-[I]- Disappointment

[Lesley Weston]

So BC now has our first elected female Premier. Yay. Unfortunately, she
leads a party that for some reason calls itself the Liberals, even
though they are one of the more illiberal regimes of the civilised
world, and they now have a larger majority than they did before the
election. She lost her own seat, so she may well be the first and last
elected female Premier.

It's rather odd, too. In polls right up to election day, a comfortable
majority of those polled said they were going to vote NDP. But when they
got to the voting booth, all of them except me had some kind of epiphany
and suddenly voted Liberal.

Oh well, at least she's not Campbell.

Lesley.

--
This address is real, but to reach me use leswes att shaw dott ca

[Nigel Stapley]

On 15/05/2013 16:48, Lesley Weston wrote:
> So BC now has our first elected female Premier. Yay. Unfortunately, she
> leads a party that for some reason calls itself the Liberals, even
> though they are one of the more illiberal regimes of the civilised
> world, and they now have a larger majority than they did before the
> election. She lost her own seat, so she may well be the first and last
> elected female Premier.
>
> It's rather odd, too. In polls right up to election day, a
> comfortable majority of those polled said they were going to vote NDP.
> But when they got to the voting booth, all of them except me had some
> kind of epiphany and suddenly voted Liberal.
>
> Oh well, at least she's not Campbell.
>

By what fantastical perversion of democracy does someone who can't even
win her 'own' constituency (aren't they called 'ridings' or something
over there?) end up leading a provincial government? How can she 'lead'
it from outside of parliament? I mean, you haven't even got the get-out
clause of having a completely unelected chamber to shove her into, have you?

Or have I misunderstood?

--
Regards

Nigel Stapley

www.thejudge.me.uk

<reply-to will bounce>

[Larry Moore]

We have only drone chamber - the federal senate ... there are no provincial
senates just {National Assembly | house of commons}; one of her
elected members will resign from a safe seat to allow her to be elected
in a by-election (there's never been a case of a Riding refusing to
vote in a shoo-in premier AFAICT.). Until then, she governs from the gallery.

As a number of people mentioned UG, we have rule by party not by
individual - and there's no constitutional need for a personal electoral
mandate to be PM or premier.

--
Josephin Peladan, the 19th-century French occultist liked to say that
society is an anonymous enterprise for living a life of secondhand
emotions.
John Michael Greer

[Alec Cawley]

This has occurred in the UK, when the Conservatives chose the Earl of Home
as their leader. He renounced the earldom and was elected to a safe seat as
Sir Alec Douglas-Home. For twenty days he was PM without a seat in either
house.

[Chris Zakes]

Sloppy polling methodology? Her opponent was even worse?

Maybe it was something like President Obama's election: People didn't
want to appear sexist so they voted for her even though they disagreed
with her politics.

-Chris Zakes
Texas
--

A properly balanced sword is the most versatile weapon for close quarters ever
devised... A sword never jams, never has to be reloaded, it is always ready.

-Oscar Gordon in "Glory Road" by Robert Heinlein

[Jessica]

On Wed, 15 May 2013 16:54:07 +0100, Nigel Stapley wrote:

> By what fantastical perversion of democracy does someone who can't even
> win her 'own' constituency (aren't they called 'ridings' or something
> over there?) end up leading a provincial government? How can she 'lead'
> it from outside of parliament? I mean, you haven't even got the get-out
> clause of having a completely unelected chamber to shove her into, have
> you?
>
> Or have I misunderstood?

What customarily happpens in this occasion is that some unlucky MLA[1] in
a "safe" riding will be asked/persuaded/coerced to resign "for the good of
the Party". This forces a By-election in which Premier Photo-Op will
stand. It would be a delicious irony if she loses that one, too.

[1]Member of the Legislative Assembly

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article,
<1796839498390335674.94...@news.individual.net>,
al...@spamspam.co.uk "Alec Cawley" recounted:

> Larry Moore <sshirley...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> We have only drone chamber - the federal senate ... there are no prov

>>incial> senates just {National Assembly | house of commons}; one of her

>> elected members will resign from a safe seat to allow her to be elected
>> in a by-election (there's never been a case of a Riding refusing to vote
>> in a shoo-in premier AFAICT.). Until then, she governs from the gallery.
>> As a number of people mentioned UG, we have rule by party not by> indi
>>vidual - and there's no constitutional need for a personal electoral
>> mandate to be PM or premier.
>
>This has occurred in the UK, when the Conservatives chose the Earl of Home
>as their leader. He renounced the earldom and was elected to a safe seat as
>Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

- this n.b. *always* to be pronounced "hume". this was once
a point of crucial importance. allegedly. (actually, it was
only to be so announced when used as a rallying cry in battle
and in the title he renounced - until he became tory leader.)

>For twenty days

- and twenty nights -

> he was PM without a seat in either house.

- he appeared to lead, yet failed to save, the tory party
and was consequently quietly disposed of by the tory m.p.s;
nobody now remembers where.

- he was the last leader of the tory party to appear through
a process mysterious even to most tory m.p.s, involving the
preferences and prejudices of the great and the good amongst
the tory grandees, plus perhaps delicate quiet soundings of
likely support for him from the rank and file members in the
house; ted heath, who replaced him, was the first tory leader
to be chosen by secret ballot of the tory party m.p.s, and
was later famously knifed in the back by the sainted late dame
hilda margaret after he'd won one general election, and lost
the next one.

- love, ppint.
[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--
"in a well-governed country, poverty is something to be ashamed of;
in a poorly-governed country, wealth is something to be ashamed of."
- attrib. confucius [ref. needed for quote]

[Jessica]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 01:11:07 +0100, ppint. at pplay wrote:

> was later famously knifed in the back

So standard operating procedure for Tories then? It certainly describes
our brand of Tory here in the Great White North.

[Paul Jamison]

"Chris Zakes" <dont...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:0538p85fh64gd06tc...@4ax.com...

> On Wed, 15 May 2013 08:48:09 -0700, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> to write:
>
>>So BC now has our first elected female Premier. Yay. Unfortunately, she
>>leads a party that for some reason calls itself the Liberals, even
>>though they are one of the more illiberal regimes of the civilised
>>world, and they now have a larger majority than they did before the
>>election. She lost her own seat, so she may well be the first and last
>>elected female Premier.
>>
>> It's rather odd, too. In polls right up to election day, a comfortable
>>majority of those polled said they were going to vote NDP. But when they
>>got to the voting booth, all of them except me had some kind of epiphany
>>and suddenly voted Liberal.
>>
>> Oh well, at least she's not Campbell.
>>
>>Lesley.
>
> Sloppy polling methodology? Her opponent was even worse?
>
> Maybe it was something like President Obama's election: People didn't
> want to appear sexist so they voted for her even though they disagreed
> with her politics.
>

That wasn't true for some people in the states. I voted for President Obama
for two reasons:

- I agree with his politics.

- I really did not like the Republican candidate. He came across to me as
completely out of touch with people. Plus he chose a sociopathic misogynist
for a running mate.

Paul

[larry]

It does seem to be a Tory Disease since Dief the Chief - authoritarian
rule by the prime minister's office in electoral success followed by the
night of long knives on electoral failure. The Grits have their own
peculiarities but (with a couple of exceptions,) seem to be able to
'consult in private lest others misconstrue', and to play nice in public.

[larry]

Never happens - the riding will be the deepest blue; every gravel road
will be paved; every application for grants in aid will be have a
personal cover letter from the premier; milk and honey will flow there,
if nowhere else. If an opposition member were elected, the riding will
feel the chill of disapproval lasting to the fourth generation.

[Lesley Weston]

You haven't misunderstood: that's what's happening. One of her caucus
will now resign their newly-won seat so that there can be a by-election;
it's happened before. The most likely sacrificial victim is the MLA for
this constituency (isn't it you lot who have ridings?), which gives me
another chance to vote against her. But it won't work; this constituency
has always voted Liberal both Provincially and Federally, including
those distant times when the Provincial Liberals were called the Socreds.

[Lesley Weston]

The current scandal is really quite nice. A Conservative Senator, Mike
Duffy, made fraudulent expense claims (sounds familiar?) and on
discovery was ordered to pay back $90,000 that he had stolen from the
taxpayers [1]. He did. It's just emerged that a close friend of the PM,
his Chief of Staff in fact, made a personal gift of $90,000 to the
criminal senator from his own private fortune that is supposed to be
being held in a blind trust. People are getting upset for some reason,
but I don't suppose us being upset will affect anything.

[1] But he's still a Senator, unelected and receiving an enormous salary
for doing nothing at all.

[Lesley Weston]

We'll do our best, but don't hold your breath.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-15-13 3:35 PM, Chris Zakes wrote:
> On Wed, 15 May 2013 08:48:09 -0700, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> to write:
>
>> So BC now has our first elected female Premier. Yay. Unfortunately, she
>> leads a party that for some reason calls itself the Liberals, even
>> though they are one of the more illiberal regimes of the civilised
>> world, and they now have a larger majority than they did before the
>> election. She lost her own seat, so she may well be the first and last
>> elected female Premier.
>>
>> It's rather odd, too. In polls right up to election day, a comfortable
>> majority of those polled said they were going to vote NDP. But when they
>> got to the voting booth, all of them except me had some kind of epiphany
>> and suddenly voted Liberal.
>>
>> Oh well, at least she's not Campbell.
>>
>> Lesley.
>
> Sloppy polling methodology? Her opponent was even worse?

All the pollsters are crying Mea Culpa, but it really is quite odd. In
every Provincial election before now the polls have always been right,
all the polls, both Party and commercial. Now suddenly all of them were
wrong. Her opponent is mostly harmless, but if he's perceived as even
worse then why didn't people say so in the polls?

>
> Maybe it was something like President Obama's election: People didn't
> want to appear sexist so they voted for her even though they disagreed
> with her politics.

That would work the other way round: they would say in public that they
supported her and then vote in private against her.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <kn1niq$7qr$1...@dont-email.me>,

"Paul Jamison" <pjam...@cox.net> wrote:

> That wasn't true for some people in the states. I voted for President Obama
> for two reasons:
>
> - I agree with his politics.

The politics he campaigns on, or the ones he carries out? <SIGH>

>
> - I really did not like the Republican candidate. He came across to me as
> completely out of touch with people. Plus he chose a sociopathic misogynist
> for a running mate.
>
> Paul

--
Gambling with Other People's Money is the meth of the fiscal industry.
me -- in the spirit of Karl and Groucho Marx

[larry]

He broke two rules - a senator may only receive income from his senate
salary and is forbidden to receive gifts, honoraria, or loans beyond 'de
minimus' (food served at meetings and such.) If they do somehow, then
they have a short time window to report it or they are in violation of a
different statute. Do I still have to call him Honorable?

[Nigel Stapley]

On 15/05/2013 23:35, Chris Zakes wrote:
> On Wed, 15 May 2013 08:48:09 -0700, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> to write:
>
>> So BC now has our first elected female Premier. Yay. Unfortunately, she
>> leads a party that for some reason calls itself the Liberals, even
>> though they are one of the more illiberal regimes of the civilised
>> world, and they now have a larger majority than they did before the
>> election. She lost her own seat, so she may well be the first and last
>> elected female Premier.
>>
>> It's rather odd, too. In polls right up to election day, a comfortable
>> majority of those polled said they were going to vote NDP. But when they
>> got to the voting booth, all of them except me had some kind of epiphany
>> and suddenly voted Liberal.
>>
>> Oh well, at least she's not Campbell.
>>
>> Lesley.
>
> Sloppy polling methodology? Her opponent was even worse?
>
> Maybe it was something like President Obama's election: People didn't
> want to appear sexist so they voted for her even though they disagreed
> with her politics.
>

Ah, the 'Obama was only elected because enough people were guilt-tripped
into not voting against him' ploy.

Does anyone who holds to that view ever consider the possibility that -
in the face of opponents who were, in succession, psychologically
unstable and bumptiously arrogant - that people might have thought Obama
was the less-worse choice anyway?

Not, of course, that it has made much difference to USAnia's poor, its
foreclosed-upon, or the increasing number of people held for longer and
longer terms in the world's largest prison-industrial complex
(http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/15/but-prison-is-so-us/) or who
turn non-violent direct action protestors into 'turrrrists'
(http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/15/how-the-us-turned-three-pacifists-into-violent-terrorists/).

(BTW, is it constitutionally or legally possible to impeach the federal
AG? Holder seems to be an even bigger frontbottom than John Asscraft was).

[Jessica]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 06:22:31 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:

> You haven't misunderstood: that's what's happening. One of her caucus
> will now resign their newly-won seat so that there can be a by-election;
> it's happened before. The most likely sacrificial victim is the MLA for
> this constituency (isn't it you lot who have ridings?), which gives me
> another chance to vote against her. But it won't work; this constituency
> has always voted Liberal both Provincially and Federally, including
> those distant times when the Provincial Liberals were called the
> Socreds.

Now's the time for the NDP to pull out all the Liberals' dirty tricks and
use them against their masters. The Fiberals have so many scandals to mine
that the NDP has loads of ammunition to use against Premier Photo-Op.

[Chris Zakes]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 16:45:09 +0100, an orbital mind-control laser
caused Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> to write:

>On 15/05/2013 23:35, Chris Zakes wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 May 2013 08:48:09 -0700, an orbital mind-control laser
>> caused Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> to write:
>>
>>> So BC now has our first elected female Premier. Yay. Unfortunately, she
>>> leads a party that for some reason calls itself the Liberals, even
>>> though they are one of the more illiberal regimes of the civilised
>>> world, and they now have a larger majority than they did before the
>>> election. She lost her own seat, so she may well be the first and last
>>> elected female Premier.
>>>
>>> It's rather odd, too. In polls right up to election day, a comfortable
>>> majority of those polled said they were going to vote NDP. But when they
>>> got to the voting booth, all of them except me had some kind of epiphany
>>> and suddenly voted Liberal.
>>>
>>> Oh well, at least she's not Campbell.
>>>
>>> Lesley.
>>
>> Sloppy polling methodology? Her opponent was even worse?
>>
>> Maybe it was something like President Obama's election: People didn't
>> want to appear sexist so they voted for her even though they disagreed
>> with her politics.
>>
>
>Ah, the 'Obama was only elected because enough people were guilt-tripped
>into not voting against him' ploy.

It's the mirror image of "If you don't vote for him/support his
policies, it's becauswe you're a racist, not because you might
legitimately disagree with him."

>Does anyone who holds to that view ever consider the possibility that -
>in the face of opponents who were, in succession, psychologically
>unstable and bumptiously arrogant - that people might have thought Obama
>was the less-worse choice anyway?
>
>Not, of course, that it has made much difference to USAnia's poor, its
>foreclosed-upon, or the increasing number of people held for longer and
>longer terms in the world's largest prison-industrial complex
>(http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/15/but-prison-is-so-us/) or who
>turn non-violent direct action protestors into 'turrrrists'
>(http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/15/how-the-us-turned-three-pacifists-into-violent-terrorists/).
>
>(BTW, is it constitutionally or legally possible to impeach the federal
>AG? Holder seems to be an even bigger frontbottom than John Asscraft was).

I think so. If you can impeach the President, you certainly ought to
be able to impeach his underlings.

A bit of googling says that it's been attempted before, but never
successfully.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_investigations_of_United_States_federal_officials#Griffin_Bell_--_Attorney_General_of_the_United_States

[Paul Jamison]

"Walter Bushell" <pr...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:proto-7F768F....@news.panix.com...

> In article <kn1niq$7qr$1...@dont-email.me>,
> "Paul Jamison" <pjam...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> That wasn't true for some people in the states. I voted for President
>> Obama
>> for two reasons:
>>
>> - I agree with his politics.
>
> The politics he campaigns on, or the ones he carries out? <SIGH>
>>

That's not so easy to gauge, since just about anything he tries to carry out
is blocked by the Republicans. Or at least by the loudest Republicans.

Paul

[Nigel Stapley]

Who need Republicans when you have the Congressional Decombrats (1)?

(1) A tyop, but appropriate.

[Lesley Weston]

That's true. But I still admire Dix for sticking to his promise that he
wouldn't use attack ads, even though it did cost him the election. As
you point out, Our Once-and-Future Replacement Glorious Leader is
prettier than he is, but I don't think that's really a qualification for
the job; let's hope the voters of whatever riding is chosen agree with us.

[Lesley Weston]

You do, sadly. But you don't have to call him Conservative any more:
he's left the Tory caucus. I think this is supposed to somehow defuse
the righteous wrath against him, but I don't think it's going to work.
We want him and all the others [1] out of the Senate and off our payroll.

[1] Pamela Wallin next. What is it with journalists-turned-sinecure-holders?

[larry]

As hack appointments go, newsreaders are preferable to the usual
political bagmen. I'll leave it to your leisure to play with the list
but Romeo Dallaire is the only one who's virtue recommends him on first
reading of the list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_Canadian_senators_by_age

[larry]

Well spotted on the Pamela Wallin - while she worked as a journalist she
was moonlighting as a Conservative bagman; it suits my prejudices that
she would be found out to be a player when she was given a chance.

[Lesley Weston]

Until they get careless about hiding their theft. I guess anchorpeople
don't have the experience in such criminal activities that political
timewasters do.

> I'll leave it to your leisure to play with the list
> but Romeo Dallaire is the only one who's virtue recommends him on first
> reading of the list.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_Canadian_senators_by_age
>

Dallaire for sure. Most of the others I've never heard of.

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article, <kn19te$jb1$1...@dont-email.me>,
m...@privacy.net "Jessica" enquired:
> ppint. at pplay wrote:
>>[ted heath] was later famously knifed in the back [by thatcher]

>
>So standard operating procedure for Tories then? It certainly describes
>our brand of Tory here in the Great White North.

- she appears to've made it so; previously, i believe most
tory party leaders were replaced after they'd resigned - or
died of causes considered natural by non-tory politicians.

- love, ppint.
[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--

"No creature without tentacles had ever developed true intelligence."
- "Hunting Problem" Robert Sheckley

[Larry Moore]

First woman elected to provincial premiership - Catherine Colbert - will
be hitting the Senate age limit of 75 next year.

--
. “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off
every once in a while, or the light won't come in.”
― Isaac Asimov

[Walter Bushell]

In article <knebqt$lbt$1...@dont-email.me>,

Larry Moore <sshirley...@gmail.com> wrote:

> First woman elected to provincial premiership - Catherine Colbert - will
> be hitting the Senate age limit of 75 next year.

You have to be 75 to be in the Senate. Sounds about right, one does
not reach maturity until around 70 anyways and Senator means old man.

And more important at 70 one knows ones time on the planet is finite
and very limited so one has the maximum push towards abandoning
personal goals and can work for the betterment of society as a whole.

[GaryN]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in

news:proto-5D8C5E....@news.panix.com:

> In article <knebqt$lbt$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Larry Moore <sshirley...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> First woman elected to provincial premiership - Catherine Colbert -
>> will be hitting the Senate age limit of 75 next year.
>
> You have to be 75 to be in the Senate. Sounds about right, one does
> not reach maturity until around 70 anyways and Senator means old man.
>
> And more important at 70 one knows ones time on the planet is finite
> and very limited so one has the maximum push towards abandoning
> personal goals and can work for the betterment of society as a whole.
>

That would be one theory. Another would be that you are obsessed with
living forever and push for funding to be poured into geriatric
medicine, cloning and prosthetics. Yet another would be that you follow
the Wizardly route and just party with the country's money until you pop
your clogs, leaving a little note for your descendents - "There's no
money left, HaHa"

gary

--
"I feel sorry for Obama.
It must be terrible trying to govern a country where people think that
facts are the work of the Devil"

Andy Hamilton on 'Have I Got News For You'

[larry]

On Mon, 20 May 2013 22:58:13 -0400, Walter Bushell wrote:

> In article <knebqt$lbt$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Larry Moore <sshirley...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> First woman elected to provincial premiership - Catherine Colbert -
>> will be hitting the Senate age limit of 75 next year.
>
> You have to be 75 to be in the Senate. Sounds about right, one does not
> reach maturity until around 70 anyways and Senator means old man.
>
> And more important at 70 one knows ones time on the planet is finite and
> very limited so one has the maximum push towards abandoning personal
> goals and can work for the betterment of society as a whole.

For the rare person, but it's more likely that they would use their
power to ensure their family; class of potential partners and mates for
their family (the Patrician class;) and their race and nation got
preferential access to what loot remains as the empire decays.

[Lesley Weston]

Now that Harper's Chief of Staff, the man who gave the first-discovered
thief the money to "pay back" what he had stolen, has resigned, I can't
wait to see who's next. If we're left with nothing but Liberal Senators,
will that actually be an improvement? Though of course it's not all that
likely that the entire Liberal Caucus has managed not to succumb to the
temptation of such easy pickings, especially in view of the nature of
the scandals that destroyed their party this most recent time.

I wonder if any of them, from either side, has built a rococo shelter
for the ducks living on the lake on their estate and charged it to us?

[Lesley Weston]

And now Harper says that he has asked the Supreme Court to rule on
whether he can just abolish the Senate altogether. Sounds like a plan.
They're not elected and they're not peers (so there's no tradition to
observe), they're just people who did a ruling party a favour. Their
reward is that they draw enormous salaries, and after just a few years
equally enormous pensions for life, for doing nothing at all. And that's
just the honest ones, if there are any.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <knfsbe$7bh$1...@dont-email.me>, larry <ljm...@wightman.ca>
wrote:

And this makes them different from younger people, how? Anyway, it's
an elected position to an upper house which is to slow things down.

[larry]

As long as the members are selected by a 'first past the post' method, it
won't make a difference.

[larry]

Theoretically, now that the mandatory retirement age for Senators is 75,
all he has to do is fail to appoint senators until the chamber is
vacated by superannuation. I think the Supreme Court will name a list of
stakeholders who will have to sign off on a constitutional change like
eliminating the Senate. I doubt that the Commons can eliminate the Other
Place without provincial approvals.

[Jessica]

On Wed, 22 May 2013 17:30:04 +0000, larry wrote:

> Theoretically, now that the mandatory retirement age for Senators is 75,
> all he has to do is fail to appoint senators until the chamber is
> vacated by superannuation. I think the Supreme Court will name a list of
> stakeholders who will have to sign off on a constitutional change like
> eliminating the Senate. I doubt that the Commons can eliminate the Other
> Place without provincial approvals.

Getting rid of impediments to his power is one of Harper's fondest dreams.
This means that however inefficient and riddled with incompetence it may
be, the Senate is something we desperately need.

[larry]

Harper is a typical executive of any large organization in this. It is
compounded by his being a man of belief, and is certain that there is no
wise opposition to his goals.

I like the idea of having a 'chamber of sober second thought' but I don't
think it's members should be elected by 'first past the post' nor should
they be appointed by the prime minister's office.

I would like to have the seats filled by the political parties (unelected
candidates ranked by votes received, perhaps,) sufficient to make the
Houses of Parliament representative of the actual votes cast - it is
ridiculous that a third of the voters could elect a 'majority'
government.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-22-13 10:30 AM, larry wrote:
> On Wed, 22 May 2013 07:10:36 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:

<snip>

>> And now Harper says that he has asked the Supreme Court to rule on
>> whether he can just abolish the Senate altogether. Sounds like a plan.
>> They're not elected and they're not peers (so there's no tradition to
>> observe), they're just people who did a ruling party a favour. Their
>> reward is that they draw enormous salaries, and after just a few years
>> equally enormous pensions for life, for doing nothing at all. And that's
>> just the honest ones, if there are any.
>>
>> Lesley.
>
> Theoretically, now that the mandatory retirement age for Senators is 75,
> all he has to do is fail to appoint senators until the chamber is
> vacated by superannuation. I think the Supreme Court will name a list of
> stakeholders who will have to sign off on a constitutional change like
> eliminating the Senate. I doubt that the Commons can eliminate the Other
> Place without provincial approvals.
>

Those might not be too difficult to get.

[Lesley Weston]

It's not just inefficient, it's completely ineffective in every way
including curbing Harper, and designed to be so. There's no point to it,
and in these hard times we could use all that money to far better purpose.

Now if it were reformed to become a fully-elected upper house and to
have real powers, there might be some point to it, though the need for
it would still be debatable.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-23-13 5:25 AM, larry wrote:
> On Wed, 22 May 2013 18:31:45 +0000, Jessica wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 22 May 2013 17:30:04 +0000, larry wrote:
>>
>>> Theoretically, now that the mandatory retirement age for Senators is
>>> 75,
>>> all he has to do is fail to appoint senators until the chamber is
>>> vacated by superannuation. I think the Supreme Court will name a list
>>> of stakeholders who will have to sign off on a constitutional change
>>> like eliminating the Senate. I doubt that the Commons can eliminate the
>>> Other Place without provincial approvals.
>>
>> Getting rid of impediments to his power is one of Harper's fondest
>> dreams.
>> This means that however inefficient and riddled with incompetence it may
>> be, the Senate is something we desperately need.
>
> Harper is a typical executive of any large organization in this. It is
> compounded by his being a man of belief, and is certain that there is no
> wise opposition to his goals.
>
> I like the idea of having a 'chamber of sober second thought' but I don't
> think it's members should be elected by 'first past the post'

Oh I do! Anything else will give us the situation Israel suffers, where
crazy legislation gets through because loony minorities' votes have to
be included, and real work can't be done because they have to debate
religious stuff.

nor should
> they be appointed by the prime minister's office.

With you on that one.

>
> I would like to have the seats filled by the political parties (unelected
> candidates ranked by votes received, perhaps,) sufficient to make the
> Houses of Parliament representative of the actual votes cast - it is
> ridiculous that a third of the voters could elect a 'majority'
> government.
>

That can be done by not having ridings or constituencies. The whole
population votes on the whole lot, yea or nay for each one, and the 105
seats (why 105?) go to the 105 people with the highest scores. Parties
should be irrelevant in an upper house, at least in terms of who gets
elected.

[Lesley Weston]

They're not elected, whatever their age. It's a grace-and-favour
appointment given as a highly-lucrative reward to people who have done
some kind of favour for whichever party is in power at the time. It does
seem that the purpose of Canada's Senate is to slow things down, as you
say, but they don't do even that effectively.

[Lesley Weston]

Purely by coincidence, I'm sure, /22 Minutes/ posted this on Facebook today:

http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/videos/marg-princess-warrior-senate-ambush.html

or http://tinyurl.com/q4xxctp

Mary Walsh really ought to be doing more stuff, I miss her.

[Alec Cawley]

Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On 05-23-13 5:25 AM, larry wrote:
>> On Wed, 22 May 2013 18:31:45 +0000, Jessica wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 22 May 2013 17:30:04 +0000, larry wrote:
>>>
>>>> Theoretically, now that the mandatory retirement age for Senators is
>>>> 75,
>>>> all he has to do is fail to appoint senators until the chamber is
>>>> vacated by superannuation. I think the Supreme Court will name a list
>>>> of stakeholders who will have to sign off on a constitutional change
>>>> like eliminating the Senate. I doubt that the Commons can eliminate the
>>>> Other Place without provincial approvals.
>>>
>>> Getting rid of impediments to his power is one of Harper's fondest
>>> dreams.
>>> This means that however inefficient and riddled with incompetence it may
>>> be, the Senate is something we desperately need.
>>
>> Harper is a typical executive of any large organization in this. It is
>> compounded by his being a man of belief, and is certain that there is no
>> wise opposition to his goals.
>>
>> I like the idea of having a 'chamber of sober second thought' but I don't
>> think it's members should be elected by 'first past the post'
>
> Oh I do! Anything else will give us the situation Israel suffers, where
> crazy legislation gets through because loony minorities' votes have to be
> included, and real work can't be done because they have to debate religious stuff.

That is a pretty wild generalisation. Anything that is not A must be Z. How
about a system where "good" organisations, such as the medical colleges or
equivalent, major charities, major professional organisations etc. each
nominate one representative, probably a past CEO or similar, for a single
non renewable term of reasonable length. The objective being to get, as
appropriate for a Senate, a collection of wise grayhairs with not futher
political ambitions who know a lot aout something. How can this be captured
by religious minorities?

This is only one of a hundred way a Senate could be appointed. But I agree
that a collection of the PMs friends, as we have in both Canada and the UK,
is in no way a good idea.

[Lesley Weston]

There may well be a possible system that is effective and doesn't use
first-past-the-post, but I can't think of any.

> How
> about a system where "good" organisations, such as the medical colleges or
> equivalent, major charities, major professional organisations etc. each
> nominate one representative, probably a past CEO or similar, for a single
> non renewable term of reasonable length. The objective being to get, as
> appropriate for a Senate, a collection of wise grayhairs with not futher
> political ambitions who know a lot aout something. How can this be captured
> by religious minorities?

Plenty of allegedly-wise people subscribe to one or other religion, some
of them over-enthusiastically, so I don't think that would provide much
protection. Anyway, who decides what a "good" organisation is? And as
far as everybody but the members of that person's professional group is
concerned, they're still not elected.

As to no political ambitions, how did they get to be CEO in the first
place? And are they likely to have changed their spots now that the
people who gave them their first taste of power have told them they're
too old to enjoy it any further, when they clearly don't agree? I don't
know much about business politics, but I've seen plenty of the politics
of universities and medical/dental professional organisations in action;
they make Ottawa/Westminster/wherever look like amateurs.

[Alec Cawley]

Each individual organisation, and hence appointee, will bring his or her
own bias - as is the case with elected politicians. I was particularly
referring to electoral politics, and the particular evil it brings in
having to appeal to a mass electorate. They may well have campaigned in
their departmental politics - but they will be in a very different
environment. They will be having to deal with a group that they have never
met before, with very different backgrounds.

I have no illusions that such a body would be perfect - but then no such
body can be. But it would bring together a number of people of alleged
wisdom, some of whom might actually posses that commodity. And coming from
very diverse backgrounds, they will not have pre-forged alliances and
existing commitments - or at least, not too many.

You have to ask what you want from a revising "upper house". You have
already covered geographical representation in the lower house. Having a
second geographically elected house seems to me to be mere duplication -
what can two near-identical houses do that a single house does not. A
common idea, and one of which I approve, is a slowing and revising house.
Less powerful than the directly elected house, so the will of the people
can be forced though if they are determined. But mainly you want variety
and depth of experience, and a lack of hot headedness. You want a house
which says "but have you thought..." - a house of older people (senex in
Latin) or a Senate. It seems to me that your proposal for direct elections
just duplicates the lower house, which is a simple waste of money. Just
have a unicameral legislature, like New Zealand. But if you want a
bicameral legislature, make the second house distinctive, and focus on the
end of the house you want not the means of selecting it.

[larry]

On Thu, 23 May 2013 08:06:18 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:

> On 05-23-13 5:25 AM, larry wrote:
>> On Wed, 22 May 2013 18:31:45 +0000, Jessica wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 22 May 2013 17:30:04 +0000, larry wrote:
>>>
>>>> Theoretically, now that the mandatory retirement age for Senators is
>>>> 75,
>>>> all he has to do is fail to appoint senators until the chamber is
>>>> vacated by superannuation. I think the Supreme Court will name a list
>>>> of stakeholders who will have to sign off on a constitutional change
>>>> like eliminating the Senate. I doubt that the Commons can eliminate
>>>> the Other Place without provincial approvals.
>>>
>>> Getting rid of impediments to his power is one of Harper's fondest
>>> dreams.
>>> This means that however inefficient and riddled with incompetence it
>>> may be, the Senate is something we desperately need.
>>
>> Harper is a typical executive of any large organization in this. It is
>> compounded by his being a man of belief, and is certain that there is
>> no wise opposition to his goals.
>>
>> I like the idea of having a 'chamber of sober second thought' but I
>> don't think it's members should be elected by 'first past the post'
>
> Oh I do! Anything else will give us the situation Israel suffers, where
> crazy legislation gets through because loony minorities' votes have to
> be included, and real work can't be done because they have to debate
> religious stuff.
>

I ran the Ridings elected and percentage of popular vote for the 2011
through the scenario (below) ... keeping the Senate at 105 seats,
there would be 20 Bloc, 15 Green Party, 44 Lib, 23 N.D.P. and three
Other_Parties senators but even with *no* Conservatives in the Senate,
they would still have two surplus seats for the number of people who
voted for them.

Many aspect of the last ten years' Government could be described as both
loony minorities and crazy legislation so it's not unique to Israel. The
GDR has a PR electoral scheme and they seem to make it yield good
government.

> nor should
>> they be appointed by the prime minister's office.
>
> With you on that one.
>>
>> I would like to have the seats filled by the political parties
>> (unelected candidates ranked by votes received, perhaps,) sufficient to
>> make the Houses of Parliament representative of the actual votes cast -
>> it is ridiculous that a third of the voters could elect a 'majority'
>> government.
>>
> That can be done by not having ridings or constituencies. The whole
> population votes on the whole lot, yea or nay for each one, and the 105
> seats (why 105?) go to the 105 people with the highest scores. Parties
> should be irrelevant in an upper house, at least in terms of who gets
> elected.
>
> Lesley.

The 105 deepest pockets?

[larry]

To quote the old Greek proverb: Take what you like and pay for it.

I'm sure provincial cooperation is purchasable - as was their agreement
to the Meech Lake Accord but perhaps at a higher price.

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article, <knorrf$qgg$1...@dont-email.me>,
ljm...@wightman.ca "larry" revealed:

>
>Many aspect of the last ten years' Government could be described as both
>loony minorities and crazy legislation so it's not unique to Israel. The
>GDR has a PR electoral scheme and they seem to make it yield good government.

^^^
- somehow, somewhere, the _ddr_ is still going? - & _reformed_?

- love, a ppint. reflecting the dbr never claimed to be demokratische

[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--

"Vienna is in Austria, where they have great mountains, but no kangaroos."
- Erilar, the biblioholic medievalist,
on rec.arts.sf.written and alt.folklore.urban
16:56:58 gmt (10:56:58 locally) 1/12/09 (12/1/09 for merkins)

[Lesley Weston]

But that's exactly what it should be doing. There are valid arguments in
support of a benevolent dictatorship, but they're outweighed by the
arguments supporting democracy. I don't think any arguments in support
of an oligarchy are valid, including yours below.

Supporting democracy means supporting votes for everybody, even though
that might result in a majority for the side one doesn't favour.
Limiting the franchise to any one group alone, whatever the criteria
used in selecting that group, is not democracy.

> They may well have campaigned in
> their departmental politics - but they will be in a very different
> environment. They will be having to deal with a group that they have never
> met before, with very different backgrounds.

So they are when they start politicking their way up the career
structure of their university, or campaigning to run the affairs and
finances of their professional organisation. They soon catch on.

>
> I have no illusions that such a body would be perfect - but then no such
> body can be. But it would bring together a number of people of alleged
> wisdom, some of whom might actually posses that commodity.

While ignoring the far larger number of people who might well meet or
exceed that level of wisdom, but who don't meet the selection criteria
for that group or even to have a vote.

> And coming from
> very diverse backgrounds, they will not have pre-forged alliances and
> existing commitments - or at least, not too many.

They'll have the same number as anyone else. As with any group of
people, the strongest personalities will dominate the rest by various
means including forming alliances, and the whole group will go in the
direction chosen by these strong people. That's so however the group is
chosen.

>
> You have to ask what you want from a revising "upper house". You have
> already covered geographical representation in the lower house. Having a
> second geographically elected house seems to me to be mere duplication -
> what can two near-identical houses do that a single house does not.

I agree. I suggested earlier that voting for an upper house should be
done by the whole adult population of the entire country voting on the
whole list of candidates with no ridings or constituencies at all, so
geography doesn't come into it. The required number of seats in the
Senate (105 in Canada) would be filled by that number of people who came
top in the scoring, with no secondary vote-shuffling or any other
complication. If that means that the entire Senate comes from
Newfoundland or Quebec then that's what the people of Canada want, but
it's not all that likely.

> A
> common idea, and one of which I approve, is a slowing and revising house.
> Less powerful than the directly elected house, so the will of the people
> can be forced though if they are determined. But mainly you want variety
> and depth of experience, and a lack of hot headedness. You want a house
> which says "but have you thought..." - a house of older people (senex in
> Latin) or a Senate.

Indeed. That can be managed by having a lower age limit for candidates
as well as an upper limit, and by reducing the salary to the national
average less whatever state and private pensions they are receiving,
with no perks or expenses of any kind. If you want an upper house at all.

> It seems to me that your proposal for direct elections
> just duplicates the lower house, which is a simple waste of money.

See above.

> Just
> have a unicameral legislature, like New Zealand. But if you want a
> bicameral legislature, make the second house distinctive, and focus on the
> end of the house you want not the means of selecting it.
>

The means determine the end.

[Lesley Weston]

My idea is that parties would be irrelevant in an upper house: the
population would have elected the /individuals/ they prefer. I keep
hearing people saying that they "vote for the person, not the party"
under the present system. They seem to be unable to grasp that in this
context a person /is/ their party, so a vote for the Tory candidate in
their riding, however marvellous (s)he may be, is a vote for Harper.
Running an upper-house election as I describe in another post would
ensure that people really are voting for a person, not a party.

>
> Many aspect of the last ten years' Government could be described as both
> loony minorities and crazy legislation so it's not unique to Israel. The
> GDR has a PR electoral scheme and they seem to make it yield good
> government.

That's true. It's an argument against minority governments in general,
not just the type we had in Canada for a while before Harper won his
majority in 2011. Any kind of proportional representation must lead to a
minority government.

>
>> nor should
>>> they be appointed by the prime minister's office.
>>
>> With you on that one.
>>>
>>> I would like to have the seats filled by the political parties
>>> (unelected candidates ranked by votes received, perhaps,) sufficient to
>>> make the Houses of Parliament representative of the actual votes cast -
>>> it is ridiculous that a third of the voters could elect a 'majority'
>>> government.
>>>
>> That can be done by not having ridings or constituencies. The whole
>> population votes on the whole lot, yea or nay for each one, and the 105
>> seats (why 105?) go to the 105 people with the highest scores. Parties
>> should be irrelevant in an upper house, at least in terms of who gets
>> elected.
>>
>> Lesley.
>
> The 105 deepest pockets?
>
>

No, that's the situation now.

[Free Lunch]

On Sat, 25 May 2013 08:06:54 -0700, Lesley Weston
<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:

As long as there is a party system, I don't see how that gets abolished.
Nebraska has a unicameral legislature with no formal party structures,
yet it still looks like a party system.

>> Many aspect of the last ten years' Government could be described as both
>> loony minorities and crazy legislation so it's not unique to Israel. The
>> GDR has a PR electoral scheme and they seem to make it yield good
>> government.
>
>That's true. It's an argument against minority governments in general,
>not just the type we had in Canada for a while before Harper won his
>majority in 2011. Any kind of proportional representation must lead to a
>minority government.

I prefer representative governments to have multiseat ridings and
runoffs (instant preferred). It has some of the benefits of PR without
the risk of having minority governments all the time.

[Alec Cawley]

Since I would give primacy to an elected house, my proposal is not an
oligarchy. The elected house could always override, after suitable
protocols. It is essentially an advisory house, a Council of Elders
designed to slow rash legislation, and possibly to do some of the
uncontroversial background legislation, giving elected politicians more
time to consider the divisive points,

>> They may well have campaigned in
>> their departmental politics - but they will be in a very different
>> environment. They will be having to deal with a group that they have never
>> met before, with very different backgrounds.
>
> So they are when they start politicking their way up the career structure
> of their university, or campaigning to run the affairs and finances of
> their professional organisation. They soon catch on.
>>
>> I have no illusions that such a body would be perfect - but then no such
>> body can be. But it would bring together a number of people of alleged
>> wisdom, some of whom might actually posses that commodity.
>
> While ignoring the far larger number of people who might well meet or
> exceed that level of wisdom, but who don't meet the selection criteria
> for that group or even to have a vote.

If you have a way of finding and persuading to serve such even-wiser
people, tell us. I suggest that my method is a good one pending the
appearance of an even better one. I think you are letting the best be the
enemy of the good: because the proposed solution, though better, is not
perfect, we must carry on using the old solution, however imperfect.

>
>> And coming from
>> very diverse backgrounds, they will not have pre-forged alliances and
>> existing commitments - or at least, not too many.
>
> They'll have the same number as anyone else. As with any group of people,
> the strongest personalities will dominate the rest by various means
> including forming alliances, and the whole group will go in the direction
> chosen by these strong people. That's so however the group is chosen.

No. The current system ensures that people are pre-grouped into political
parties. And the vicissitudes of electoral politics mean that certain
professions are disproportionately represented: landowners, union
officials, lawyers (especially barrister types), actors. And those I
propose would, by having achieved high positions in their various
organisations, be strong people. In fact, an argument against would be that
so many strong people might be unable to achieve consensus, let alone
alliance.

>>
>> You have to ask what you want from a revising "upper house". You have
>> already covered geographical representation in the lower house. Having a
>> second geographically elected house seems to me to be mere duplication -
>> what can two near-identical houses do that a single house does not.
>
> I agree. I suggested earlier that voting for an upper house should be
> done by the whole adult population of the entire country voting on the
> whole list of candidates with no ridings or constituencies at all, so
> geography doesn't come into it. The required number of seats in the
> Senate (105 in Canada) would be filled by that number of people who came
> top in the scoring, with no secondary vote-shuffling or any other
> complication. If that means that the entire Senate comes from
> Newfoundland or Quebec then that's what the people of Canada want, but
> it's not all that likely.
>

With or without party lists? With party lists, see Israel - that is their
system, with defects you have already pointed out. Without party lists,
rule by celebrity. People will vote for the names they know, and the few
politicians who have name recognition have it only because they are already
leaders in the other house. You end up with a house full of athletes and
actors.

And do not think that because people voted for it, that means it is what
they want. It has been mathematically proved that no known voting system
can be free from perverse effects, such as where the majority vote is split
between several good candidates and an extremist candidate liked by few
comes top. See the French Presidential election where the right vote split
between centre right and right, and the runoff was between left and the
Front National.

Suppose in your scheme, all sensible voters decided that women were
underrepresented, so they would vote for the most sensible woman
candidate., all 75% of them. The 5% of mysogynists split they vote amongst
male candidate, and the 20% who were not sensible for other reasons split
their votes in a gender neutral manner. Result: a house entirely or almost
entirely women. But few if any wanted that. They wanted a roughly even
split, but with one vote they cannot express that subtlety.

>> A
>> common idea, and one of which I approve, is a slowing and revising house.
>> Less powerful than the directly elected house, so the will of the people
>> can be forced though if they are determined. But mainly you want variety
>> and depth of experience, and a lack of hot headedness. You want a house
>> which says "but have you thought..." - a house of older people (senex in
>> Latin) or a Senate.
>
> Indeed. That can be managed by having a lower age limit for candidates as
> well as an upper limit, and by reducing the salary to the national
> average less whatever state and private pensions they are receiving, with
> no perks or expenses of any kind. If you want an upper house at all.
>
>> It seems to me that your proposal for direct elections
>> just duplicates the lower house, which is a simple waste of money.
>
> See above.
>
>> Just
>> have a unicameral legislature, like New Zealand. But if you want a
>> bicameral legislature, make the second house distinctive, and focus on the
>> end of the house you want not the means of selecting it.
>>
> The means determine the end.

A very totalitarian system, which assumes that unintended consequences are
absolutely impossible. This was the theory behind the atrocities of Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. The means was Communism, which was good, and
therefore any ends that come from that means must themselves be good. I
strongly disagree. The ends must be decided on, and stuck to. Means to
achieve those ends may then be selected, but you must constantly return to
see of they are actually delivering the ends you originally decided on.
Particularly, unintended consequences must be watched for.

And remember that in a voting system, each individual voter is trying to
game the system, but does not know what all the other voters are going to
choose - indeed, probably has an incorrect opinion biased by the media and
a few neighbours. Tactical and protest voting are normal.

[Alec Cawley]

The problem with that some complexity of government. If it were genuinely
achievable, each candidate would offer a small number of headline points to
which they would commit - probably no more than three or four. People who
agreed with them on these points would vote for them, and on these points
they would vote as promised. The problem is that on any other points than
their headline ones, they would be effectively a loose cannon. Even if they
had declared their position, it is unlikely the voters would have checked
down to the fifteenth proposition. So they would be willing to trade their
parliamentary votes on subjects upon which they did not feel strongly for
support on their headline issues saying, quite correctly, that they had a
manifesto commitment to those issues. So the horse trading which occurs in
parties before an election, and results in a published party manifesto,
would occur behind closed doors after the election. Parties are needed to
draw up a common platform across the whole of our complex society. If you
vote /only/ for the person, single issue candidates will dominate because
they home across better than balanced moderates. And a hous of single issue
candidates is unpredictable.

[larry]

On Sat, 25 May 2013 01:27:37 +0100, ppint. at pplay wrote:

> - hi; in article, <knorrf$qgg$1...@dont-email.me>,
> ljm...@wightman.ca "larry" revealed:
>>
>>Many aspect of the last ten years' Government could be described as both
>>loony minorities and crazy legislation so it's not unique to Israel. The
>>GDR has a PR electoral scheme and they seem to make it yield good
>>government.
> ^^^
> - somehow, somewhere, the _ddr_ is still going? - & _reformed_?
>
> - love, a ppint. reflecting the dbr never claimed to be
demokratische
> [drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]

Seen one Workers' Paradise, seen them all ... :-)

I was of course referring to the Bundesrepublik Deutschland, which is not
a Workers' Paradise.

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<691743119391193002.171...@news.individual.net>,

Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote:

> Suppose in your scheme, all sensible voters decided that women were
> underrepresented, so they would vote for the most sensible woman
> candidate., all 75% of them. The 5% of mysogynists split they vote amongst
> male candidate, and the 20% who were not sensible for other reasons split
> their votes in a gender neutral manner. Result: a house entirely or almost
> entirely women. But few if any wanted that. They wanted a roughly even
> split, but with one vote they cannot express that subtlety.

But hey a representative house of all women might just be what is
needed to offset the long rule by mainly male members[1].


[1] Male members is not to be read as "pricks" so if you read it that
way belie that interpretation.

[Alec Cawley]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article
> <691743119391193002.171...@news.individual.net>,
> Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Suppose in your scheme, all sensible voters decided that women were
>> underrepresented, so they would vote for the most sensible woman
>> candidate., all 75% of them. The 5% of mysogynists split they vote amongst
>> male candidate, and the 20% who were not sensible for other reasons split
>> their votes in a gender neutral manner. Result: a house entirely or almost
>> entirely women. But few if any wanted that. They wanted a roughly even
>> split, but with one vote they cannot express that subtlety.
>
> But hey a representative house of all women might just be what is
> needed to offset the long rule by mainly male members[1].
>

I am not saying it would be wrong. I can agree that after centuries of
male dominated legislatures it might be a good thing to have female
dominated legislatures for a few decades. But I am saying that it is not
what the people, in my hypothetical example, wanted.

The idea that "what the people voted for" and "what the people wanted" have
more than the loosest correlation is one that, to my mind, requires
convincing proof. My on view is that, on a good day, they are in the same
ballpark - which is better than we often achieve.

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article, <knqstn$qho$1...@dont-email.me>,
ljm...@wightman.ca "larry" claimed:

> ppint. at pplay wrote:
>> ljm...@wightman.ca "larry" revealed:
>>>Many aspect of the last ten years' Government could be described as both
>>>loony minorities and crazy legislation so it's not unique to Israel. The
>>>GDR has a PR electoral scheme and they seem to make it yield good government.
>> ^^^
>> - somehow, somewhere, the _ddr_ is still going? - & _reformed_?
>>
>> - love, a ppint. reflecting the dbr never claimed to be demokratische
>

>Seen one Workers' Paradise, seen them all ... :-)
>I was of course referring to the Bundesrepublik Deutschland,
>which is not a Workers' Paradise.

- gdr, the german democratic republic
= deutsche demokratische republik, ddr
(formerly often referred to in english as east germany);

- the german federal republic
= deutsche bundesrepublik, dbr
(formerly often referred to in english as west germany).

- berlin's position remained a legal ambiguity for quite
a while, possibly unregularised until reunification.

- hth, hand - tdwsc!

- love, a ppint. as mayn't've seen a workers' republic,
but has seen a number of workers' co-operatives, and
set up one that is still, somewhat altered, in existence
(i no longer any connexion with it, save as a customer)

[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]

--
"in a well-governed country, poverty is something to be ashamed of;
in a poorly-governed country, wealth is something to be ashamed of."
- attrib. confucius [ref. needed for quote]

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<226528457391214119.907...@news.individual.net>,

Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote:

> I am not saying it would be wrong. I can agree that after centuries of
> male dominated legislatures it might be a good thing to have female
> dominated legislatures for a few decades. But I am saying that it is not
> what the people, in my hypothetical example, wanted.
>
> The idea that "what the people voted for" and "what the people wanted" have
> more than the loosest correlation is one that, to my mind, requires
> convincing proof. My on view is that, on a good day, they are in the same
> ballpark - which is better than we often achieve.
>

Somehow we usually get a choice between bad and worse.

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<226528457391214119.907...@news.individual.net>,

Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote:

> The idea that "what the people voted for" and "what the people wanted" have
> more than the loosest correlation is one that, to my mind, requires
> convincing proof. My on view is that, on a good day, they are in the same
> ballpark - which is better than we often achieve.

Hey, I thought people mostly voted against, and still got most of what
they didn't want.

[Larry Moore]

On 2013-05-25, Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> That's true. It's an argument against minority governments in general,
> not just the type we had in Canada for a while before Harper won his
> majority in 2011. Any kind of proportional representation must lead to a
> minority government.
>

I OTOH, don't mind parliamentary minority government - though it
requires the parties to respect and compromise. Those who don't consider
any opinion but their own to be valid, if not demonic, and who refuse to
water their wine find minority challenging. We've had good legislation
come out of minority governments though I'm not sure the reconstituted
Conservative Party is adequate to the challenge.

>>
>>> nor should
>>>> they be appointed by the prime minister's office.
>>>
>>> With you on that one.
>>>>
>>>> I would like to have the seats filled by the political parties
>>>> (unelected candidates ranked by votes received, perhaps,) sufficient to
>>>> make the Houses of Parliament representative of the actual votes cast -
>>>> it is ridiculous that a third of the voters could elect a 'majority'
>>>> government.
>>>>
>>> That can be done by not having ridings or constituencies. The whole
>>> population votes on the whole lot, yea or nay for each one, and the 105
>>> seats (why 105?) go to the 105 people with the highest scores. Parties
>>> should be irrelevant in an upper house, at least in terms of who gets
>>> elected.
>>>
>>> Lesley.
>>
>> The 105 deepest pockets?
>>
>>
> No, that's the situation now.
>
> Lesley.
>

To too great an extent, that's true - not one man, one vote but one
dollar, one vote - the Koch brothers and the Tea Party being just one
example. Perhaps the Senate should be selected like jury members to
{approve | veto} a piece of proposed legislation as part of Second
Reading ... employers would be required to approve leave and one would
only liable for selection once.

The 'first past the post' system allows
parties to game the system so that certain voters have more
say in the formation of government than others. There are better
alternatives to FPTP, which we discussed UG a year or so ago.

--
It takes a special sort of evil to be able to get
Churchill and Stalin to ally
themselves against you.
- 'Free Lunch' AFP

[larry]

On Sat, 25 May 2013 23:37:05 +0100, ppint. at pplay wrote:

> - love, a ppint. as mayn't've seen a workers' republic,
> but has seen a number of workers' co-operatives, and
> set up one that is still, somewhat altered, in existence
> (i no longer any connexion with it, save as a customer)
>
> [drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]

Well done, that.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-25-13 10:06 AM, Alec Cawley wrote:
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 05-24-13 10:40 AM, Alec Cawley wrote:

<snip>

>>> Each individual organisation, and hence appointee, will bring his or her
>>> own bias - as is the case with elected politicians. I was particularly
>>> referring to electoral politics, and the particular evil it brings in
>>> having to appeal to a mass electorate.
>>
>> But that's exactly what it should be doing. There are valid arguments in
>> support of a benevolent dictatorship, but they're outweighed by the
>> arguments supporting democracy. I don't think any arguments in support of
>> an oligarchy are valid, including yours below.
>>
>> Supporting democracy means supporting votes for everybody, even though
>> that might result in a majority for the side one doesn't favour. Limiting
>> the franchise to any one group alone, whatever the criteria used in
>> selecting that group, is not democracy.
>>
>
> Since I would give primacy to an elected house, my proposal is not an
> oligarchy.

It is, just not an oligarchy that makes the final decision.

> The elected house could always override, after suitable
> protocols. It is essentially an advisory house, a Council of Elders
> designed to slow rash legislation, and possibly to do some of the
> uncontroversial background legislation, giving elected politicians more
> time to consider the divisive points,

Actually, I will concede that if the House of Lords had done its job
properly, the bedroom tax would never have come into effect. So the
House of Commons wouldn't have to be performing the frantic
back-pedalling over it that they are doing now, losing credibility (what
little they had before the introduction of the BT) with every exception.
So an effective upper house could have its uses.

>
>
>>> They may well have campaigned in
>>> their departmental politics - but they will be in a very different
>>> environment. They will be having to deal with a group that they have never
>>> met before, with very different backgrounds.
>>
>> So they are when they start politicking their way up the career structure
>> of their university, or campaigning to run the affairs and finances of
>> their professional organisation. They soon catch on.
>>>
>>> I have no illusions that such a body would be perfect - but then no such
>>> body can be. But it would bring together a number of people of alleged
>>> wisdom, some of whom might actually posses that commodity.
>>
>> While ignoring the far larger number of people who might well meet or
>> exceed that level of wisdom, but who don't meet the selection criteria
>> for that group or even to have a vote.
>
> If you have a way of finding and persuading to serve such even-wiser
> people, tell us.

Wisdom is not expressed by the career path: A doctor, lawyer or CEO may
well be equipped to run the country, but it's equally likely that a
garbage collector, labourer or shop-assistant could do the job properly.
Limiting the franchise to people who have chosen and been chosen by a
particular profession rules out the majority of suitable candidates. So
don't limit the pool in any way. Let everybody who wants to run do so,
and let everybody who wants to vote choose the people they want out of
that list.

> I suggest that my method is a good one pending the
> appearance of an even better one. I think you are letting the best be the
> enemy of the good: because the proposed solution, though better, is not
> perfect, we must carry on using the old solution, however imperfect.

No, I don't want to carry on using the old solution. That's the
appointment by whoever happens to be in power of their friends and
relations to a lucrative sinecure for life, and I'm agin it. I don't
agree that your proposed solution is better (you guessed that?); it just
perpetuates the ascendancy of the privileged few, which is the opposite
of democracy.

>
>>
>>> And coming from
>>> very diverse backgrounds, they will not have pre-forged alliances and
>>> existing commitments - or at least, not too many.
>>
>> They'll have the same number as anyone else. As with any group of people,
>> the strongest personalities will dominate the rest by various means
>> including forming alliances, and the whole group will go in the direction
>> chosen by these strong people. That's so however the group is chosen.
>
> No. The current system ensures that people are pre-grouped into political
> parties.

Which is one reason to abandon it.

> And the vicissitudes of electoral politics mean that certain
> professions are disproportionately represented: landowners, union
> officials, lawyers (especially barrister types), actors.

That too needs changing.

> And those I
> propose would, by having achieved high positions in their various
> organisations, be strong people. In fact, an argument against would be that
> so many strong people might be unable to achieve consensus, let alone
> alliance.

True enough.

>
>>> You have to ask what you want from a revising "upper house". You have
>>> already covered geographical representation in the lower house. Having a
>>> second geographically elected house seems to me to be mere duplication -
>>> what can two near-identical houses do that a single house does not.
>>
>> I agree. I suggested earlier that voting for an upper house should be
>> done by the whole adult population of the entire country voting on the
>> whole list of candidates with no ridings or constituencies at all, so
>> geography doesn't come into it. The required number of seats in the
>> Senate (105 in Canada) would be filled by that number of people who came
>> top in the scoring, with no secondary vote-shuffling or any other
>> complication. If that means that the entire Senate comes from
>> Newfoundland or Quebec then that's what the people of Canada want, but
>> it's not all that likely.
>>
>
> With or without party lists? With party lists, see Israel - that is their
> system, with defects you have already pointed out. Without party lists,
> rule by celebrity. People will vote for the names they know, and the few
> politicians who have name recognition have it only because they are already
> leaders in the other house. You end up with a house full of athletes and
> actors.

Without, of course. If people want a celebrity, then that's what they
should have. Democracy means just that, even if the superior people you
describe above disapprove of the people's choice.

>
> And do not think that because people voted for it, that means it is what
> they want. It has been mathematically proved that no known voting system
> can be free from perverse effects, such as where the majority vote is split
> between several good candidates and an extremist candidate liked by few
> comes top. See the French Presidential election where the right vote split
> between centre right and right, and the runoff was between left and the
> Front National.

It's what the majority want, and that's what defines a democracy: See
Churchill's aphorism. Anarchy works in small societies, but becomes
insurmountably difficult when considering a whole country. A good
compromise is the Swiss system, where everybody votes on every important
issue, but extended to take advantage of modern technology so that all
issues are covered.

>
> Suppose in your scheme, all sensible voters decided that women were
> underrepresented, so they would vote for the most sensible woman
> candidate., all 75% of them. The 5% of mysogynists split they vote amongst
> male candidate, and the 20% who were not sensible for other reasons split
> their votes in a gender neutral manner. Result: a house entirely or almost
> entirely women. But few if any wanted that. They wanted a roughly even
> split, but with one vote they cannot express that subtlety.

That would be avoided by everybody voting for whoever they considered
the most suitable candidates, without considering gender. Each adult in
the country doesn't have just one vote, they have 105 in Canada or 763
(just now) in the UK. Of course, there's no requirement that they use
all their votes.
>
<snip>

>>
>>> Just
>>> have a unicameral legislature, like New Zealand. But if you want a
>>> bicameral legislature, make the second house distinctive, and focus on the
>>> end of the house you want not the means of selecting it.
>>>
>> The means determine the end.
>
> A very totalitarian system, which assumes that unintended consequences are
> absolutely impossible. This was the theory behind the atrocities of Lenin,
> Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. The means was Communism, which was good, and
> therefore any ends that come from that means must themselves be good. I
> strongly disagree.

I said "determine", not "justify", and I put it the other way around. I
once, long, long ago, spoonerised and said "The means justify the end".
Unfortunately, I said it to a law student, and he insisted that I
support my argument. I found that quite difficult, and had to make do
with "Mussolini made the trains run on time", which isn't even true.

By "The means determine the end" I meant that the way you select an
upper house will determine the nature of that house [1], and thus its
activities.

> The ends must be decided on, and stuck to.

Unless circumstances change. Those pesky circumstances do have a nasty
habit of rearranging themselves.

> Means to
> achieve those ends may then be selected, but you must constantly return to
> see of they are actually delivering the ends you originally decided on.
> Particularly, unintended consequences must be watched for.

Of course. See the bedroom tax.

>
> And remember that in a voting system, each individual voter is trying to
> game the system, but does not know what all the other voters are going to
> choose - indeed, probably has an incorrect opinion biased by the media and
> a few neighbours. Tactical and protest voting are normal.

Then that's the way it is: opinions can't be either correct or
incorrect, they're opinions only. Nobody has the right to tell anybody
else "No, that's not what you want. What you really want is what /I/
want, so we'll do it my way".

>
[1] That came out as "hose" originally. "Hosers" seems appropriate when
discussing Canada's Senate.

[Lesley Weston]

Or anybody else's these days.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-25-13 8:10 AM, Free Lunch wrote:
> On Sat, 25 May 2013 08:06:54 -0700, Lesley Weston
> <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:
>
>> On 05-24-13 4:07 PM, larry wrote:

<snip>

>>> I ran the Ridings elected and percentage of popular vote for the 2011
>>> through the scenario (below) ... keeping the Senate at 105 seats,
>>> there would be 20 Bloc, 15 Green Party, 44 Lib, 23 N.D.P. and three
>>> Other_Parties senators but even with *no* Conservatives in the Senate,
>>> they would still have two surplus seats for the number of people who
>>> voted for them.
>>
>> My idea is that parties would be irrelevant in an upper house: the
>> population would have elected the /individuals/ they prefer. I keep
>> hearing people saying that they "vote for the person, not the party"
>> under the present system. They seem to be unable to grasp that in this
>> context a person /is/ their party, so a vote for the Tory candidate in
>> their riding, however marvellous (s)he may be, is a vote for Harper.
>> Running an upper-house election as I describe in another post would
>> ensure that people really are voting for a person, not a party.
>
> As long as there is a party system, I don't see how that gets abolished.
> Nebraska has a unicameral legislature with no formal party structures,
> yet it still looks like a party system.

People will tend to form themselves into groups once elected, but the
alliances will be constantly changing.

>
>>> Many aspect of the last ten years' Government could be described as both
>>> loony minorities and crazy legislation so it's not unique to Israel. The
>>> GDR has a PR electoral scheme and they seem to make it yield good
>>> government.
>>
>> That's true. It's an argument against minority governments in general,
>> not just the type we had in Canada for a while before Harper won his
>> majority in 2011. Any kind of proportional representation must lead to a
>> minority government.
>
> I prefer representative governments to have multiseat ridings and
> runoffs (instant preferred). It has some of the benefits of PR without
> the risk of having minority governments all the time.

That's a possibility too. But why not go the whole hog and have every
voter voting on every candidate?

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-25-13 10:14 AM, Alec Cawley wrote:
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

<snip>

>> My idea is that parties would be irrelevant in an upper house: the
>> population would have elected the /individuals/ they prefer. I keep
>> hearing people saying that they "vote for the person, not the party"
>> under the present system. They seem to be unable to grasp that in this
>> context a person /is/ their party, so a vote for the Tory candidate in
>> their riding, however marvellous (s)he may be, is a vote for Harper.
>> Running an upper-house election as I describe in another post would
>> ensure that people really are voting for a person, not a party.
>
> The problem with that some complexity of government. If it were genuinely
> achievable, each candidate would offer a small number of headline points to
> which they would commit - probably no more than three or four. People who
> agreed with them on these points would vote for them, and on these points
> they would vote as promised. The problem is that on any other points than
> their headline ones, they would be effectively a loose cannon. Even if they
> had declared their position, it is unlikely the voters would have checked
> down to the fifteenth proposition. So they would be willing to trade their
> parliamentary votes on subjects upon which they did not feel strongly for
> support on their headline issues saying, quite correctly, that they had a
> manifesto commitment to those issues.

That seems fine - it's the way the world works.

> So the horse trading which occurs in
> parties before an election, and results in a published party manifesto,
> would occur behind closed doors after the election.

Why would the doors be closed any tighter after an election than they
are before it?

> Parties are needed to
> draw up a common platform across the whole of our complex society. If you
> vote /only/ for the person, single issue candidates will dominate because
> they home across better than balanced moderates. And a hous of single issue
> candidates is unpredictable.

So it's unpredictable - where's the problem in that? I'm thinking of
switching my allegiance from the Federal NDP to the Federal Green Party,
pending the new NDP leader actually stating where he stands on anything
at all. The stumbling block is that the Greens are opposed to nuclear
power, but then the NDP may well be too. So either way, in order to get
a small step towards justice for all and a respect for the environment,
I'll accept a nuclear policy that I don't like. That's how it works both
in the House(es) and among the voters.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-26-13 7:29 AM, Larry Moore wrote:
> On 2013-05-25, Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> That's true. It's an argument against minority governments in general,
>> not just the type we had in Canada for a while before Harper won his
>> majority in 2011. Any kind of proportional representation must lead to a
>> minority government.
>>
>
> I OTOH, don't mind parliamentary minority government - though it
> requires the parties to respect and compromise. Those who don't consider
> any opinion but their own to be valid, if not demonic, and who refuse to
> water their wine find minority challenging. We've had good legislation
> come out of minority governments though I'm not sure the reconstituted
> Conservative Party is adequate to the challenge.

Canadian-style minority government, yes. Israeli-style, not so much.

>
>>>
>>>> nor should
>>>>> they be appointed by the prime minister's office.
>>>>
>>>> With you on that one.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would like to have the seats filled by the political parties
>>>>> (unelected candidates ranked by votes received, perhaps,) sufficient to
>>>>> make the Houses of Parliament representative of the actual votes cast -
>>>>> it is ridiculous that a third of the voters could elect a 'majority'
>>>>> government.
>>>>>
>>>> That can be done by not having ridings or constituencies. The whole
>>>> population votes on the whole lot, yea or nay for each one, and the 105
>>>> seats (why 105?) go to the 105 people with the highest scores. Parties
>>>> should be irrelevant in an upper house, at least in terms of who gets
>>>> elected.
>>>>
>>>> Lesley.
>>>
>>> The 105 deepest pockets?
>>>
>>>
>> No, that's the situation now.
>>
>> Lesley.
>>
>
> To too great an extent, that's true - not one man, one vote but one
> dollar, one vote - the Koch brothers and the Tea Party being just one
> example. Perhaps the Senate should be selected like jury members to
> {approve | veto} a piece of proposed legislation as part of Second
> Reading ... employers would be required to approve leave and one would
> only liable for selection once.

I like that idea!

>
> The 'first past the post' system allows
> parties to game the system so that certain voters have more
> say in the formation of government than others. There are better
> alternatives to FPTP, which we discussed UG a year or so ago.
>

We did indeed, but I don't think we reached any conclusion, or ever will.

[Alec Cawley]

My point, strongly made I thought, is that "what the people voted for" and
"what the people want" at two very different things. You are assuming that
they are the same: I invite you to post some proof that contradicts Arrows
Impossibility Theorem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem . If there were
some way of determining accurately what the people want, delivering that
would indeed be democracy. But, given that all voting systems are flawed,
delivering the results of any particular voting system can but be an
approximation.

And throughout this discussion I have agreed that the elected house has
primacy. What you need to prove is that two contradictory (or at least
different) elected houses deliver the will of the people better than a
single elected house with good support. You have not yet done so.

>>
>> Suppose in your scheme, all sensible voters decided that women were
>> underrepresented, so they would vote for the most sensible woman
>> candidate., all 75% of them. The 5% of mysogynists split they vote amongst
>> male candidate, and the 20% who were not sensible for other reasons split
>> their votes in a gender neutral manner. Result: a house entirely or almost
>> entirely women. But few if any wanted that. They wanted a roughly even
>> split, but with one vote they cannot express that subtlety.
>
> That would be avoided by everybody voting for whoever they considered the
> most suitable candidates, without considering gender. Each adult in the
> country doesn't have just one vote, they have 105 in Canada or 763 (just
> now) in the UK. Of course, there's no requirement that they use all their votes.

Gender is one particular point. The point at issue could be any political
point whatsoever. At which point your proposal degenerates into voting for
candidates without considering their politics.

And generalising to a multiple vote, especially in large numbers, has no
effect on the problem that it is very difficult to express a multifaceted
appreciation of a candidate with a single vote.

>>
> <snip>
>>>
>>>> Just
>>>> have a unicameral legislature, like New Zealand. But if you want a
>>>> bicameral legislature, make the second house distinctive, and focus on the
>>>> end of the house you want not the means of selecting it.
>>>>
>>> The means determine the end.
>>
>> A very totalitarian system, which assumes that unintended consequences are
>> absolutely impossible. This was the theory behind the atrocities of Lenin,
>> Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. The means was Communism, which was good, and
>> therefore any ends that come from that means must themselves be good. I
>> strongly disagree.
>
> I said "determine", not "justify", and I put it the other way around. I
> once, long, long ago, spoonerised and said "The means justify the end".
> Unfortunately, I said it to a law student, and he insisted that I support
> my argument. I found that quite difficult, and had to make do with
> "Mussolini made the trains run on time", which isn't even true.

In which case, it becomes a meaningless tautology. What you achieve is of
course dependant upon what you do. But the end should be fixed and single,
and the means chopped and changed however may be necessary to achieve the
end. S the means is not a single monolithic thing, and therefore hard to
discuss.

In the current context, a voting system, however mathematically perfect,
which delivers perverse results in the hands of real voters is actually a
bad system.

[Alec Cawley]

Because it is too much work. Even if it were possible to get people to do
the necessary work, it would be an expensive waste of effort. T follow this
to extremes, why not have every voter participate on every parliamentary
vote: vote on every clause and every amendment of every Bill before
parliament - and of course their regional, county, town, and parish
councils.

[Alec Cawley]

Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On 05-25-13 10:14 AM, Alec Cawley wrote:
>> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>> My idea is that parties would be irrelevant in an upper house: the
>>> population would have elected the /individuals/ they prefer. I keep
>>> hearing people saying that they "vote for the person, not the party"
>>> under the present system. They seem to be unable to grasp that in this
>>> context a person /is/ their party, so a vote for the Tory candidate in
>>> their riding, however marvellous (s)he may be, is a vote for Harper.
>>> Running an upper-house election as I describe in another post would
>>> ensure that people really are voting for a person, not a party.
>>
>> The problem with that some complexity of government. If it were genuinely
>> achievable, each candidate would offer a small number of headline points to
>> which they would commit - probably no more than three or four. People who
>> agreed with them on these points would vote for them, and on these points
>> they would vote as promised. The problem is that on any other points than
>> their headline ones, they would be effectively a loose cannon. Even if they
>> had declared their position, it is unlikely the voters would have checked
>> down to the fifteenth proposition. So they would be willing to trade their
>> parliamentary votes on subjects upon which they did not feel strongly for
>> support on their headline issues saying, quite correctly, that they had a
>> manifesto commitment to those issues.
>
> That seems fine - it's the way the world works.
>

It is an order of magnitude scaling up of one of the bad aspects of the way

the world works.

>> So the horse trading which occurs in
>> parties before an election, and results in a published party manifesto,
>> would occur behind closed doors after the election.
>
> Why would the doors be closed any tighter after an election than they are before it?

Candidates are generally expected to explain their positions publicly
during the election campaign - an open position. There is no forum for such
things after the election.

>
>> Parties are needed to
>> draw up a common platform across the whole of our complex society. If you
>> vote /only/ for the person, single issue candidates will dominate because
>> they home across better than balanced moderates. And a hous of single issue
>> candidates is unpredictable.
>
> So it's unpredictable - where's the problem in that? I'm thinking of
> switching my allegiance from the Federal NDP to the Federal Green Party,
> pending the new NDP leader actually stating where he stands on anything
> at all. The stumbling block is that the Greens are opposed to nuclear
> power, but then the NDP may well be too. So either way, in order to get a
> small step towards justice for all and a respect for the environment,
> I'll accept a nuclear policy that I don't like. That's how it works both
> in the House(es) and among the voters.
>

So you are quite happy if the party you switched to (or from) suddenly
brought in a mandatory death penalty for armed robbers and cop killers? I
do not mean you would have policies tht you don't like and grumblingly
accept, I mean policies that you were totally unaware of, except as those
of extremists, whose votes have been bought for some policy of which you
approve by backing their ravings?

[Free Lunch]

On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:21:37 -0700, Lesley Weston

Then you are back to perfect proportional representation, no?

[Chris Zakes]

In a rational and well-ordered world, yes. In a world where scare
tactics, fear-mongering and smear campaigns are more likely to
persuade a population whose notion of high-quality entertainment is TV
shows like "Survivor" or "Dancing With the Stars", I wouldn't count on
it.

-Chris Zakes
Texas
--

A properly balanced sword is the most versatile weapon for close quarters ever
devised... A sword never jams, never has to be reloaded, it is always ready.

-Oscar Gordon in "Glory Road" by Robert Heinlein

[Jonathan Ellis]

"Chris Zakes" <dont...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:32e5q8192mpeurnpv...@4ax.com...

And there are times when "because it is the will of the majority" is NOT
a good reason, not least because of aforementioned scare tactics, smear
campaigns and fear-mongering. There are times when the nation needs to
be protected FROM democracy... But then, who decides when those times
are, and what form does that "protection of the minority" take?

(One need only mention, for starters, the times when a given minority
may be persecuted on grounds of racial prejudice, sexual orientation,
political affiliation or various other means. Or, of course, because
they are "poor enough to be on government benefits". Or, perhaps,
because they're "rich enough that They Don't Need All That Stuff", which
is all very well until you become one of the well-off yourself at the
expense of the formerly rich.)

The big danger with democracy is that it ends up with three wolves and
two sheep voting on what's for dinner. Or a bunch of wolves voting on
who's going to wear the sheep costume today.

I'm not asking this question suggesting that there *is* a "right answer"
to it.

-- Jonathan.

[Nigel Stapley]

On 27/05/2013 09:12, Jonathan Ellis wrote:

>
> The big danger with democracy is that it ends up with three wolves and
> two sheep voting on what's for dinner. Or a bunch of wolves voting on
> who's going to wear the sheep costume today.
>

"It's your turn in the baaaa-rrel"

--
Regards

Nigel Stapley

www.thejudge.me.uk

<reply-to will bounce>

[larry]

On Sun, 26 May 2013 19:53:52 +0000, Alec Cawley wrote:

>
> My point, strongly made I thought, is that "what the people voted for"
> and "what the people want" at two very different things. You are
> assuming that they are the same: I invite you to post some proof that
> contradicts Arrows Impossibility Theorem
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem . If there
> were some way of determining accurately what the people want, delivering
> that would indeed be democracy. But, given that all voting systems are
> flawed, delivering the results of any particular voting system can but
> be an approximation.
>
> And throughout this discussion I have agreed that the elected house has
> primacy. What you need to prove is that two contradictory (or at least
> different) elected houses deliver the will of the people better than a
> single elected house with good support. You have not yet done so.
>

Our present PM wants to change our appointed senate into a fptp elected
chamber. AFAICT there is no reason for doing so except that it's the way
that the US does it and is therefore 'normal and preferable'. A couple of
the Senators who were appointed by him have been caught in peccadillo,
which is remarkably convenient for his agenda.

[larry]

On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:21:37 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:

> That's a possibility too. But why not go the whole hog and have every
> voter voting on every candidate?
>
> Lesley.

Every voter voting on who has the most professionally crafted public
persona? In that event, I would remind you of the Roman cursus honorum so
that they might have a track record of honest service rather than smoke.
White togas optional.

[larry]

On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:35:02 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:

> On 05-26-13 7:29 AM, Larry Moore wrote:
>> On 2013-05-25, Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> That's true. It's an argument against minority governments in general,
>>> not just the type we had in Canada for a while before Harper won his
>>> majority in 2011. Any kind of proportional representation must lead to
>>> a minority government.
>>>
>>>
>> I OTOH, don't mind parliamentary minority government - though it
>> requires the parties to respect and compromise. Those who don't
>> consider any opinion but their own to be valid, if not demonic, and who
>> refuse to water their wine find minority challenging. We've had good
>> legislation come out of minority governments though I'm not sure the
>> reconstituted Conservative Party is adequate to the challenge.
>
> Canadian-style minority government, yes. Israeli-style, not so much.
>>

We previously could make minority generate good government because the
participants at the time were reasonable people working in their
country's service.

Israel, contrawise. Too many unreasonable people working in their
sectarian interests without thinking about their country's good.

That old 'general good vs common good' problem.

>> Perhaps the Senate should be selected like jury members to
>> {approve | veto} a piece of proposed legislation as part of Second
>> Reading ... employers would be required to approve leave and one would
>> only liable for selection once.
>
> I like that idea!

The Athenians did it first - a set of permanent slaves were the
institutional memory and handled the administrivia, but it served Athens
well-enough.

>>
>> The 'first past the post' system allows parties to game the system so
>> that certain voters have more say in the formation of government than
>> others. There are better alternatives to FPTP, which we discussed UG a
>> year or so ago.
>>
> We did indeed, but I don't think we reached any conclusion, or ever
> will.
>

Ah but anyone daring to start the discussion can be pointed to deja-vu.

Political scientists have been wrestling with the question and the
consensus is that any system works if the people involved are willing to
make it work, and not if not.

> Lesley.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-26-13 12:57 PM, Alec Cawley wrote:
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 05-25-13 8:10 AM, Free Lunch wrote:
>>> On Sat, 25 May 2013 08:06:54 -0700, Lesley Weston
>>> <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:

<snip>

>>>> That's true. It's an argument against minority governments in general,
>>>> not just the type we had in Canada for a while before Harper won his
>>>> majority in 2011. Any kind of proportional representation must lead to a
>>>> minority government.
>>>
>>> I prefer representative governments to have multiseat ridings and
>>> runoffs (instant preferred). It has some of the benefits of PR without
>>> the risk of having minority governments all the time.
>>
>> That's a possibility too. But why not go the whole hog and have every
>> voter voting on every candidate?
>>
> Because it is too much work. Even if it were possible to get people to do
> the necessary work, it would be an expensive waste of effort. T follow this
> to extremes, why not have every voter participate on every parliamentary
> vote: vote on every clause and every amendment of every Bill before
> parliament - and of course their regional, county, town, and parish
> councils.
>

Why not? It wouldn't have been possible until recently, but now it's no
big deal for someone to take a break at work or sit down at home with a
cup of tea, and catch up on their e-mails. Some of those e-mails could
be notices of issues on which they can vote if they want. The votes
happen on line and are counted by computer so there's very little added
work, and we would be a lot closer to true democracy: everybody affected
by something having a say in how that something pans out. A version of
this works fine in Switzerland, and did long before there were computers.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-26-13 4:43 PM, Free Lunch wrote:
> On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:21:37 -0700, Lesley Weston
> <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:
>
>> On 05-25-13 8:10 AM, Free Lunch wrote:
>>> On Sat, 25 May 2013 08:06:54 -0700, Lesley Weston
>>> <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:

<snip>

>>>> That's true. It's an argument against minority governments in general,
>>>> not just the type we had in Canada for a while before Harper won his
>>>> majority in 2011. Any kind of proportional representation must lead to a
>>>> minority government.
>>>
>>> I prefer representative governments to have multiseat ridings and
>>> runoffs (instant preferred). It has some of the benefits of PR without
>>> the risk of having minority governments all the time.
>>
>> That's a possibility too. But why not go the whole hog and have every
>> voter voting on every candidate?
>
> Then you are back to perfect proportional representation, no?
>

Yes, I think. But as you say, perfect. Not the imperfect PR we are
actually offered.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-26-13 6:39 PM, Chris Zakes wrote:
> On Sun, 26 May 2013 18:43:30 -0500, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused Free Lunch <lu...@nofreelunch.us> to write:
>
>> On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:21:37 -0700, Lesley Weston
>> <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:
>>
>>> On 05-25-13 8:10 AM, Free Lunch wrote:

<snip>

>>>> I prefer representative governments to have multiseat ridings and
>>>> runoffs (instant preferred). It has some of the benefits of PR without
>>>> the risk of having minority governments all the time.
>>>
>>> That's a possibility too. But why not go the whole hog and have every
>>> voter voting on every candidate?
>>
>> Then you are back to perfect proportional representation, no?
>
> In a rational and well-ordered world, yes. In a world where scare
> tactics, fear-mongering and smear campaigns are more likely to
> persuade a population whose notion of high-quality entertainment is TV
> shows like "Survivor" or "Dancing With the Stars", I wouldn't count on
> it.

People who watch /Survivor/ have just as much right to determine their
own future as people who would rather read a good Ph.D. thesis. So
whether their votes are influenced by sober, rational argument or by
fear-mongering and smears, any vote is just as valid as any other.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-27-13 3:47 AM, larry wrote:
> On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:21:37 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:
>
>> That's a possibility too. But why not go the whole hog and have every
>> voter voting on every candidate?
>>
>> Lesley.
>
> Every voter voting on who has the most professionally crafted public
> persona?

Same as now.

> In that event, I would remind you of the Roman cursus honorum so
> that they might have a track record of honest service rather than smoke.
> White togas optional.
>

Good idea. But if we're going to go all classical, how about the
Athenian system of gathering (forcibly) everybody who happened to be in
town just then to vote on anything important, the origin of the concept
of democracy. The only thing wrong with it, apart from the forcibly bit,
was that "everybody" meant every free man, or less than a quarter of the
adult population.

[Lesley Weston]

Not really. All relationships, professional, political and private work
just that way. Even marriage is the result of both people making
compromises to accommodate each other.

>
>>> So the horse trading which occurs in
>>> parties before an election, and results in a published party manifesto,
>>> would occur behind closed doors after the election.
>>
>> Why would the doors be closed any tighter after an election than they are before it?
>
> Candidates are generally expected to explain their positions publicly
> during the election campaign - an open position. There is no forum for such
> things after the election.

Yes there is: the Press. It looks like Toronto will soon be rid of its
ludicrous Mayor and his brother the Councillor. Not because of anything
they said before they were elected, but because the people have decided
that they have committed one too many outrages and now they must go. The
means of unseating them is bizarre: an alleged video that nobody has
actually seen in which the Mayor is allegedly seen allegedly smoking
alleged crack cocaine with alleged drug-dealers. But that's the weapon
the Press chose this time, and the people are behind it all the way.

>
>>
>>> Parties are needed to
>>> draw up a common platform across the whole of our complex society. If you
>>> vote /only/ for the person, single issue candidates will dominate because
>>> they home across better than balanced moderates. And a hous of single issue
>>> candidates is unpredictable.
>>
>> So it's unpredictable - where's the problem in that? I'm thinking of
>> switching my allegiance from the Federal NDP to the Federal Green Party,
>> pending the new NDP leader actually stating where he stands on anything
>> at all. The stumbling block is that the Greens are opposed to nuclear
>> power, but then the NDP may well be too. So either way, in order to get a
>> small step towards justice for all and a respect for the environment,
>> I'll accept a nuclear policy that I don't like. That's how it works both
>> in the House(es) and among the voters.
>>
> So you are quite happy if the party you switched to (or from) suddenly
> brought in a mandatory death penalty for armed robbers and cop killers? I
> do not mean you would have policies tht you don't like and grumblingly
> accept, I mean policies that you were totally unaware of, except as those
> of extremists, whose votes have been bought for some policy of which you
> approve by backing their ravings?
>

That's an argument for everybody voting on everything. What you describe
is the situation in Israel now, which is an extreme form of how most
governments work now.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-27-13 4:04 AM, larry wrote:
> On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:35:02 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:
>
>> On 05-26-13 7:29 AM, Larry Moore wrote:

<snip>

>>> Perhaps the Senate should be selected like jury members to
>>> {approve | veto} a piece of proposed legislation as part of Second
>>> Reading ... employers would be required to approve leave and one would
>>> only liable for selection once.
>>
>> I like that idea!
>
> The Athenians did it first - a set of permanent slaves were the
> institutional memory and handled the administrivia, but it served Athens
> well-enough.

It would work fine now too, though with universal suffrage rather than
only men and only if they were not slaves. And with wage-slaves rather
than actual slaves keeping it going.

>
>>>
>>> The 'first past the post' system allows parties to game the system so
>>> that certain voters have more say in the formation of government than
>>> others. There are better alternatives to FPTP, which we discussed UG a
>>> year or so ago.
>>>
>> We did indeed, but I don't think we reached any conclusion, or ever
>> will.
>>
>
> Ah but anyone daring to start the discussion can be pointed to deja-vu.
>
> Political scientists have been wrestling with the question and the
> consensus is that any system works if the people involved are willing to
> make it work, and not if not.

Sounds about right.

[Alec Cawley]

And how do you propose to deliver perfect proportional representation?
Nobody has yet found a way to do it.

[Alec Cawley]

So the government is run by the retired and unemployed? When I take a break
at work, I need to rest, not do more work.
Switzerland has session per year, at which they vote on maybe a dozen
things. Parliament has ten to thirty divisions a working day.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-26-13 12:53 PM, Alec Cawley wrote:
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

<snip>

>> It's what the majority want, and that's what defines a democracy: See
>> Churchill's aphorism. Anarchy works in small societies, but becomes
>> insurmountably difficult when considering a whole country. A good
>> compromise is the Swiss system, where everybody votes on every important
>> issue, but extended to take advantage of modern technology so that all issues are covered.
>
> My point, strongly made I thought, is that "what the people voted for" and
> "what the people want" at two very different things. You are assuming that
> they are the same: I invite you to post some proof that contradicts Arrows
> Impossibility Theorem
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem .

You know I can't do that, which doesn't mean that someone in the field
can't. Or not - I wouldn't know. But reading the Wiki entry I came to
the conclusion that it's just another way of justifying one lot of
people telling another lot of people that the second lot don't really
want what they think they want in regards to things that affect them
directly; instead they want what the first lot tells them they want.
Only this time in academic language suitable for somebody's Ph.D.
thesis, which is what it is.

> If there were
> some way of determining accurately what the people want, delivering that
> would indeed be democracy.

There is. Everybody who wants to votes on all the candidates, or better
still everybody votes on every issue if they want to.

> But, given that all voting systems are flawed,
> delivering the results of any particular voting system can but be an
> approximation.

That's the way it works now, yes.

>
> And throughout this discussion I have agreed that the elected house has
> primacy. What you need to prove is that two contradictory (or at least
> different) elected houses deliver the will of the people better than a
> single elected house with good support. You have not yet done so.

I haven't tried to. I incline to the idea that a Senate or House of
Lords is not necessary, though I'm open to the idea that an upper house
elected as I've suggested might work. If most of the people aren't
allowed to take part in the election that builds the upper house, then
nobody knows what the will of the people would be if they did have a say
in it.

>
>
>>>
>>> Suppose in your scheme, all sensible voters decided that women were
>>> underrepresented, so they would vote for the most sensible woman
>>> candidate., all 75% of them. The 5% of mysogynists split they vote amongst
>>> male candidate, and the 20% who were not sensible for other reasons split
>>> their votes in a gender neutral manner. Result: a house entirely or almost
>>> entirely women. But few if any wanted that. They wanted a roughly even
>>> split, but with one vote they cannot express that subtlety.
>>
>> That would be avoided by everybody voting for whoever they considered the
>> most suitable candidates, without considering gender. Each adult in the
>> country doesn't have just one vote, they have 105 in Canada or 763 (just
>> now) in the UK. Of course, there's no requirement that they use all their votes.
>
> Gender is one particular point. The point at issue could be any political
> point whatsoever. At which point your proposal degenerates into voting for
> candidates without considering their politics.

In practice, it would be mostly single-issue voting, which would work
like a bubble sort or crowd sourcing: if enough people consider any
given issue important enough to base some or all of their votes on it,
then that issue rises to the top. Which means that the candidates
espousing the side of the issue that the majority of the voters prefer
are elected. Candidates basing their platforms on things that nobody
cares about either way won't get elected, and neither will candidates on
the side of an issue considered wrong by the majority unless it's a
close call.

>
> And generalising to a multiple vote, especially in large numbers, has no
> effect on the problem that it is very difficult to express a multifaceted
> appreciation of a candidate with a single vote.

No need to. Even with our measly 105 Senators compared with your
profligate 700-odd Lords, an upper house elected this way would reflect
most views on most issues in the same proportions as the population they
represent and govern.

>
>>>
>> <snip>
>>>>
>>>>> Just
>>>>> have a unicameral legislature, like New Zealand. But if you want a
>>>>> bicameral legislature, make the second house distinctive, and focus on the
>>>>> end of the house you want not the means of selecting it.
>>>>>
>>>> The means determine the end.
>>>
>>> A very totalitarian system, which assumes that unintended consequences are
>>> absolutely impossible. This was the theory behind the atrocities of Lenin,
>>> Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. The means was Communism, which was good, and
>>> therefore any ends that come from that means must themselves be good. I
>>> strongly disagree.
>>
>> I said "determine", not "justify", and I put it the other way around. I
>> once, long, long ago, spoonerised and said "The means justify the end".
>> Unfortunately, I said it to a law student, and he insisted that I support
>> my argument. I found that quite difficult, and had to make do with
>> "Mussolini made the trains run on time", which isn't even true.
>
> In which case, it becomes a meaningless tautology. What you achieve is of
> course dependant upon what you do. But the end should be fixed and single,
> and the means chopped and changed however may be necessary to achieve the
> end. S the means is not a single monolithic thing, and therefore hard to
> discuss.

I disagree. Quite strongly. The end should be flexible enough to change
as the situation changes, responding to the expressed needs of the
people who are affected by it. And of course those needs are expressed
through the means, whatever those are.

>
> In the current context, a voting system, however mathematically perfect,
> which delivers perverse results in the hands of real voters is actually a
> bad system.

Who decides what's perverse?

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-27-13 3:38 AM, larry wrote:
> On Sun, 26 May 2013 19:53:52 +0000, Alec Cawley wrote:
>
>>
>> My point, strongly made I thought, is that "what the people voted for"
>> and "what the people want" at two very different things. You are
>> assuming that they are the same: I invite you to post some proof that
>> contradicts Arrows Impossibility Theorem
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem . If there
>> were some way of determining accurately what the people want, delivering
>> that would indeed be democracy. But, given that all voting systems are
>> flawed, delivering the results of any particular voting system can but
>> be an approximation.
>>
>> And throughout this discussion I have agreed that the elected house has
>> primacy. What you need to prove is that two contradictory (or at least
>> different) elected houses deliver the will of the people better than a
>> single elected house with good support. You have not yet done so.
>>
>
> Our present PM wants to change our appointed senate into a fptp elected
> chamber.

Does he? The last we heard from him on the subject was that he's asked
the Supreme Court to rule on whether he can get rid of the Senate
altogether. Either way, he'll have a lot of support from the people of
Canada; we're pretty much fed up with the present Senate's behaviour.

> AFAICT there is no reason for doing so except that it's the way
> that the US does it and is therefore 'normal and preferable'.

It's vastly preferable to unilateral grace-and-favour appointments,
which is the current system.

> A couple of
> the Senators who were appointed by him have been caught in peccadillo,
> which is remarkably convenient for his agenda.
>

It's more than a couple, and not only his, and more than peccadillo.

[larry]

On Mon, 27 May 2013 10:21:27 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:

> It's more than a couple, and not only his, and more than peccadillo.
>
> Lesley.

Small sins involving money, not mortal sins like putting soldiers
unnecessarily in harm's way, failing to enforce public health measures or
failing to address child poverty.

[larry]

On Mon, 27 May 2013 08:29:51 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:

> On 05-27-13 4:04 AM, larry wrote:
>> On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:35:02 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:
>>
>>> On 05-26-13 7:29 AM, Larry Moore wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>>> Perhaps the Senate should be selected like jury members to {approve |
>>>> veto} a piece of proposed legislation as part of Second Reading ...
>>>> employers would be required to approve leave and one would only
>>>> liable for selection once.
>>>
>>> I like that idea!
>>
>> The Athenians did it first - a set of permanent slaves were the
>> institutional memory and handled the administrivia, but it served
>> Athens well-enough.
>
> It would work fine now too, though with universal suffrage rather than
> only men and only if they were not slaves. And with wage-slaves rather
> than actual slaves keeping it going.
>>

Citizenship was more restrictive than that - both your parents had to be
or you were disqualified.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <knv4gq$8o3$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

"Jonathan Ellis" <jle3...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The big danger with democracy is that it ends up with three wolves and
> two sheep voting on what's for dinner. Or a bunch of wolves voting on
> who's going to wear the sheep costume today.

If the sheep out vote the wolves the wolves starve. Is that fair? It's
the wolves role to support the predator population after all. When
there are no predators the population of prey increases to the point
where they starve and this has happened many times.

--
Gambling with Other People's Money is the meth of the fiscal industry.
me -- in the spirit of Karl and Groucho Marx

[Free Lunch]

On Mon, 27 May 2013 19:43:17 +0000 (UTC), larry <ljm...@wightman.ca>
wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:

>On Mon, 27 May 2013 08:29:51 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:
>
>> On 05-27-13 4:04 AM, larry wrote:
>>> On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:35:02 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 05-26-13 7:29 AM, Larry Moore wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>>> Perhaps the Senate should be selected like jury members to {approve |
>>>>> veto} a piece of proposed legislation as part of Second Reading ...
>>>>> employers would be required to approve leave and one would only
>>>>> liable for selection once.
>>>>
>>>> I like that idea!
>>>
>>> The Athenians did it first - a set of permanent slaves were the
>>> institutional memory and handled the administrivia, but it served
>>> Athens well-enough.
>>
>> It would work fine now too, though with universal suffrage rather than
>> only men and only if they were not slaves. And with wage-slaves rather
>> than actual slaves keeping it going.
>>>
>
>Citizenship was more restrictive than that - both your parents had to be
>or you were disqualified.

Sure, there were plenty of folks who were neither slaves nor citizens,
but if you were important enough, your wife to be would be given
citizenship so your children would also be citizens.

[larry]

On Mon, 27 May 2013 15:27:46 -0500, Free Lunch wrote:

> Sure, there were plenty of folks who were neither slaves nor citizens,
> but if you were important enough, your wife to be would be given
> citizenship so your children would also be citizens.
>

Easy then - all you had to do was stand before 501 citizens and by your
mastery of formal rhetoric convince 251 of them.

[Free Lunch]

On Mon, 27 May 2013 23:53:29 +0000 (UTC), larry <ljm...@wightman.ca>
wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:

That and generous gifts to those who are known to be opinion leaders.

[Larry Moore]

Mais bien sûr!

The idea of having the jury so large and 'randomly' selected was to
reduce the chance of an ordinary person being able to bribe them.

Worked, FSVO worked.

--
Calling terrorism an 'existential threat' is ridiculous in a country
where more people die each month in car crashes than died in the 9/11
terrorist attacks.
Schneier on Security

[Lesley Weston]

You're contributing to this NG right now, though you are fully employed.
Everybody who works reads their e-mails and looks at the cats on
Facebook during their coffee breaks and lunch or during the commute, and
sometimes even while actually working. Now that everybody but me has a
smartphone, and I will as soon as I can find some spare money (hah!),
there's nothing to stop everybody voting on everything that interests
them wherever they are and whatever they're doing.

> When I take a break
> at work, I need to rest, not do more work.

If you consider voting work, then you needn't do it. Obviously the
system is effective only if there's no compulsion.

> Switzerland has session per year, at which they vote on maybe a dozen
> things. Parliament has ten to thirty divisions a working day.
>

Until recently the only way to vote, in Switzerland and everywhere else,
was to go to a specific place at a specific time, which is not
convenient more than once or twice a year at most. Those constraints no
longer apply, but of course there's no reason why people should vote on
issues they find boring if they don't want to, even though it is now so
easy.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-27-13 1:27 PM, Free Lunch wrote:
> On Mon, 27 May 2013 19:43:17 +0000 (UTC), larry <ljm...@wightman.ca>
> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:
>
>> On Mon, 27 May 2013 08:29:51 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:
>>
>>> On 05-27-13 4:04 AM, larry wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 26 May 2013 10:35:02 -0700, Lesley Weston wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 05-26-13 7:29 AM, Larry Moore wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>>>> Perhaps the Senate should be selected like jury members to {approve |
>>>>>> veto} a piece of proposed legislation as part of Second Reading ...
>>>>>> employers would be required to approve leave and one would only
>>>>>> liable for selection once.
>>>>>
>>>>> I like that idea!
>>>>
>>>> The Athenians did it first - a set of permanent slaves were the
>>>> institutional memory and handled the administrivia, but it served
>>>> Athens well-enough.
>>>
>>> It would work fine now too, though with universal suffrage rather than
>>> only men and only if they were not slaves. And with wage-slaves rather
>>> than actual slaves keeping it going.
>>>>
>>
>> Citizenship was more restrictive than that - both your parents had to be
>> or you were disqualified.
>
> Sure, there were plenty of folks who were neither slaves nor citizens,
> but if you were important enough, your wife to be would be given
> citizenship so your children would also be citizens.

She still didn't get to vote though, and neither did any of the slaves
you owned nor any of your daughters.

[Lesley Weston]

Not as bad as those, agreed, though all members of both Houses are
guilty of all of those as well. Or at least, all those who voted with
the majority.

But breach of trust leading to embezzlement is a far more serious crime
than casually nicking something that you happen to come across, even
though neither is acceptable. It's the same reasoning that makes school
teachers and boy-scout leaders and priests who go in for sexually
molesting the children in their care even more reprehensible than other
people who do the same and who don't have a special position of trust.

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-27-13 1:06 PM, Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article <knv4gq$8o3$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,
> "Jonathan Ellis" <jle3...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The big danger with democracy is that it ends up with three wolves and
>> two sheep voting on what's for dinner. Or a bunch of wolves voting on
>> who's going to wear the sheep costume today.
>
> If the sheep out vote the wolves the wolves starve. Is that fair? It's
> the wolves role to support the predator population after all. When
> there are no predators the population of prey increases to the point
> where they starve and this has happened many times.
>

Let's hear it for the wolves!

[Lesley Weston]

On 05-27-13 8:56 AM, Alec Cawley wrote:

I've been describing one possible way here for days. The idea is not
original with me; as Larry points out it was used in Athens and quite
possibly before. Didn't the Althing work that way in Iceland originally?