Forum Post: First!
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 18, 2011, 5:54 a.m. EST by Johnw
(44)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
It sounds as if lots of people want a more democratic system. It can be set up. Create a third party that forms its political platform on scientific surveys of the issues.
Both the Republicans and the Democrats already do this when they poll likely voters. Of course, after the elections we learn that the platforms they ran on were more-or-less big huge lies they fed us to garner our votes.
I think that maybe having a system which is more accountable to the people would be a good thing. I'm also very leery of the tyranny of the majority.
The occupy slogan is "we are the 99%" and you are very leery of the tyranny of the majority. It must be a tough dilemma to be in.
I am talking about a platform created by surveying the citizens of a constituency. This an alternative third party idea, not intended to replace all other parties. You should be no more leery of "the tyranny of the majority" by a user defined platform than a platform set by a Republican or Democrat think tank, which is a tyranny of the minority.
How would you handle situations where, say, 55% of the population support A (call it higher taxes for the wealthy) and 55% of the population support B (call it criminalizing abortion) but only 5% of the population support BOTH A and B?
Would your platform then be to raise taxes on the 1% while at the same time criminalizing abortion? I think very few people would support you.
Your example is flawed. We are not talking about two sets of people, and the intersection of two sets like in a Venn diagram. The population is one set.
Consider starting with a set of 100 white chips. Color 55 blue to represent the people that support abortion. Color the other 45 chips red for people that oppose abortion. Now take those same 100 chips and pick out 55 that want a higher tax for the wealthy. The most extreme case would be a combination of 45 red chips and 10 blue chips.
Continue this process with 20 or 30 issues. You will see much more overlapping of opinions held by the population on the issues. The new party tries to maximize voter satisfaction on a multidimensional platform.
Granted not everyone will agree with every issue on a user defined platform. But the third party moves away from the divide and conquer mentality of the current two party system. Neither Democrats nor Republicans should have a strangle hold on certain issues.
Doesn't any system that requires voting assume an intelligent and halfway-ethical voting base?
Yes, that is a correct assumption. I believe people are for the most part intelligent and ethical. They just need to brush up on logic and understand the issues to make informed decisions.
"I believe people are for the most part intelligent and ethical."
based on what?
Literacy rates and crime rates in the U.S.
Literacy Rates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate
Crime Rates http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/law_enforcement_courts_prisons/crimes_and_crime_rates.html
I guess if there is a correlation between literacy and intelligence, which I think literacy is only a stepping stone on the way toward intelligence, then I could see why you would think that.
If you want to use low crime rates to prove ethics, I don't believe that the negation of a negative is a positive. Neither did Aristotle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_is_a
The objective of politics, according to Aristotle, is to provide the best ways to guarantee people's happiness. The idea of a political party based on scientific surveys is a step in that direction. What do you think of the article?