just our economic system, but mostly our own attitudes towards each other.

This could be made by a good grounded education and a philosophy that comes to my mind now... Mutualism. There are many animals that actually live in mutualism. They help each other. If we have a philosophy based on service and Love, there will be not many problems. And of course, we need to teach our children. It is them that will make a difference in the next decades. It is very important to focus on them. It is like a tree that focus on its roots.

Just an example of Mutualism that I though some years ago... Imagine if you need money to build recycling plants (or whatever is called). You go and ask money to big corporations, so that you can build it, and then when their products are recycled you can sell them back for lower prices then if they would get from natural resources. In this way, there would be more natural resources and it wouldn't cost much for the government to build it.

how is this system based on greed?????

I'm not talking about yours Asguard, I'm talking about the present one... capitalism.

Capitalism is based on: "That guy has more than I do. I'll work harder so that I can have as much as he does." Or...: "I want more. I'm not satisfired... *gets more*... I'm still not satisfyed... *gets more*... I want more!!!"

you DO realise that capilisim is a ECONOMIC system and i was talking about a POLITICAL one?????

Your laws would only be as rational as your people. In some cases only as rational as your most extreme groups. Imagine if you have a stupid of downright evil (but not obviously so) law come up for a vote but the majority of the population does not vote. Maybe they dont know enough about it or maybe they just dont give a flying **** or maybe they are too busy. But now consider that there may very well be a fanatical section of the population that is in complete support of this. Nearly 100% of them vote for it. The law passes and the country suffers the consequences.

The people are also not all that informed. They may vote for something but not know the far reaching consequences. They might also not realize the country could not afford something.

Most people would not be willing to do the voting. If they are to vote on every single law, ordinance, or the like they would have to be at the screen nearly every day for a considerable period of time. Most of the average joes out there would not be willing to do that after a hard day at work. The fanatical sector on the other hand will.

Any voting over the internet or the like would be susceptable to hacking. They could mess with poll results or delete the results all together.

Despite these problems such a political system would be workable with significant modifications. It would have its own problems just like any other political system. No better or worse, just different. I myself would perfer a benevolent dictatorship as long as I could be sure the dictators now and in the future would be benevolent.

you DO realise that parliment sits for a very short amount of time

most of the reprentives work is done in the local comunity if a backbencher or in there minstry if they are a minister

You do realize that they are extremely connected...
There is not an economic, a political and a social system, there is only a social-economic-political system. They all work together. One cannot work without the other. What I'm saying is that our problem is mostly on the economic part of our system. If you want I can say a couple of words about the political one too...

The political one depends mostly on the country. The problem with USA's political system (for example) is that there are many differances between each state. It is hard to regulate, so the power is more spread out, as if they were all independent countries. This sometimes leads to come confusion and hard issues. Canada has a similar problem.

Another problem on most of those systems is that they are all based on makority power against the minority. Like... the liberals here (in BC) for example. There are more chairs of liberals and NDPs, so the liberals have control. The problem with that is that ALL the problems are adressed through the LIBERAL'S PERSPECTIVE. In this sense, they will use their strategy, but way too much. They will probably start to privatisize (is that right) everything. The result is that many jobs are lost and the service becomes very poor. When the NDP was the majority, then the problem was the exact opposite. They would use only their strategy (I believe it is to buy everything for the government...) what would cause many problems. The problem here is the lack of balance.

But anyways... I would like to come back to my first post...

Posted by Clockwood:
Despite these problems such a political system would be workable with significant modifications. It would have its own problems just like any other political system. No better or worse, just different. I myself would perfer a benevolent dictatorship as long as I could be sure the dictators now and in the future would be benevolent.

In my first post I explain how to finish with this: by changing the roots of the systems - us.

unless you come from australia and are talking about the libral PARTY you got it backwards, left wing like things in the hands of the state, more regulation to aid the lowest comon denominatior

the right wing is greedy and likes more power to the ritch (they says its to stimulate the econamy)


you can see i have a bias against the right because i come from a working class family

The "liberals" are governing BC right now and they are selling a lot of what the state owned. Last year alone was the whole educational and health systems... Unless all they are doing is to cut the expenses, then I don't know... All that I know is that they are trying to get more money to pay some bills... And I heard about them selling some things... :bugeye:

can we please not do this here but what do you mean by BC???? (sorry if i seem ignorant)

as i said the left wing genrally wants more state assests and the right more private industry

that dosnt mean they wont sell off something if they have to but thats the genral idear

edit to add goofy can the off topic conversation be moved to its own thread please?

British Columbia, Canada...
And it is not so off topic since we are discussing our present economic system...
Besides, I already asked to come back to my first post...

The idea that technology will make direct democracy an option in the future is definitely intriguing. If it could be pulled off in such a way that couldn't be tampered with that is.
The system you proposed certainly sounds better than anything existing today to me.

YAY i have one who is for it:D

now i just need about half a billion more and i can get australia to intoduce it:p

For my part, I prefer a Republican Democracy, one in which people elect representatives to make these decisions on their behalf. That way, it takes longer for a bill to become law, and sufficient time is set aside for debate, lobbying and reconsidering. I also prefer a system where voting is voluntary. Those who vote against their will tend to vote for radical or absurd candidates, just to buck the system.

Allowing voters to make laws directly will lead to a tyranny of consensus, in which sensational media reporting can trigger an "on the fly" emotional response to an issue or problem, and stir up support for hasty, poorly thought out legislation.

If a representative system based on traditional parliamentary procedures, political parties and lobbying of interest groups is failing the country, you have only the voters to blame.

Originally posted by starhunter


Allowing voters to make laws directly will lead to a tyranny of consensus, in which sensational media reporting can trigger an "on the fly" emotional response to an issue or problem, and stir up support for hasty, poorly thought out legislation.

In the system we have here in the US sensationalized media reporting leads to people not questioning their representatives well thought out legislation that benefits very small groups of people at the expense of others.
With direct democracy at least there's a chance reasonable legislation would be passed.