Max Battcher wrote: > On 8/11/2009 18:53, Trent Shipley wrote: >> More fundamental is his objection to the U.S. Government. In effect, he >> is saying that the U.S. system of government is inherently illegitimate, >> largely because it is run by politicians. By John William's standards >> ALL representative democracy is illegitimate precisely because a >> representative democracy REQUIRES professional politicians. > > Crazy tangent: I've always wondered if it might be worth the effort to > introduce a third house, a tricameral legislature of sorts, where the > members are brought in through a random civic duty lottery (akin to jury > duty selection in most states, perhaps). Call it the "House of Peers" or > "House of the Public", for instance. > > I think such a "crazy" idea would only work in the modern communications > era. You can't expect a person to serve even a 1-year term if they have > to pack their bags for Washington and may not be able to expect to have > their existing job when they return (much less can't afford the salary > differential during the term). However, with the Moderne Internet, I > think that "average folks" might be persuaded to do a little bit of work > for their country online every so often for even a tiny amount of > compensation. You could even contemplate things like "micro-terms" of > only a few weeks duration with the right technological leverage. With > micro-terms and lots of paid eyeballs you might even get awfully close > to a sort of "representative wiki democracy". > > Even if this "House" was of lesser standing than the existing > legislature it would be useful just to have a "public oversight > committee" directly drawn from the public and "in the same turf" as > existing legislatures. > > Anyway, it's just a crazy thought experiment (that I created for use in > a short story I never wrote) and I doubt that it would be easy to amend > the Constitution to try it, but it might be something to play with at > local or state levels and see if it survives/replicates... > > -- > --Max Battcher-- > http://worldmaker.net
Every house you add to a legislative system increases gridlock. Let's suppose you did have representation by jury duty. You aren't going to get Plato's Republic of leadership by philosopher. Your average legislative juror will be average: average IQ, average education, average income, you know, average. This means you will want a large pool so you get some good leadership--300 to 3000 should do. You won't want mini-terms. The issues don't get easier just because you draft your congress critter. Mini-terms won't be much better than rule by public opinion poll or focus group. You will want to have substantial terms so that the legislators learn to negotiate, understand the issues, learn about their constituency, and so on. Since you need substantial terms you will need to give your representatives REAL salaries and real support staff to help with all the research. It won't be cheap. However, you wouldn't have political campaigns and you wouldn't have self-selected political professionals. _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
