Centerfield

Well, your second paragraph appears unfinished and I'm not familiar with either of those books.

I'm a bit leary of fickle nature of direct democracy. However I could see maybe balancing one house with direct democracy with another house with representative democracy, with both houses checking and balancing each other somehow.

Whoopsie! Thanks for the steer on the unfinished para. Finished now (not much was missing).

By the way, I do recommend those books, but not more recent things from Simmons.

They look interesting. I'm definitely a fellow Sci-Fi fan.

Four most recently read books in order from most recently read:

The Ghost Brigades - John Scalzi
Destiny's Road - Larry Niven (second time reading this stellar work)
Regeneration - Julie E. Czerneda
The Well of Stars - Robert Reed

I tend to favor Space Operas but usually buy books based on the plot/premise and the cover art, which frequently leads me outside of the Space Opera subgenre.

So, whaddya think? Could a system where any citizen could vote directly on issues work in real life? Better than the current House? Worse?

Could it? Anything is possible. (OK, almost anything, laws of physics yada yada, but let's not digress...)

My guess? Worse. Even much worse. WE might put in the time to form reasoned opinions (even when they're at odds) but the general public doesn't and won't. The larger the group, the worse the result.

Good short list, Kevin. Note: Scalzi's Whatever blog rocks. My ribs still hurt from the "Drag Scalzi's Ass to the Creation Museum" donation drive, which I tossed a few dollars into.

It also couldn't have worked in 1789, since we didn't have the technology to do direct democracy on a nation-wide basis.

Many cities, especially in New England, function on a direct-democracy basis, where town meetings give every eligible voter in the place a direct say on what the town does. You can do that for one town, where no one's more than a few miles from the voting booth.

To implement that on a national scale, you'd need modern technology to allow people to vote from a distance. That's only been feasible for the last decade or so.

I'm not sure if I'd like the resulting politics. Would we want the populous who kept Sanjaya going for weeks voting directly on legislation?

I am skeptical of this kind of participatory democracy. IMO, most people that push this think that it would lead to better substantive decisions (ie, the ones that THEY like). I don't see any reason to think that the same kinds of dynamics that work with respect to representative democracy would not operate here as well. People would still rely on experts; some people would be better informed than others and more involved, etc. Look at party primaries. They were designed to make the nomination process more "democratic" but all they really do is place the nomination process in the hands of the small number of committed voters (often more extreme) that really care. I see no reason to think that wouldn't be the case with direct congressional voting. It would essentially substitute one group of special interests with greater access for another. Of course, I can understand the infatuation with finding a way around Congress given the utter incompetence and stupidity exhibited there.

1789? Most of the "population" could not vote. If it gets down to snapshot popularity contests we will need a 90 day return policy. Can one realistically contemplate a direct vote for President and dismiss the corollary of direct impeachment, the removal of the President by popular vote? Define self-government. I think the original idea was to balance “registered” Majority consent against an established set of Principles protecting Minorities and Individuals Rights.

Direct election represents a risky action on the nonlinear and unstable dynamic of a new governing cycle. Social behavior and self-government is already highly sensitive to initial conditions. Were the people to completely decided, one gaff could change an election outcome and one brilliant line for the masses could conceal a tragic assumption. Quick and direct fixes usually promote more chaos because unstable dynamical systems do not respond well to linear reforms and predictions (willing peace or universal healthcare does not make it so). This is one statistical explanation for the constant political and policy oscillations as resolutions slowly form. It’s a matter of reducing endangering chaos and entropy. If we are willing to risk more unintended consequences by direct voting, we might want to consider making these average-minded decisions more reversible the moment they go completely astray.

I wish we could edit after the fact....

1789? Most of the "population" could not vote. If it gets down to snapshot popularity contests we will need a 90 day return policy. Can one realistically contemplate a direct vote for President and dismiss the corollary of direct impeachment, the removal of the President by popular vote? Define self-government. I think the original idea was to balance “registered” Majority consent against an established set of Principles protecting Minorities and Individuals Rights.

Direct election represents a risky action on the nonlinear and unstable dynamic of a new governing cycle. Social behavior and self-government are already highly sensitive to initial conditions. Were the people to completely decide, one gaff could change an election outcome and one brilliant line for the masses could conceal a tragic assumption. Quick and direct fixes usually promote more chaos because unstable dynamic systems do not respond well to linear reforms and predictions (willing peace or universal healthcare does not make it so). This is one statistical explanation for the constant political and policy oscillations as resolutions slowly form. It’s a matter of reducing endangering chaos and entropy. If we are willing to risk more unintended consequences by direct voting, we might want to consider making these average-minded decisions more reversible the moment they go completely astray.

What Marc said, and some of what Max said.

Our system is purposely designed to somewhat ameliorate the wild swings of hysterical public sentiment. It's a "process" system. (I will skip my regular lecture on intentional pluralism by design.) Direct issue democracy goes against that, and is a destabilizing factor. "Cooler heads," etc.

People only bother to get involved when the issue directly affects them, and then it's full speed ahead, and damn the law and to hell with the rights of others and forget the long-term consequences and do not even MENTION the constraints of budget! They often don't bother to get informed at all, even in a small way. They just want what they want, hype up a mob to back them, and to hell with everyone else. The result is a very angry free-for-all.

Anyone who's spent a lot of time in local political meetings knows EXACTLY what I mean.

There is a very good reason why people do not get informed. If they did, they would have to deal with those pesky things called facts -- which frequently do not fit the course that they want to take. Obnoxious things, facts. Far better to stay uninformed and just vote on emotion. (Makes for less uncomfortable "science," too.)

If one man one vote was the case on all issues the special interests would take over the government completely. People can be convinced to pay good money to buy cancer causing inhalents, 5 cents worth of sugar water for a dollar that will rot your teeth and brain. I shouldn't be to hard to find advertisers that could convince 50% of us to vote for about anything.

I'm at least 95% as cynical as everyone else. In reserving that other 5% for hope, I allot about 0.5% to the possibility that being given more responsibility would result in slightly more responsible behavior, with voting folks becoming informed and trying harder to make serious decisions. And i'd allot the the other 4.5% to the hope that people would "self-select" themselves out by not participating even though they had the ability.

But yup, it sure could be an utter, utter disaster. My biggest worry relates to my very strong sense that folks are just way too easily misled. Like it's often said, a little bit of info can be a dangerous thing. I mean, suppose for the sake of argument we presume that folks responded well by trying to keep up and stay informed. Then factor in the unavoidable given that folks have limited time and attention spans. Add in the complexity of both issues and their proposed remedies. What I foresee is that even with folks making a good faith effort, they'd still be far too susceptible to being misled by interests telling one-sided stories.

It sure would be fun if we had a test tube to to try it in safely.

I am a little more sanguine on the prospects for representatives to solicit feedback in order to better gauge their constituents views. Were I a rep, I'd strongly consider investigating my constituents views by using polling that was linked to teaching information. In other words, you'd get to tell me what you thought by participating in issues polling at my website, but if you used that channel, you wouldn't get to give feedback until after you'd been semi-tricked into informing yourself about the issue.

What I envision is being able to say, as a rep, for example, the following: "I've solicited feedback from my constituents. Among the ones who I've been able to get to understand that there is no real money in the social security trust fund, there's a willingness to entertain raising the retirement age and cutting back on the amount promised, in order to keep the overall structure solvent yet substantively similar to its current form."

My biggest fear of this scheme is that the extremists' edge would be greater, since now we're talking about fanatics vs. a house of non-professionals. But I guess we already live with that and some of other problems mentioned in both the electorate at large and the Congress.

My biggest hope is that the increased citizen base would lead to there being articulate speakers on more different issues (e.g., to explain tech issues, for example); DC's leadership is infamous for being very good at, well, lawyering. Also, it might incline a more talented group to seek voice and power.

The responsibility might have to be alternated among pools of citizens The economic consequences might be bad if the entire nation is occupied with issues ad voting. It might have to be rotated.

It'd have to be tried at an intermediate scale, of course. The TX Lege could hardly be worse.... Hmm....

There are real costs to becoming informed about policies. Most people don't have the time or abilility to become issue experts. That's really why we have parties; parties reduce the costs of having to understand the complexities of every issue. Instead, you can vote based on a general understanding of the parties' positions. For example, if you believe generally in more activist government, you vote Democratic without necessarily having to know the specifics of every proposal.

I think this is actually a positive and is realistically the only way that you can have mass politics. The fact is, it's not worth it to me to delve into the complexities of health care reform. If anything, I think the demise of the parties and the rise of groups outside the parties have weakened the ability of the general populace to have input into policy. Direct democracy of the sort proposed here would only make this worse because you know the people taking advantage would be the people with time and money, ie, activists and/or special interests.

A couple of years ago, Eric Alterman proposed setting up some sort of citizen's board composed of 500 or so people to provide citizen input into foreign policy. Alterman is a liberal so obviously he thought (or hoped) that this would lead to a less interventionist foreign policy. But I don't see any reason to assume that this would be true or that citizen input would be much different than policy made by "elites." I can imagine during the Korean War, for example, that a citizens' group might well have advocated expanding the war rather than firing McArthur. You can argue whether this would be better or worse but the point is, proposals like this designed to obtain a particular policy result often backfire. When the 18 year olds got the vote, the assumption was that this would help the liberal Democrats; instead, it turned out that this cohort was, at least initially, much more conservative than expected and tended toward Republicans.

Well, we're all just guessing Marc.

The fact is, it's not worth it to me to delve into the complexities of health care reform.

Lots of people express similar viewpoints about the "worth" of getting informed and getting involved. The only thing that ever seems to change this view is when a policy change results in such folk getting left holding the short end of the stick.

So what's the message there? It's that ignorance is a luxury we all indulge in whenever possible, and if we're fortunate, we get away with it. If we're unfortunate, we get screwed, but we don't blame ourselves.

No wonder so many folks are either apathetic and ignorant about politics, or else indignant and self-righteous. Either they think they can get away with paying politics no mind, or they're convinced they've been screwed. :-)

Brian,

I don't think it's a matter of being apathetic or ignorant. It's a matter that complex policy issues require a level of commitment that is more than most people are willing or able to make. And in an open society that values the private sphere, you can't really expect that kind of commitment from the majority of citizens.

The point is, I think it's a mistake to advocate reforms that assume or require a great deal of knowledge or interest on the part of individual systems. It just is not realistic.

What bothers me more than the lack of knowledge is the assumption that there are easy solutions to all our problems if [fill in the blank] were not [greedy, immoral, stupid, etc.] For example, I have a pretty good knowledge of the petroleum industry because of my work and I know that many people's views of gasoline prices are frequently simplistic, uninformed and incorrect.

Unfortunately, remaining ignorant of the details of political policies is a perfectly rational position. Since your chances of deciding any large-scale election are zero, the expected payoff for investing the time and effort to arrive at a well-researched decision about the policy is zero.

The only things that are rationally worth it are those that have some other return, such as when you have to understand the details of the issue for your job or because of its direct impact on you, your family, your hobbies, etc. I know that I have a much better command of the facts and when it comes to Social Security because my job requires it. On other issues, such as, say, whether we should drill more in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, my opinions are formed much more by my overall attitudes and theories than any actual details--and I'm not likely to spend more than a couple of minutes Googling to become more informed.

Of course, for some people, politics is their hobby, so their opportunity cost to become informed is lower--alas, when the rewards are only psychic bad or one-sided information is just as good for their purposes as correct information. Thus we have things like the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, who have certainly spent much more time thinking about and researching the topic than average, getting farther and farther from any sane or rational conclusion.

People who advocate more direct democracy should at least be required to come to grips with the arguments in Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter before anyone tries to put it in action.

..of course, Congressmen are often the same way.

That, of course, is a big part of how lobbyists are so effective.

..of course, Congressmen are often the same way.

That, of course, is a big part of how lobbyists are so effective.