Continuation

[steve]

Check this out,
a country with two rulers, one of each major political ideology,
in stead of political parties, there are individuals elected regionally, so that way there is no line towing. Its all representing your region. When the two opposed rulers cannot agree on policy, the policy goes to the house of reps. Otherwise, the power distribution is similar to the constitutional prescription of the states.

Now this is where shit goes off the chain,
every policy is put to a referendum. Every single one. There would be gov't buildings set up with that sole purpose, a highly effective online polling system, effective mailin ballots.
Voting is not mandatory, but there are two levels of citizenship. There is 'full citizenship' and 'inhabitant'. Full citizenship entails meeting a certain number of points which are awarded through taking part in referendums. Some referendums are worth more points, others less, depending on the importance of the issue as deemed by an independent group of elected officials. (or maybe, the house of reps?) Part of voting in a referendum is answering a simple quiz, one that has already had the questions posted in media sources/online for many days. This way, people meet a minimum amount of knowledge based on the issue. Questions would be super easy though, designed to demonstrate a simple understanding of the issue.

"full citizenship" would have perks. Maybe tax cuts or something? Maybe your vote (for leadership/representatives) is worth 1.5 votes, making your voice louder. Maybe when you goto a gov't building to get a health card, you get to stand in the quicker line.

Problems:
Erodes equality
- Justification: Citizenship should not be something given, it should be something earned (Locke). A population of people that vote on a regular basis on policy issues creates not only more direct democracy but also a more politically involved system

Thoughts? Criticisms? I want to see if I can flesh this idea out more. Looking for responses from the likes of tiredsleepy, lost shinobi. GIve me what you got.

So this house of representatives becomes the only Congress? I like the idea of a one house Legislative branch. The House is elected to ensure every state is represented proportionately. The larger the population the more representatives. The Senate was only created long ago because small states felt their interests wouldn't be protected. I find the Senate largely pointless these days.

From your description these two leaders would only refer to the House when they cannot agree on a policy, so who makes the legislation in this government?

These two levels of citizenship are very very touchy. People are generally envious of other people even if they don't understand why the other person is "higher" than them. While I like some parts of the dual tiered citizenship, it could potentially lead to dangerous factions within the country. Although in theory it would encourage people to vote more often and more intelligently.

And now the dual leader idea. Unique I must admit. However these two would really HAVE to have their power limited to domestic issues only. Having two international diplomats would be disasterous. The House would have to be the governemnt body that deals with the international issues imo. They would probably have to elect a Prime Minister, similar to in other countries. The Prime Minister would serve as the government's international liason. Dual leaders with power to negotiate internationally will undoubtedly lead to sticky ends.

Personally I find the current American Government setup quite satisfactory. It does need reform but the shell of the government imo is pretty sound. Your idea is intriguing. We should make a thread soley to discussing this matter but not in the USZ, because someone will undoubtedly spam.

Lost, I will respond tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to back to back double headers of freaks and the original dracula for 10$ starting at midnight and theres a zombie stripper. FUCK YES>

[steve]

I'm going to say that there is only the one house of reps as congress. Because this system focuses on single constituency-single representatives, I think its fair and doesn't require the regional balancing that the Senate brings to the American model. So yeah, just one house of reps, all constituencies of same-similar population sizes. So of course, there would be some geographically large ones, and then some city centers. They would all be worth the same.

Hmm, the legislative source is a problem. Lets say this: Legislation comes from anyone sitting in the house of reps. In order to run for one of the executive seats, you have to be elected first into the house of reps. This ensures that all contenders have at least a minimum amount of experience in the political game. So therefore, the president(s) can introduce legislation in to congress. Otherwise, the executive branch is given powers of implementation, and serves a more symbolic purpose as just a leader, voice of the people. This is getting complicated... but I guess the idea is to take power away from the executive, and this system defiantly does that.

Two levels of citizenship, I get the idea from 'earned' citizenship as opposed to birthright citizenship. I suppose, everyone in the system would enjoy equal legal/civil rights, things like health care(of course, I'm pro universal health care), education. No one would be legally above anyone else. I think that tax cuts, in retrospect, for the full citizens is a bad idea. It would create an economic elite, so I'm going to say instead, full citizens have a slightly heavier weighted vote (which makes sense because they are involved in the political process, and are more informed about political processes due to their involvement in the frequent referendums). That said, it would not be hard to become a full citizen, I see it equating to voting once or twice a month on a couple large pieces of legislation through phone/mail/internet/person. Really quick and painless process.

MORE TO COME IN FORM OF EDITING LATER

[Lukasz]

interesting. I will go into details later.

but

Goverment has to make policies which are unpopular with people but necessary. Rising taxes, limiting/increasing immigration, reducing minimum wages, etc.

Masses are like children. they do not understand how world works, what is good for them or what will happen with them in the future. Furthermore, masses are unpredictable, easy to manipulate. That creates an uncertainty preventing any long term plans.
They simply cannot decide on every single policy.

On closing note:
If one can become full citizen by only voting twice a month, practically everyone will be a full one. I don't see why people would not want to spend 20 minutes every second week on voting to save 5-10% of their money. so no economic elite.

[i_feel_tiredsleepy]

The problem with regionally elected individuals, which is the problem with the British parliamentary system, is that people who don't have localized support, but broad small support don't get represented.

As Canada functions under the British political system, individuals are elected regionally to the parliament.

Nationally the vote breaks down to about

38% conservative
22% liberal
18% NDP
8% Bloc Quebecois
7% Green

But the seats won don't reflect the opinion of the population as a whole

144 Conservative
70ish Liberal
38 NDP
49ish Bloc Quebecois (since they only are on the ballot in Quebec
and 0 Green

Is this really fair?

Numbers are off the top of my head so they are gonna be off a bit.

You could also notice that in this system the Conservatives manage to win with less than 40% of support in the popular vote. They have 47% of the seats in parliament.

Edit: This problem is easy enough to address by adding additional seats that are party appointees based on popular vote instead of regional elected members.

[steve]

Well, those numbers are partially from the federalism of canada but more so from the single member plurality system we use here as well. Theoretically, if every riding in the country saw a 51-49% conservative to liberal vote, then the conservatives would control every seat in the house. It's especially rough for third parties (like NDP) who have a relatively strong support base nationally but are victimized by SMP whereas a PR system would help them become a truly mainstream party. I mean, the Bloc won 10% of the nat pop vote right? The greens won about 6-7%. The Bloc has 50 seats, the Greens have zero.

But that is one of the many problems that my proposed model is looking to remedy. With the abolition of political parties, you don't need to worry about parties getting under represented when it comes to seat distribution. Instead, you vote for a local individual, and she/he goes to parliament and fights on your behalf. It makes local representation much more important. Sure there would be coalitions between members (WHOA! SIDE NOTE: SPANISH GIRL FROM ACROSS THE HALLWAY IS TOTALLY BAWLING IN MY BUILDING HALLWAY) but these coalitions would be temporary at best and unofficial (legally) at worst. Legislation would exist to prevent the actual formation of political parties although like minded MPs would defiantly vote together on certain issues. This takes out the negative impact of party lines, in the sense that, in a party system if your PM introduces an important legislation which fucks over your constituents, you are going to vote with it. While if there are no parties, you can vote against it and focus on the people who elected you to begin with.

Because I fail, I'm just copy pasting this
"
Masses are like children. they do not understand how world works, what is good for them or what will happen with them in the future. Furthermore, masses are unpredictable, easy to manipulate. That creates an uncertainty preventing any long term plans.
They simply cannot decide on every single policy.
"

While this is true that the everyday citizen is well, far less educated then the every day MP, you need to make compromises for democracy. Democracy knows the dangers of majority rule and ignorance of the masses, but if you are going to claim to be democratic, I am saying that you need to accept these things and believe that if you create a system where people are far more involved in the actual process of politics, they will learn more. There are other safeguards in place in my system to help curtail ignorance (I'll forgive you for not reading all of my opening 'essay')

In order to vote in the frequent referendums, people must first pass a quick, and very easy quiz which guarantees that they have at least the minimum level of understanding on the topic. The questions to the 'quiz' would be posted in media sources, alongside answers, so you can easily prepare and pass the quiz when the time comes. The purpose is not to weed out the stupid but rather to just make sure that people voting in our referendums have a basic understanding on what they are voting about. It's not about weeding about, but rather creating an inclusive information source which would in theory bring up most the populations overall understanding of politics. Those who chose not to vote in referendums, would belong to the non-enhanced tier of citizenship and would not be able to enjoy the benefits of full citizenship (still pending, but I was thinking along the lines of quicker access to the bureacracy, maybe a more hassle-free border/mobility policy. The services of the government which do not directly influence your legal rights and health would essentially just move a bit quicker for you, I mean, I know we all hate waiting in a bureaucrats line for 5 hours just to drop off a form, maybe some tax cuts but I wouldn't want to go overboard). So there are benefits to learning and becoming more involved in the system, besides the fact that you have a more direct say in the operation of your country.

Meeting the requirements for 'full citizenship' would be easy. It would be on a point scale. Maybe every 2 years you have to have made 100 points. Local elections maybe are worth 30 points, national elections worth 50, referendums worth different amounts depending on the issues (the value of the issues decided by an independent branch of the government, similar to the judiciary in their objective standpoint),

Of course, these issues are far from perfect (like any government), I'm trying to combine idealism with reality, get people more involved in the process, make it painless, give them incentive, make it so they are benefiting themselves and their country. But there are problems and issues (which is why we are discussing the whole thing)

I think I might abandon the 2 leader idea as it does pose more problems then advantages, foreign policy being a huge one, legislation being another. So we're back to just a single PM or president. Now the question of legislation::

The legislation that would be put on the referendum bills would be brought forward in the legislative body, a body which the executive must also have a seat in to be eligible for presidency. I realize this combines the branches a little but I think its advantageous as it means that anyone vying to become president must put in a term as the local MP and develop support amongst the other legislators in order to successfully run for the high office.
The MP's would propose policy which they believe to be good, or propose the policies their constituents have expressed an interest in. An MP who decides to ignore the calls of his constituents will quickly be exposed (as constituents won't see their policies on any referendum) and will be voted out of power quickly (I'm thinking elections every 2 years at the local level, a quick experience taking only a couple weeks, with one or two debates depending on the locale. Because these are local MPs, races don't need to continue for long periods of time or blow huge amounts of money). So the legislation comes before the house of Reps, and then they vote on it. If they vote for it (now, I'm changing my position from before here, this is worth reading if you are bored of my repeating) and pass it with a majority, then it goes to the independent committee to determine the issue's importance, then goes on the next referendum, for the people to vote on.

So, to break it down a bit, the role of each:
The People: Vote on every issue via referendum or other form of direct democracy. Propose policy, and vote in and out both local reps and the president.
Legislature: Officially propose policy, vote on it, determine if it goes to the referendum.
Executive: Vote on policy in legislature, act symbolically as the voice of the country abroad and provide leadership when required. Of course, for the president to have become president, he will have naturally built support in the legislature and through his alliances will be able to promote an agenda. Also, in appointing certain MPs to his executive staff/government, he will be solidifying, for the short term of his tenure, some form of coalition and will thus, be the most powerful player in agenda setting. This said, it would take very little to completely dismiss his policies.


OK
GO.

EDIT: Sorry for all the typos, I'm not fixing them.
- This system would not have no confidence votes btw,
- There is still the problem of city governments, not sure how they fit into this picture quite yet.
EDIT X2
- voter turnout for the 08 CDN election was 59% of registered voters, ~ 20% of the population.
- Political party membership is around 1/2% in the population. Parties, as such, are very disconnected.

[i_feel_tiredsleepy]

This still doesn't address the issue that people holding minority views will be unable to express them in public forum, because they will be incapable of getting any representation elected if they're base is widely spread out over a nation.

Say 5% of the population holds a certain view, they should have the right to express and argue in favour of their view. A referendum (besides being obsenely tedious) sure they all get to vote on it, but it would be unlikely they would have a public voice to argue their point.

Even with constitutions it also sounds like a perfect system to impose tyranny of the majority. Minorities only have rights in most western countries because it's the popular view they should have them, not because of constitutional protection.

[steve]

Well, while this whole system doesn't offer an exact protection from the tyranny of the majority, I would put this in the category with other risks of democracy. Because politics in this system are so locally focused, hopefully the minority would be found locally as opposed to nationally. Better to be the odd one out in 100 then 1000 right? (or is it...)

Of course there would be your standard issue free speech protecting constitution, so on so forth. In a democracy, there will always be minority issues, my system doesn't solve this but is willing to give some minor protections like most western demos. No one is to stop them getting their voice out, although without support they just won't be able to get their goals on the agenda. But really, that is fine because when it all comes down to it, the country should be voting on what the majority wants.