Democracy in Government ...Is It Real?

[Tesseract]

Please move if in wrong forum.

 

Nowadays democracy is more and more like a monarchy, the head people in office make the decisions for the people that only get to vote, every four years (I think its the same in UK).Well that is represenatative government, and that is the definition, but dont you think people deserve more for their tax money, I sure do.The best democracy is in Sweden (I think its Sweden)

they have a direct democracy system, where the people have mass referendums to decide policy and laws.There are some other ways for better functioning Democracy, what are your opinions.

 

Here are some sources:

http://www.wegovern.ca

this is for canadian democracy (a direct access democracy site)

 

http://www.directaccessdemocracy.org

About Direct Access Democracy

 

http://www.npsnet.com/cdd/

....direct democracy in Canada

[jordan]

I think our current system is fine. Is this just about Bush and the war?

 

More for our tax money? What are you proposing?

 

What works for Sweden doesn't neccesarily work for us. Sweden is smaller in area and in population. Mass referendums wouldn't be practicle in our country.

[Tesseract]

I think our current system is fine. Is this just about Bush and the war?

 

More for our tax money? What are you proposing?

 

What works for Sweden doesn't neccesarily work for us. Sweden is smaller in area and in population. Mass referendums wouldn't be practicle in our country.

I know it works well with other countries but not very well with large ones.Direct Acess Democracy is better for large countries, look at links.

More for our tax money as in having important and benificial things come from taxes.Health care (medicare) education, enviromental and ocean related, new energy, wood substitutes, .....things like that.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

If you want more for your money in the government, GET RID OF SO MUCH PAPERWORK!!

[jordan]

I know it works well with other countries but not very well with large ones.Direct Acess Democracy is better for large countries, look at links.

Sorry, I don't have time to read these right now. I'll get to them another day.

 

 

More for our tax money as in having important and benificial things come from taxes.Health care (medicare) education, enviromental and ocean related, new energy, wood substitutes, .....things like that.

These are your ideals. What if I thought taxes should be spent in another way? I personaly am in favor of pouring a lot more money into education (in a productive way, of course) so that the problems we have can be solved, rather than pouring money into welfare and social security and hoping a few can make it through school and carry the future of the country.

 

You complained about us having elections every four years. Four years is apropriate to allow a president to carry out his actions. After this time you are allowed to not vote for him. If we only gave him a year, not only would he/she not have enough time to enact and show the country the benifits of their work, but they would spend half their presidency campaigning for next years election.

 

Again:

 

Is this just about Bush and the war?

[Tesseract]

Sorry' date=' I don't have time to read these right now. I'll get to them another day.

 

 

 

These are your ideals. What if I thought taxes should be spent in another way? I personaly am in favor of pouring a lot more money into education (in a productive way, of course) so that the problems we have can be solved, rather than pouring money into welfare and social security and hoping a few can make it through school and carry the future of the country.

 

You complained about us having elections every four years. Four years is apropriate to allow a president to carry out his actions. After this time you are allowed to not vote for him. If we only gave him a year, not only would he/she not have enough time to enact and show the country the benifits of their work, but they would spend half their presidency campaigning for next years election.

 

Again:[/quote']

 

Im not saying that the president should be in office for one year, It hink peopel should make real democracy, government by the people, with the president/prime minister only to enact the will of the people.

[jordan]

What exactly do you propose? I always thought a system of checks and balances between braches of the government in which all members are elected was fairly acceptable for a country of our size and wealth.

 

One last time:

 

Is this just about Bush and the war?

[Tesseract]

No its not about Bush or the war, Im talkign about democracy, mainly in Canada and the US.There are many other threads for Bush.

 

So your saying you wouldnt rather have a choice in what happens with your country and would just allow a person to make descisions for you because your too lazy?...

[Sayonara]

So your saying you wouldnt rather have a choice in what happens with your country and would just allow a person to make descisions for you because your too lazy?...

I'm guessing the civilisations where everyone makes decisions for themselves, without electing a body to represent the society as a whole, are pretty much going to be short-lived chaotic hell holes.

[admiral_ju00]

I'm guessing the civilisations where everyone makes decisions for themselves, without electing a body to represent the society as a whole, are pretty much going to be short-lived chaotic hell holes.

 

that's Crazy Talk.

 

i'm all for anarchy

[Sayonara]

i'm all for anarchy

I don't think anarchy would work with populations as densely packed as humanity. If there were fewer people, maybe.

[admiral_ju00]

I don't think anarchy would work with populations as densely packed as humanity. If there were fewer people, maybe.

 

shhhh, shutup shutup, you're putting in a dent in my fantasy

[atinymonkey]

I think our current system is fine. Is this just about Bush and the war?

 

More for our tax money? What are you proposing?

 

What works for Sweden doesn't neccesarily work for us. Sweden is smaller in area and in population. Mass referendums wouldn't be practicle in our country.

 

I don't think you gave that the consideration it deserves. If the European Union can manage Mass referendums across 25 countries with 455m people and a mass of different incompatible languages then I'm confident the US can manage it. It's just a ballot' date=' like you have in elections, except it has [i']issues[/i] instead of candidates on the sheet. It's not complex.

 

In relation to 'the war', if the word Bush and Anti American crops up here I'm going to lose all respect for your opinion

[jordan]

It's just a ballot, like you have in elections, except it has issues instead of candidates[/i'] on the sheet. It's not complex.

Do you remember way back to our 2000 election. I can see us having more tough times like these on all the controversial bills. The smaller, less impacting bills we might be fine on, but not the big ones. And would anyone happen to know how many bills we're talking about here, per year. The government goes through a lot of them each year and I can't see the public keeping informed enough to vote on a bill or two after dinner each night. I could be overexagerating though. Mabey it would only be a few a month.

 

In relation to 'the war', if the word Bush and Anti American crops up here I'm going to lose all respect for your opinion

Is this directed at me? I had no plans to defend Bush or draw on any of that kind of stuff. I just wanted to be sure Tesseract wasn't doing what everyone else is and saying Bush is bad for the sake of saying Bush is bad. I've heard too many of these kind of plans recently, all boiling down to "how do we get Bush out of office and make sure only democrats ever get back in". I just wanted to make sure this was an honest oppinion and not something impulsive.

[Tesseract]

The ballot systen dosnt work to much money to make them.The ideal way is for the MP (or the US version whatever that is) to do a phoning of a select group to equally distributed ages, and sexes in each town.Look at the links it explains much better than me.

[atinymonkey]

Do you remember way back to our 2000 election.

 

Ah, hahahaha.

 

Yes, the whole 'but there are two box's, what do I do?' dilemma.

 

I can see us having more tough times like these on all the controversial bills. The smaller, less impacting bills we might be fine on, but not the big ones. And would anyone happen to know how many bills we're talking about here, per year. The government goes through a lot of them each year and I can't see the public keeping informed enough to vote on a bill or two after dinner each night. I could be overexagerating though. Mabey it would only be a few a month.

 

Could be over exaggerating? I think perhaps you mean misunderstanding. The mass referendums are only used for specific issues that have major ramifications. They voted in the EU on whether to implement the Euro to replace the national currency of the member countries. They don't, for instance, vote on whether taxes should be lowered. Mass referendums only occur one in every few years. It provides the public with a vote on issues that the government was not elected to specifically deal with. I'd suggest that in America major ammendments to the constitution should be put to the people.

[jordan]

Could be over exaggerating? I think perhaps you mean misunderstanding. The mass referendums are only used for specific issues that have major ramifications. They voted in the EU on whether to implement the Euro to replace the national currency of the member countries. They don't, for instance, vote on whether taxes should be lowered. Mass referendums only occur one in every few years. It provides the public with a vote on issues that the government was not elected to specifically deal with. I'd suggest that in America major ammendments to the constitution should be put to the people.

 

OK. Sounds good to me.

[atinymonkey]

Whooo hooo!

 

 

BTW nobody ever turns up for referendum votes either. Ah, the irony of democracy.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

So your saying you wouldnt rather have a choice in what happens with your country and would just allow a person to make descisions for you because your too lazy?...

Not one, there's the senate and congress, too.

It's not a monarchy.

[jordan]

BTW nobody ever turns up for referendum votes either. Ah, the irony of democracy.

I remeber saying somewhere back in the thread that you can't expect people to vote on a few bills every night after dinner. They just won't be informed on them all, nor will they have the desire to do so. You're saying the same thing, for the most part, only even once a month, people don't show up. So, it's one of those things that is good in theory but very difficult to impliment in the real world.

 

 

So your saying you wouldnt rather have a choice in what happens with your country and would just allow a person to make descisions for you because your too lazy?...

Too lazy? Not at all. I am simply saying that we can't micromanage our own goevernment on all issues. BY electing them to office, we grant them a cetain trust to do what is best. Should they abuse this trust, we have elected more officials who can veto what they say or kick them out entirely. Should you really hate what is happening in office, run for yourself. If you truely have a better solution, you'll get elected. It all does work pretty well as far as keeping a few hundred million people as happy as possible.

[Tesseract]

I think the president does the decisions for the country, not the senate or the congress.Even thought they do some of the things.Maybe not as important.

[Tesseract]

I dont think US or Canada should have referendums or polling or votes by ballot, here is a better way, read the passage:

 

"Using Official Public Opinion Surveys, performed by your elected MP and not by private companies, we can find out which of the public policy proposals are approved by the majority of us. For every important public policy (equal access health care improvement, tax cuts, poverty elimination, accessible education, strong justice, more care for seniors and other) an information package about this proposals will be provided to a random panel of 400 voters from the electoral list of Cambridge and North Dumfries and at he end of the week they will receive a phone call from the MP asking them which proposal they support or not. This scientific survey has an accuracy of 95%. If the public opinion from Cambridge and North Dumfries supports one proposal with more than 50%, I am bound to raise my hand in Ottawa accordingly. This is what we call direct access democracy."

 

This is for Cambridge and North Dumfries in Onatrio Canada, but the system is to be used for the whole country.

 

From http://www.wegovern.ca/john_oprea_2004_election_cambridge_ontario_canada.htm

[blike]

I think the president does the decisions for the country, not the senate or the congress.

 

Uhh, check your history books. The president does make some decisions, but see who passes the laws.

[jgerlica]

Actually we're a constitutional republic. but why dicker over the fine points. perhaps if our legislature were not so weak our beautiful system of checks and balances might actually work.

[Tesseract]

Uhh, check your history books. The president does make some decisions, but see who passes the laws.

Im talking about decisions not laws.If the president wants something he ahs it.