Thinking about a more Direct Democracy.

Pyrian on 24/2/2018 at 22:48

Honestly "strategic voting" is such a minefield. I'd definitely prefer some form of ranked voting so you can vote for the candidate you want without losing your ability to vote on the more popular candidates.

Gryzemuis on 24/2/2018 at 23:34

I disagree with about everything Harvester said (I live in the same country).
He's just repeating the points he has been taught by our authorities.
I guess you can't expect independent thinking from a religious person. They are too much used to being told what to believe, what to say and what to do.

What most people don't seem to understand is that the goal of democracy is not to "get the best decisions". Or the best results.
It is highly subjective what "best" is.

The goal of democracy is that decisions are made by the majority of the people.
If the outcome is that no action is taken, or even worse, something dumb is done, that's no problem in itself. Live with it. I rather have a fair democratic society that runs inefficient, than a streamlined profitable fascist country. Lots of people rather pick the fascist option, as long at the fascist outcome is exactly what they want.

Pyrian on 24/2/2018 at 23:42

Yeah, sometimes the people will choose fascism, and that's a great example of why "The goal of democracy is that decisions are made by the majority of the people" is nonsense. In the U.S. we have things like the Bill of Rights to protect individuals and minority groups from the majority vote - and virtually every other democracy worthy of the name has some equivalent. Majority rule is a great and defining feature of democracy, but it's not its sole goal and never was.

Gryzemuis on 25/2/2018 at 00:14

What you want is a Rechtsstaat. (Cant link wiki atm. Sorry).
Democracy is part of that.
So is a good constitution. With human rights, equality for everyone, etc.
You also need a free press. Openness. Free informartion. Accesssible and good education, etc.
But for me the democracy part means: everyboy's voice counts equal.

How else do you want to do it ?
Some people's voices are more important than others ?
Last week our new referendum law has been killed already.
And why ? The only argument Ive heard was: "You can't let the plebs make decisions ! They are too dumb to understand anything".

Nicker on 25/2/2018 at 02:54

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsstaat) Was this the link to Rechtsstaat you wanted, Grzemuis?

"You can't let the plebs make decisions ! They are too dumb to understand anything".

Remembering that the "plebs" have been everything from barons to slaves, over the generations, that is a very common argument (especially from people with a vested interest in the status quo). And it does seem to have some merit, given Brexit et al. But with the suspicion that Putin had a hand in skewing that referendum, and others in Europe, we have to worry if referendums can ever be secure and fair. I think that they can but a lot more vigilance and education would be needed.

But again it seems the question, are people just dumb or are they not given the motivation to be better informed and more involved. As to the plebs being incompetent, we have to assume that humans have some innate capacity for good social behaviour and group decision making. The species made it this far. WE know that in many natural disasters, people organise rescue and relief efforts on a local level, long before the pros can get in to help. Then on the other hand, we know that criminal elements will prey on people in crisis.

What's a human to do?

This is why I favour a model where elected officials make the laws and citizens (as a whole or as a sample group) assent to them or send them back for improvement. This testing should be done in a structured environment and according to fairly strict rules of engagement. A citizens assembly can't contravene the constitution or fundamental principles of the country. They can't ignore basic laws protecting life and property, for instance.

Another mechanism I would like to see is a moot court to test legislation. In Canada, if the government makes a bad law, some private citizen must risk their liberty and spend a huge amount of money challenging it in court. Even if their objection has merit and ultimately wins, they can be ruined in victory while the government just gets to spend taxes to defend their errors.

A moot court could test legislation (especially constitutionality) without the risk and expense falling on private parties. Or we could just require the political party which made the legislation pay the court costs of any challenge...

caffeinatedzombeh on 25/2/2018 at 11:04

Education is the key to getting sensible input, you can't expect anyone to reach a remotely sensible decision without any information to base that on.

Gryzemuis on 25/2/2018 at 11:24

Yes, that's the link.

The word "plebs" comes from Latin. In Rome it used to mean "the common people". It did not include barons. Or any aristocracy, rich people, the establishment, people in power. Plebs are the fuckers who are powerless, but don't know it. It is a derogatory term.

Why are you bringing Brexit into this ? You seem to imply that Brexit was the wrong decision ? Yet again an anti-democratic attitude. Why was it wrong ? The majority voted for it. Are they too dumb to make decisions ? Is that what you are saying ? I happen to support Brexit. Mainly because I am strongly opposed to the EU slowly, and without any true democratic process, inflating itself. The EU always want more member-states, no matter how unfit those new countries are. They always want Europeans to pay more taxes that will go to the EU. They want one European army under control of the EU. They want control over more and more laws. They want to bring down laws to the lowest common denominator. They want a free market, more power to companies, less power to consumers or citizens. Fuck the EU. I'd vote for NL leaving the EU too, if they let me. (And I happen to work in another EU-country than I live. I'd happily change jobs to see the EU fall apart).

But it's clear. I'm too stupid to have an influence on such decisions. Important stuff should be left for important people. Not plebs like me.

Putin had a hand in skewing the Brexit vote ? WTF are you on about ? Do you think the British are too stupid to make their own decisions ? Even if the Russians bought a few Facebook-ads, had twitter-bots, and whatever other insignificant stuff, do you think that would have an impact ? The EU donating funds for the Scottish independence referendum was fine ? You think the BBC was impartial over Brexit ? There is a clear attempt over the last 4 years to paint "ze Russians" as black as possible. I don't eat that. The Russians are not my friends, but they are certainly not my enemies.

Shall I tell you a story about false information trying to influence popular opinion ?
Our Minister of Foreign Affairs has been telling a story over the last few years. How he was in Russia, and attended a talk given by Putin to bystanders. And Putin talked about "Great Russia", how the Baltics and Ukraine and other former USSR countries are part of that. And how he wanted to incorporate those countries back into Russia. So watch out: the Russians are here to get us !!". Stories like these have an impact on forming the general public's opinion on how the west should deal with Russia.

It then turned out that our Minister of Foreign Affairs has never even attended such a meeting or event. His political party responded: "It was a friend of his who was there, who heard Putin tell that story. He changed it, to protect the name of the person who really heard it". Two days later the guy who was actually there, stood up, and explained that that was not what Putin had said. Putin did talk about Russia and the former USSR. But he never talked about getting the ex-USSR countries back into Russia. A few days later, our Minister of Foreign Affairs resigned.

For me, this was a very telling example. Our governments have been trying to make us believe that Russia is the enemy. Out of nowhere. It started 4 years ago, after the "Ukrainian revolution". (Which was nothing but a violent overthow of a democratically elected government. With secret support from the US and the EU). Our media are following the lead of our government in this. The picture is very distorted. It's almost as if someone wants the cold war back.

I'm disgressing.
My point is, you make assumptions, which could very well be wrong, and you say that the people who disagree with you are too stupid to have any say in any decision making. My point is: it doesn't matter if they are stupid, it doesn't matter if they make the wrong decisions. It's still better than having "the smart people make the decisions for the dumb people".

We had your model of democracy. Kinda. Government and parliament makes laws. Citizens can ask for referenda to block those laws. But not really. There were 2 huge factors: 1) our referenda were advisory only. so our lawmakers could say to our citizens: "fuck you, we're not following your advise". And that is what they did every time. And 2) you need 300k signatures. On paper. (Electronic voting was not allowed). 300k signatures out of a population of 17m is huge. Still, we did it a number of times. So what did our policitians do ? Last week they abolished our referenda. No more referenda for us. The plebs was causing too much trouble for the "people who know things better". Fuck that. I have zero faith in politicians anymore. And it's not because I'm dumb on uninformed. It's because of the politicians. Fuck em.

I bet you think now that I sound like a typical member of the plebs. Someone that should not have any say in any political decision. While you are a reasonable, a smart, a well informed person. And everything would be so much better if only people like yourself would have voting rights. :) (I know you don't. I'm just exaggerating. But there are people who think that. Most politicians probably).

Gryzemuis on 25/2/2018 at 12:02

While I'm at it, let me reply to Harvester's points.

Quote Posted by Harvester

a stupid, shitty form of direct democracy is worse than none at all.

Someone has got to make the decisions.
If it is not "everyone together makes the decisions", then you need to have a two class system. The people-who-can-vote, and the plebs. Which group do you see yourself in ?

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In the Netherlands, there has been the possibility of an “advisory referendum” in place since 2015. We’ve had one such referendum, and IMO it was a huge disaster.

The disaster was not because of the referendum itself. It was because of the way our politicians dealt with it. Basically they did *everything* they could to torpedo the referendum. And they succeeded. And now they threw out the referendum-law.

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In the law that was passed in 2015, passed by mostly populist right-wing and socialist left-wing parties,

WTF are you implying here ? That only extremists support a referendum ? "Normal people" should all be voting for parties in the middle of the political spectrum ? Or else they are crazy and shouldn't be allowed to vote ? Wait, the middle in NL is the Christian Party (CDA), right ? Your party. The party of God, where all its voters are used to being told what to do, what to say and what to vote. Right ?

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you had to get 300,000 signatures to hold a referendum over a law that’s been passed that you want the government to consider revoking. The advisory status means that the passed law has to be reconsidered and a new decision has to be made, but the decision can still be the same.

Two very bad properties of this law. It was almost impossible to get a referendum on anything. And the government could always say "fuck you plebs, we'll do what we want anyway". Which indeed happened after every referendum. I'm amazed the British politicians still follow the outcome of the Brexit referendum. I had expected them to say: "fuck it, we'll stay anyway". That could still happen.

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The referendum that we held was about the association treaty of the EU with the Ukraine. Signing the association treaty means a greater degree of collaboration between the EU and the Ukraine, albeit without official membership. It was considered important for the Ukraine to move in a more pro-European direction instead of pro-Russian.

Why was it important for the Ukraine to move into a more pro-European direction ? Because you think so ? The Ukrainians had just elected their own government, which was pro-Russia. You know better than the Ukrainians themselves ?
Also, the Ukrainians expected the collaboration to grow into full membership. Maybe that was never said officially. But on many occaisions this was said. It was certainly the expectation of the Ukraine. If you wish, I can burrow you with links on this.

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However, in the Netherlands a lot of people didn’t like our government back then. The socialists and environmentalists thought it was too right-wing, the populists wanted it to be more anti-immigrant, and many people wanted it to be more anti-EU. A lot of people hate the European Union and many want to leave (a “Nexit”), which I think is a disastrous idea.

It doesn't matter what you think, or I think. It matters what the majority thinks. If you disagree, you are not democratic.
You make it sound as if the referendum was a vote for or against the Dutch governement. It was not.
Was it a vote against the EU ? Hell yeah.
The reason is simple: our referendum law did not allow us to have referenda on any topic. We could only have referenda about new laws. The new treaty with the Ukraine was a new law, so it was the only way to vote about something to do with the EU. Officially the question was about the Ukraine only. Unofficially the referendum was also about the EU's unbridled greedy expansion. I'm fine with that.

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People voted for the wrong reasons. The referendum was about the association treaty, but a lot of people used it to “send a message” to the government and the EU, by torpedoing the association treaty. We had this party leader who plainly said: “We don’t care about the Ukraine, we just want to send a message to the EU”. So you just want to bitch about the EU at the expense of the Ukrainians, who just want a better future for themselves? Yeah, seems like a great idea.

You think we let the Ukraine join the EU because we want to save them ?
No. The only reasons are because of power and money.
And yes, sending a message to the EU is perfectly fine.

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There was a lot of misinformation. For example, the “animal party” (yes, that’s a thing here) said we’re going to get a lot of cheap meat here from the Ukraine that’s been produced in terrible conditions re: animal suffering. While in reality, when the Ukraine signs the association treaty, they’re obliging themselves to move towards animal welfare standards closer to EU regulations.

A lot of misinformation was coming from our own government and media too.
If you recall, at first the media (tv, newspapers) were trying to ignore the referendum. Then they couldn't. So they advised people to stay home, so the referendum didn't reach 30%. Totally undemocratic methods.
And the Animal Party does have a point. Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe. How hard would it be to get the right papers for the wrong products ?

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People stayed at home for strategic reasons.

Those people are cunts.
You want to torpedo the democratic process by playing unfair ? I have no sympathy for you.

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So personally I stayed at home, because I don’t believe in this form of referendum and didn’t want to legitimize it with my vote.

I don't believe in representative parliament. I don't vote in regular elections, because I don't want to legitimize them. I think it is totally unfair Dutch politics is continuing anyway. Yeah, right.

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that number is meaningless with many people who supported the treaty staying at home for strategic reasons.

So when you don't play, it's meaningless. But when I don't play, I should stfu and not have an opinion on politics ?

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That didn’t stop people from demanding that the government listens to the result and refuses to sign the treaty.

No, that was not the case.
The issue was: a few political parties had said in advance that they would honor the outcome. And then after the result was not what they had hoped for, they said: "oh btw, we're not gonna honor the outcome". Hypocrites. That was the problem.

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That means a EU-wide treaty can be blocked by a couple of million citizens from one single country, many of which voted for the wrong reasons. I hope I don’t have to explain why this is a bad thing.

Please do.
The real issue is that a huge political organization (like the EU) can't work properly, because it is too big. When you have 250 million people voting on something, nothing can be achieved. Because you'll end up with 48%-52% decisions. You'll have to make decisions that are good for some and bad for others. Democracy doesn't mean: let's make everything bigger, so in the end it becomes unmanagable. If you want democracy, you need to keep it small. That is the problem.

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The government drafted some addendums to the treaty, and lobbied in the EU to get the adjusted treaty passed, and it did. However, it was not good enough for the people who voted against the treaty. The advisory status was meaningless to them - according to them, the government had to do exactly what they wanted.

No, the problem was hypocrisy. Some parties not doing what they promised to do (honor the result). And the VVD basically didn't want to speak out loud what they were doing ("fuck the plebs"). In stead they were weaseling their way through the process, lying and deceiving.

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That illustrates the main problem I have with this kind of thing: political reality is complicated and can’t be reduced to Yes/No, Before/Against binary decisions. A referendum like this, with people demanding that the result should be followed verbatim and compromises are not allowed, cannot do justice to the difficulties of political reality as they are.

In that case, change the way the referenda are held. Change the questions they ask. Change the frequency. In any case, the solution is not: "fuck the plebs, we overlords know best, and we'll take the decisions. and we don't need to take responsibility to anyone".

Referenda are a great indicator of what the general public wants. Even if the question was limited. Even if the result can't be implemented easily. The real problem is that our referenda exposed something significant: our politicians do not want to implement the will of the people. In stead, they want to play their own political games. I find that astonishing.

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Our new government put an end to this form of referendum a few days ago. Good riddance if you ask me.

Maybe we should let God decide for us. Or else let the Protestant and Catholic churches decide. They know best, after all. And Jesus surely wants best for us. So what could go wrong ?

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There’s one more referendum already planned which is still happening. It’s about a “dragnet law” which allows our intelligence agencies to collect vast amounts of data to stop terrorism and such. Several parties are already saying: “vote FOR the advisory referendum by voting AGAINST the dragnet law”.

You're making this up. Link please. Dutch link is fine.
I think what some parties might be saying is: "come vote, so the numbers are high, showing other parties that the plebs cares for the referdum". If only 10% show up, our non-democratic parties can say: "look, nobody was interested in the referendum anyway. good riddance".

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As I said, people vote for the wrong reasons.

Who decides what reasons are wrong ? You ? Jesus ?

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QED on why this form of direct democracy is a bad idea, thus supporting Kolya’s point of why badly thought out forms of direct democracy are worse than none at all.

Yes, bad is always worse than good.
But you are arguing that sometimes no democracy is the best solution ? WTF ?

Nameless Voice on 25/2/2018 at 15:24

Urgh.
On the one hand you're arguing that the EU is bad because they end up making "48-52%" decisions with only a very slight majority, which are what half the people want and half the people don't, while at the same defending Brexit which was passed by a mere 2% of 72% of the voters.

The main point out of that is that all really important changes should need a 66% majority to pass.

Also, referendums like that share a flaw with the current candidate-based systems - the inability of voters to change their mind once something goes through.
The Brexit referendum was a mess, because no one actually knew what they were voting for going into it. Since then, the British government has been trying to find out what exactly it means, and have shown how much it will cost their country. A lot of the people who voted for it would probably vote against it now that they've realised what exactly it will do to their country.
The country is already falling apart because of things like the NHS becoming critically under-staffed due to all the doctors and nurses from other countries leaving en-masse.

The EU is slow and monolithic, but it's the best thing we've got. All of the actually good laws, protecting privacy, the environment, people from large corporations - they all come from the EU. Do they take ages? Yes. Do they not go far enough? Yes. But at least they're doing something.

Trying to break out of the EU is just jingoism, which is one of the worst kinds of evil in the world. Pretending that your people are more important and looking down on everyone else. Not sorting people into a class of "voters and plebs" like you are referring to, but instead of "people from my country" and "everyone else".

Gryzemuis on 25/2/2018 at 15:45

I'm sorry my post was so long.
But I disagreed with every word Harvester wrote.
Someone on the Internet was wrong, so I had to respond.

Quote Posted by Nameless Voice

My point is that the bigger something gets, the more uncontrollable it becomes. The people already have very little control, so with a bigger EU, we will lose all control that was left. I like small scale things.

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The main point out of that is that all really important changes should need a 66% majority to pass.

Yep. And that is the case in our country. Important stuff is in the constitution. And to change the constitution, you need 66.6%. I have no problems with that.

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The Brexit referendum was a mess, because no one actually knew what they were voting for going into it.

And that is not true when I am voting in general elections ?
I get to vote for a party. (In my country members of parliament mostly vote according to party-policy. So voting on individual candidates doesn't matter much. Party policy will dictate what will happen). That party can change it's plan whenever it wants to. The only way to punish that party is 4 years later. Also, I have an opinion on dozens of things. How can I express that when I can vote for one party once every 4 years ? There are never parties that fully agree with my opinion.

Voting in a referendum is crystal-clear, compared to regular voting for a representative.

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A lot of the people who voted for it would probably vote against it now that they've realised what exactly it will do to their country.

Says who ?
And if the UK didn't leave the EU, who is to say that in a few years time, the vote would not have been 60% brexit, 40% stay ? It's all speculation. The only thing that matters is the vote. And the british people did vote. And they voted to leave. Everything else is speculation. You really wanna know what the voters think about a subject ? Hold a referendum.

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The EU is slow and monolithic, but it's the best thing we've got.

A meaningless statement.
Over the decades we had different forms of cooperation between EU countries. I don't mind getting rid of (most) import-taxes. I don't mind making it easier to work in another country. (Fewer, not less. Thanks Stannis). I live in NL, but I work in BE. But guess what, in the mid-sixties, my dad also worked in Belgium. You don't need a fully fledged United States of Europe to have nice things. I don't want a monetary union. Certainly not with Mediterranean countries. Certainly not with the Ukraine. Look at Greece, their country got destroyed because of the monetary union.

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All of the actually good laws, protecting privacy, the environment, people from large corporations - they all come from the EU.

Maybe in the UK. Not in my country. We can figure things out for ourselves, without help from Brussels, thank you very much. In fact, the lowest common denominator in laws is making it harder for my country to progress.

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Trying to break out of the EU is just jingoism, which is one of the worst kinds of evil in the world. Pretending that your people are more important and looking down on everyone else. Not sorting people into a class of "voters and plebs" like you are referring to, but instead of "people from my country" and "everyone else".

I'm not a jingoist. I'm not a nationalist. I'm not a conservative. I'm not a racist. I wish we (EU and US) didn't fuck over so many countries (Vietnam, the Middle East, Latin America in the 70s, etc etc). But the circle of people I feel responsible for is not infinite. In my country we try to help each other out. With social security, affordable health-care, good education for kids, etc, etc. That is doable with 17 million people. If you want us to share that with 7 billion people in the world, something will go terribly wrong. The EU imho is a very right-wing organization. It tries to undermine the influence of the common people. Its main purpose seems to be to make international trade easier. Making it easier to transfer funds, avoid taxes, move work to other countries. Bringing wages down to the absolute minimum.

You don't need to be a nationalist to not like the EU.