Nicker on 26/1/2018 at 05:34
Our present system filters for certain dangerous personality types and concentrates them in positions of power. Even if they are well intentioned to begin with, it eventually perverts them or just spits them out. They have to become more and more ruthless to survive. If they hope for a long term career they can't help become more and more cynical, always thinking about the next election. Getting in power and staying there becomes more important than doing anything usefull while there, unless it's useful for staying in power...
Politics becomes more important than governing.
You are presuming that the majority of people are going to be like this. That's pretty cynical. But if people don't have to participate in the back-rubbing and back-stabbing to get a little power and if they have no long term interest in keeping it, I think they are less vulnerable to corruption, not more. If they were more susceptible, humanity would not have come as far as it has. It would not have survived at all.
Humans are, on balance, a little more nice than nasty but our present systems filter for nasty, concentrate the results and empower them. And decent folks waste enormous energy keeping the empowered nasties in check. Sometimes we fail and get North Korea.
Sure corrupters have deep pockets but they only need to get to a few key people to have an effect. If power is decentralized, corruption becomes far more difficult and expensive. We now have the technology to have more direct government on many scales. We no longer have to be limited to marking an X for Thing 1 or Thing 2, every few years.
Yeah - sorry about the quote storm and for derailing the Trump thread.
Renzatic on 26/1/2018 at 05:47
The derail is fine. It's an interesting subject, a good aside from yet more bitching about Trump.
Though for the sake of easy reading, the quotestorm probably could be scaled back a bit.
Nicker on 26/1/2018 at 06:09
I'll try but if people are going to pile on then a little rain may fall.
heywood on 26/1/2018 at 11:39
The proposal assumes the citizen's assembly will be above politics. I see no reason at all to assume that. Most people who care enough about politics and governing to agree to do this volunteer gig are going to be partisan. I believe the parties will organize in the citizen's assembly just like they do in any other legislative body. Ultimately, partisanship in government is a reflection of partisanship in the electorate. When the electorate of a country is highly partisan, any system of representative government is going to be highly partisan, regardless of how representatives are chosen.
The real power in the proposed new Senate is in the Red Chamber. Promoting people to the Red Chamber will require a nominating and voting process, so there's still an election. The election will be partisan. Liberals in the citizen's assembly will nominate and vote for Liberals, Conservatives for Conservatives, etc. And the members of the Red Chamber are likely to be the most partisan hacks of the lot, because they are the people who are going stand out in the citizen's assembly, either because they're the ones putting the most time and energy into it, or because they have the most party backing. Taking on a full time job in the Red Chamber is going to be a career sacrifice for a lot of members. The exceptions are people who didn't have a promising career to begin with. In both cases, they are likely to be looking past the end of their term and thinking they can use their time in the Red Chamber as a springboard into a career in politics, public policy, lobbying, etc. They may be hoping to run for Parliament when their term is up. I don't see how this would produce a less partisan body than what you have now.
The craziest part of it IMO is that you're giving legislative veto power to a group of randomly selected people. That can lead to situations such as having Liberals running government because they won a general election, but being powerless to pass a legislative agenda because random chance produced a Conservative majority in the Senate. And the political balance of the Senate could potentially flip on each selection just by chance. I don't follow Canadian politics that closely, but I think you'd have to be in pretty dire straits to trust 900 randomly selected Canadians over the MPs you're voting into office.
A final thought: if you really think that giving veto power to a random group of people is going to be an effective check on legislative power, why not eliminate the Red Chamber? That would eliminate some of the incentive to organize along party lines in the citizen's assembly, and eliminate some of the incentive to use the gig as a path to a career in politics & government. Just let the House of Commons do the legislative sausage-making, and give the citizen Senate the opportunity to ratify or veto key legislation.
nickie on 30/1/2018 at 19:57
Quote Posted by Renzatic
The derail is fine. It's an interesting subject, a good aside from yet more bitching about Trump.
If I want to bitch about Trump, then I will. But it is an interesting discussion and as I'm now going to bitch about Trump, or rather Republicans, it may want to go to its own thread. I'd much prefer to be governed by TTLGers, that's for sure.
I watched Watergate unfold. I've seen many political scandals come and go in many countries. But I don't think I've ever seen anything quite as appalling as what is currently going on in US politics. And I'm deeply shocked. I expect politicians to be generally dodgy. But I had a naive underlying belief that democratic governments were peopled by, on the whole, reasonably decent human beings despite their nefarious doings. The US has put paid to that. The behaviour shown by a number of 'lawmakers' is utterly contemptible. And I'm enormously saddened by it.
Renzatic on 30/1/2018 at 21:14
Bitching about Trump is fine and dandy, but, you know, variety is the spice of life.
And yes, it all really is quite pathetic. I can't help but remark upon the fact that the same group of people who screamed bloody murder when Clinton met Loretta Lynch for an impromptu half hour meeting during the Hillary email investigation seem to have no problem at all with David Nunes running to disclose evidence he recently discovered to the very man he's investigating before even bothering to present it to the committee he co-heads.
With Clinton and Lynch, there's at least the possibility that their rendezvous was entirely innocent. We don't know what they discussed on that tarmac, only that the meeting made for incredibly poor optics. With Nunes? There's not even the barest attempt to hide the corruption. It's blatant, and done entirely without apology.
Tocky on 31/1/2018 at 00:57
Sure it is. That's because they know they can do anything and the republican base will defend them. It's insane. Surely you see the memes on facebook about how no president in American history has been so attacked as Trump. They actually believe that as if all their unwarranted attacks on Obama never were.
Here we have warranted attacks on Trump with plenty of evidence and they turn their backs to it. The man paid a porn star a hundred thirty thousand out of his campaign fund and they give it a pass. The Koch brothers are openly buying elections so they can save hundreds of millions on their taxes and aren't even hiding it. Conservatives don't care.
heywood on 31/1/2018 at 13:43
Quote Posted by Tocky
Sure it is. That's because they know they can do anything and the republican base will defend them. It's insane. Surely you see the memes on facebook about how no president in American history has been so attacked as Trump. They actually believe that as if all their unwarranted attacks on Obama never were.
Here we have warranted attacks on Trump with plenty of evidence and they turn their backs to it. The man paid a porn star a hundred thirty thousand out of his campaign fund and they give it a pass. The Koch brothers are openly buying elections so they can save hundreds of millions on their taxes and aren't even hiding it. Conservatives don't care.
You can't blame the Koch brothers for Trump though. They put all their money against Trump in the Republican primaries. After he won the nomination, they notably closed their checkbooks and didn't support him in the general election. IIRC, there was even a rumor in the media at one point that they might support Clinton. He's their worst nightmare, because they fear a Democratic landslide in the mid-terms.
Tony_Tarantula on 1/2/2018 at 14:18
So if anything else had been missed, I haven't forgotten. I've been dealing with some issues here relating to AEs.
Reason I popped in is to make a prediction.
The memo is a nothingburger.
If it wasn't, the Republicans, who pretty much exist as a group(exceptions where applicable of course) to serve the interests of the defense-intelligence complex would never have voted for it. If that somehow happened anyway congressmen would start having career ending scandals leaked and/or dying.
It's much ado about nothing solid. It will be just mildly embarrassing to the FBI.
Also Trump is the Koch brothers worst nightmare not because he would cause a Democrat landslide. He's their worst nightmare because, as Bernie Sanders pointed out, the Koch Brothers businesses rely heavily on the use of cheap undocumented laborers.
heywood on 2/2/2018 at 18:50
Looks like your prediction was correct.