Voices For American
Direct Democracy
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Voices For American Direct Democracy |
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Half-Direct Democracy
Đ 2005-2007 by Stephen Neitzke -- stephen
@ddleague-usa.net
On 04 April 2005, Jiri Polak wrote --
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Stephen,
when I speak about "structured citizen deliberation" I mean well developed and well-tried models, especially Prof. Dienelīs Planning Cells and, in the USA, the Citizen Juries and electronic town meetings (see Becker-Slaton: The Future of Teledemocracy). I believe (and I am not alone) that some issues are unsuitable to be decided by I&R alone, because ordinary people lack relevant information. [Emphasis supplied.] This weakness can be remedied by using the above models. This is an aspect the mainstream DD activists in Europe fail to discuss or accept. In the models of future democracy that I am acquaited with, this weakness is remedied. In general, I am reluctant to speak about DD without explanation of what the discussion participant means by it. I mean a half-direct democracy consisting of several elements among which I&R is only one.
Sincerely,
Jiri Polak
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On 05 April 2005, I replied --
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Jiri Polak wrote --
"... In general, I am reluctant to speak about DD without explanation of what the discussion participant means by it. I mean a half-direct democracy consisting of several elements among which I&R is only one."
Jiri --
Well, then, you and I have very extensive disagreements.
The primary focus in the fight for US state-level I&R in the early 1900s was the assertion of the people's fundamental right to control the output of all legislation at every jurisdictional level of the respective state's governance. (See especially, the 1912 book, The Initiative And Referendum: Arguments Pro And Con By A Special Committee Of The National Economic League, in which pro and con are argued in depth by powerful intellects.)
Activists claimed that this fundamental right was established in Republican Rome and could never be extinguished. As the citizens of many US states forced I&R into their constitutions -- and as the predator elitists filed many lawsuits claiming that I&R was unconstitutional -- many of our highest courts, including the US Supreme Court in 1912, agreed with the activists.
This legally established fundamental right of the sovereign people -- to control the output of legislation -- is the foundation of all legislative-function direct democracy in the US.
Needless to say, anyone who argues that this fundamental right be diminished in any way, for any reason, will have to deal with me and with US political and legal history. Be assured that I will subject any such arguments to rigorous analysis. Sophistries will have their lies ripped out. Vacuous arguments will be pried apart to show exactly how empty they are. And the unacceptable consequences of accepting the sophistries and vacuous arguments will be paraded.
We the people have been butchered for profits by predator elitists competing among themselves for money-power and hiding behind sophistries and vacuous arguments for over two thousand years. It is way past time to end it.
In the US, ending the corruption and butchery will require the national-level instituting of all fundamental rights due to a sovereign people -- and especially our fundamental right to control the output of legislation at every jurisdictional level. If you in Europe think that you are not affected by the corruption and butchery that happens here, then you have your heads in the sand. The destruction of the German welfare state, the Bolkestein Directive, and the Barroso Strategy are virtually screaming at you that global, stateless, right-wing, fascist corporatism's corruption and butchery is already happening to you.
In addition to my argument set for fundamental rights, for me, there can be no middlemen allowed at any step in the process of rep elections, I&R, or recall. Any middleman, no matter how institutionalized, is an open invitation to interference and corruption by predator elitists who will always have the motivation to interfere and corrupt. For me, a half-direct democracy is wholly unacceptable. The sovereign people must be allowed their fundamental right to speak for themselves, without officers, and without government interference.
Of course, neither you nor I will make those decisions for the people. IMO, however, present-day governmental corruption -- and especially corporatism's unique 3-branch despotism in the US, which is now self-perpetuating and tyrannizing the entire world -- puts your arguments at a disadvantage. We are already caught in this despotism that we could not have prevented and that we cannot end because of the limits on our sovereignty. What chance do you think your arguments have for persuading the people to limit their sovereignty again with corruptable middlemen institutions?
I'm convinced that the Bush despotism and the war of aggression in Iraq changed our political requirements forever. Not just for the near future -- but forever. The despotism is self-perpetuating because of the entrenchment of easily hacked vote-counting software. We have not faced the absolute power of despotism in a superpower for hundreds of years. We don't know, collectively, how to behave.
Beginning with Election 2004, elections here have been made democratically meaningless by the easily-hacked vote-counting software. Further, Bush and his war demonstrate again, for the umpteenth time ad nauseum, that it is way past time to throw out the species-juvenile, murderus competition among money-power elites. It is way past time to accept our responsibilities for species-mature equality and cooperation in true republican governance.
Time will tell who wins this disagreement. Let the people decide. Jiri Polak wrote --
"... when I speak about "structured citizen deliberation" I mean well developed and well-tried models, especially Prof.Dienelīs Planning Cells and, in the USA, the Citizen Juries and electronic town meetings (see Becker-Slaton: The Future of Teledemocracy). "
I am convinced that most of such methods can be incorporated directly into online citizen institutions using secure online voting systems for "preferendum" [pre-referendum] voting to establish agendas, post I&R and recall petitions, debate the petitions, amend the petitions, and advance ready petitions to the formal referendum process. For example, teledemocracy's "electronic constituent assembly" is a perfect complement to other decision-aiding possibilities in the amending of proposed I&R petitions. (I have a copy of Mike Hollinshead's article, "Electronic Constitutent Assembly" on my web site, used by permission.)
We have no need for any sort of administrative agency middlemen to field separate citizen deliberation facilities, when we already have other multi-level needs for online citizen institutions, which can also handle citizen information and aide citizen deliberation. [And I hasten to point out that informed citizen deliberation happens without citizen institutions. I've lived in the middle of it for nearly thirty years. Citizen institutions, without officers, will be much better information platforms for enhancing citizen deliberation than will facilities managed by easily corrupted government officials.]
Jiri Polak wrote --
"... I believe (and I am not alone) that some issues are unsuitable to be decided by I&R alone, because ordinary people lack relevant information. This weakness can be remedied by using the above models. This is an aspect the mainstream DD activists in Europe fail to discuss or accept. ... "
Our disagreement here is very simple. You want to add hierarchical structure that will somehow condition and diminish I&R. I am dead set against it. My reasons gain weightiness from here to the bottom.
Clearing away your thinking on hierarchical structure, it seems to me that your contention here is based on the unexamined conviction, parroted from predator elitism, that ordinary people are incompetent to decide some complex issues because they lack relevant information.
The notion that ordinary people lack relevant information is simply vacuous as an argument for limiting I&R. Ignorance is not a permanent condition, knowledge grows, and knowlede concerning political issues is widely available from long-standing, expert citizens groups. Additionally, it is a fact that most elected legislators lack relevant information in exactly the same way that ordinary people lack relevant information. The simple fact is that any lawmaking activity -- in a legislature or in civil society -- has access to all the expertise that will be needed to accomplish any technical complexity. And when the complexities are handled, the political level of the issue is vastly more important. Needless to say, large majorities who have to live under laws that they make are more likely to make wise law, based on the political questions involved, than are some few easily bribed legislators who generally live above the laws that they make.
All final votes, in rep govt's institutions or in civil society's referendums, are about the issue's political level, its political questions. Final votes have little or nothing to do with how well the complexities have been handled. The French predator elities are screetching all over the landscape for the people to vote YES on the technical complexities of the proposed EU constitution. The reason they are screetching so is that the French people are deciding to vote NO on the issue's political level -- and the predator elites know that every final vote is always about the issue's political level. Of course, the number of persons who agree with you on this matter is not logically important. The argument from number is one of the most anciently identified logical fallacies. In my prime, I could dig a post hole in 60 seconds, but there is no reason for me to seriously deal with the argument that, based on my performance, 60 men could dig a post hole in 1 second. [One of my favorites, from Ambrose Bierce.] There is no reason for me to seriously consider an argument for jumping off the Bay Bridge just because 1,000 people have jumped off the Bay Bridge. And there is no reason for me to be led around by the nose by the argument to buy a Ford just because 1 million people have bought Fords. The argument from number is simply wrong-headed.
I am no more alone in my views on the complex-issues issue than you are in yours, but no numbers -- not even a large blue-ribblon panel of all PhDs -- can play a part in our arguing our cases.
In 1910, Norman Angell's book, The Great Illusion, argued that any future war was impossible because of the great benefice of international commerce. [Nations were too intertwined in profitable commerce to throw all that away for war.] Droves of PhDs jumped onto that band wagon, rushing to add the weight of their prestigeous names and zero-depth analysis. WW1 was four years off.
[In his long list of pro-predator, Federalist Papers sophistries, Alexander Hamilton made the same argument for the US states in Federalist 6. "... Commercial republics, like ours, will never be disposed to waste themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. ...". 72 years later, there was no hint that commerce slowed the start of the US Civil War by even a split second. It was the most murderous war in our history, and its root was the black slavery made a commercial institution by the Constitution, cobbled together by Hamilton and and his fellow predators majority at the 1787 "federal convention". The Constitution's Preamble gives six reasons for the document's existence, none of which is to establish the states as "commercial republics". Hamilton could make the claim for commercial republics because he obviously intended that the rulesmakers-behind-the-rules would always put money first, people last. Constitutional vagueness is an age-old trick, allowing the corruption reach of predator elitists to arbitrarily interpret the vague rules in favor of their own "class". Money-power are the rulesmakers behind the rules. Hamilton has been the darling of hundreds of PhDs in every American generation since.]
In argument, the historical and research records on the complex-issues issue, while not the only considerations, are vastly more important than are the numbers of people claimed for your side or mine. Both historical experience and research bear out that it is the political level of any issue that is of paramount importance.
Pericles and Greek society established well over 2,400 years ago that any 18-year-old raised in the society is fully capable of deciding the political questions of any issue, no matter how complicated or mathematically technical. In ancient Athens, political decisions were made by the citizens and were then handed to whatever experts were required to comply with the majority's will. (See especially, M.I. Finley, Democracy Ancient And Modern. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1973.)
The same was true in Republican Rome. When citizen lawmaking ordered improvements in weaponry to satisfy some weakness, the people made the political decision -- the experts worked the details.
More importantly, when treaties, frequently of extreme finanacial complexity, were returned to Republican Rome from the out-countries between about 287 and 44 BC, there was only one body who ratified or rejected the treaty. That body was the Council of Plebs -- the most common people of the Republic. That body possessed the experts who could explain and demonstrate the treaties' complexities. And then, with the complexities fully grasped, the people proceeded to the next level, to vote the treaty's political question of acceptance or rejection. (See especially, M. Carey, A History Of Rome: Down To The Reign Of Constantine. New York: St.Martin's Press, 2nd edition, 1967.)
Of course in modern times, as with the Council of Plebs' ratifying or rejecting treaties B.C., the technical details level is already a part of a piece of proposed US legislation before it arrives at the final, crucial vote on its political level. [This is true whether the final vote is in Congress, in a state's legislature, or in a state's civil society.]
Has there been some biological, educational, or intellectual degrading of ordinary people since Republican Rome?
Wags might think that question debatable, but I don't. Clearly, we live longer with more potential exposure to wisdom, have an unquestionable superiority in education, and at least seem to be on an intellectual par with, arguably higher than, the lower and middle classes of both urban and provincial Rome. Today's citizens, it must be concluded, are even more capable, than were the Roman Republic's citizens, of satisfying themselves that the technical complexities level has been well or badly handled -- before they vote the issue's crucial political level.
Major problem & parade of unacceptable consequences. The law establishing the decision-making for issues to be allowed to or removed from I&R would be a major problem. Who makes those decisions and how those decisions are made will create, IMO, exactly that sort of over-complicated [and too-vague] law that allows predator elitists to govern a process arbitrarily in their own interest.
There are many issues that involve great complexities that reduce to a simple poltical level. For example, we do not have to be rocket scientists to vote whether to maintain the Hubbel space telescope. Would the rules exclude such issues from I&R because of their technical complexities, or include them in I&R because of their political simplicity?
Beginning no later than the horseless carriage, on-going technical innovations create new issues all the time. How will the on-going decision-making over I&R inclusion or exclusion handle the unresponsive legislature that refuses to make law on a new and threatening -- and very complex -- technology? Let's say that the microscopic, self-replicating, gene-splicing, RNA bio-machines of nanotech (not yet fact, but soon to be) have begun turning the ordinary people into dull-witted corporate zombies, while the elites are protecting themselves against those unseen invaders with microscopic RNA bio-machines in their bodies that destroy the gene-splicing RNA biomachines. Way too complex for I&R, right? So -- what? Will the people be barred from their fundamental right to control legislation on this topic? Do the predator elites win by default -- again?
How do you propose the rules for I&R inclusion-exclusion handle complex-issue, legislature-made, hollow, unenforcebalbe law -- or law made simply to create corrupt corporate windfall profit machines at the expense of the people? Would the people's sovereign right to control the output of legislation be taken away from them on such issues? Would it be impossible for the sovereign US civil society to block or end corporatism's corrupt privatization of Medicare and Social Security?
And then there's the despotism [the unique, dual-party, three-branch, Bush-led despotism]. Its powerful individuals usurped the Constitution and the rule of law to come to power. They violated federal statute law (18 USC 241) regarding criminal conspiracy against citizen rights, making them all prosecutable in federal courts, for both the usurpation and the unconstitutionally-waged war of aggression in Iraq. They are all being protected from impeachment and/or prosecution by a collusion of powerful individuals in all three branches of government who have refused to be bound by our constitutional checks and balances. The legal complexities are obviously beyond ordinary people, or most of the US national government would already have been tarred, feathered, and run out of town on triangular, crotch-cutting rails.
So -- what? Do the rules for excluding complex issues mean that the people are denied their sovereign right to alter any part of their governance? Will they be denied their right to prevent or end a tyrannical despotism because of technical complexities? Sorry, such consequences are unspeakably unthinkable.
So, let's recap. You have taken a stock sophistry from predator elitism -- namely, that some issues are too complex for ordinary people -- subjected it to zero analysis, and built it into a corruptible hierarchical structure of representative government where it deprives soveredign civil society of its fundamental rights in governance. You call this a "half-direct democracy" and you will seriously argue to the people that your construct is somehow the right thing for them to do?
Well -- good luck with that.
Stephen Neitzke
Direct Democracy League
http://ddleague-usa.net
Post Script:
I agree with the positions taken by Dennis Pohill on a number of vacuous arguments against I&R. See his 1996 paper, "Are Coloradans Fit To Make Their Own Laws? A Common Sense Primer On The Initiative Process" (online at http://i2i.org/articles/PoliticsandGovernment/8-96.pdf). Pohill writes --
"Examination of fourteen commonly heard allegations against the initiative process finds none of them very persuasive. Special interests do not thrive on the initiative; they find the legislature far easier to manage. Money-power likewise gets its way more readily under the Capitol dome, not at the ballot box.
"Voters are not incompetent to decide complex issues, as quantitative research has proved. Nor are ballot measures notably less well drafted than legislative bills. Constitutional invalidation of successful initiatives is not frequent, but very rare.
"The number of initiatives on today's ballot is not unprecedentedly large. ... And voters themselves do not seem to dislike a longer ballot; turnout statistics suggest the opposite.
"The initiative does not benefit merely the political right or left; partisans from both sides have used it over the years. Bad ideas do not often muster the petition support to make the ballot, and they win at the polls even less often. ... "Finally, the initiative process does not imply a tyranny of the majority; the US Constitution prevents that. Nor does the initiative threaten to make the legislature unnecessary, rather it supports that institution by enlisting the people to counter-balance legislative overreach and to compensate for legislative weaknesses."
I point out my agreements with these positions of Pohill's to give a source of quantitative research on the complex-issues issue and to make things a bit more well-defined between us. --SN
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On 07 April 2005, Jiri Polak wrote --
Hello,
I suggest that those who reject the idea of modern forms of citizen deliberation first become acquainted with the models in question. These models have only a consultative, not decision-making function. To expect that most people want constant referenda on everything and that they are adequately informed on everything is unrealistic DD fundamentalism. Letīs be pragmatic!
Sincerely, Jiri
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On 15 April 2005, I responded --
Fundamental Human Rights
In his 07 April 2005 message, cited just above, Jiri presents a number of problems to any continuing discussion between us. Some of those problems are surfacy and disingenuous deceits, generally ignoring my sound arguments in the 05 April message. However, one of his presented problems is huge. Unfortunately for ordinary people who have not examined political science's failed "deductive nomological model of explanation" and subsequent but still widely suspect "probability model of explanation", the huge problem can go unseen.
The huge problem is political science's inability to describe the subject matter of fundamental human rights in terms of political science's core activities -- quantitative research, probability mathematics, and probability models.
Where those activities cannot describe the subject matter -- e.g., plate tectonics, the fossil record, the periodic table, theology, metaphysics, fundamental human rights, etc. -- political scientists are reduced to the same rigors of faithful belief or reality's description as are the rest of us. In matters of both faith and factual reality, considered separately or conjoined, political scientists must meet the everyday requirements of accurately expressing facts, the facts' related truth statements, and properly derived sound arguments -- all set in intellectual honesty. [In short, they must face the same requirements that the rest of us must face.]
As I've shown, Jiri's "half-direct democracy" fails those tests of description. Of course, he also fails to recognize that there is any such thing as a sovereign people's fundamental rights in human governance, even as he rejects those rights in favor of excluding complex issues from I&R.
And then, in the 07 April message, he buries his failures of description and rights recognition with the surfacy and disingenuous deceits.
Because of his surfacy and disingenuous deceits, I must assume that he is hiding behind the huge problem -- that political science pretends to examine the subject matter of fundamental human rights in governance when it cannot, taking advantage of the built-in confusions to keep the people down [by deflecting the eight DD components of I&R and the recall.]
[Those eight DD components, of course, are expressions of the people's seven fundamental rights in governance.]
[The eight basic DD governance components organize into three categories. (A) The administrative functions of electing all representatives and recalling poorly performing representatives, (B) The legislative functions of constitutional amendment initiative, statute law initiative, statute law veto, and statute law affirmation. And (C) the consultative functions of approving or rejecting constitutional amendments or statute laws referred to the people by the legislature/parliament. True democracy embodies seven fundamental human and civil society rights in governance: (1) individual citizens have the right to be politically equal with all other citizens, (2) all sovereign peoples have the fundamental right to speak for themselves, in their voting majorities, (3) the sovereign people have the fundamental right to be their own sovereign masters, democratically and directly electing all of their public servant representatives, (4) The sovereign people have the fundamental right to remove any elected representative, for cause, without interferrence from government, (5) the sovereign people have the fundamental right to control the output of legislation, by formulating their own and by vetoing that made by government, at every jurisdictional level, with no interference from government, (6) the people's sovereignty gives them the fundamental right to alter details of their governance, without interference from government, and (7) the people's sovereignty gives them the fundamental right to protect themselves from themselves by establishing the powers within government to administratively, legislatively, and judicially prevent zealous majorities from violating individual and minority citizen rights, as given in the constitution and laws. All of those rights come to us in the legacy from Republican Rome and can be derived from our founding principles as stated in the Declaration Of Independence. True democracy requires citizen institutions with a "preferendum" (pre-referendum) voting system that allows the setting of agendas, electronic constituent assemblies without officers, the acceptance of a proposed constitutional or statute law, the acceptance and up/down vote on amendments to a proposal, and up/down votes on whether the proposal is ready for the formal petition process that can lead to a formal referendum. Additionally the citizens institutions should keep the history of the people's business and provide current, easily navigated information on both the people's business and the actual performance of the representative government.]
His surfacy and disingenuous deceits group into four categories.
First, he writes in the 07 April message as though I had demonstrated a lack of understanding of the models of citizen deliberation, contrary to my demonstrated understanding and inclusion of them in the OCIs (online citizen institutions).
Second, he states that citizen deliberation will have, in his models, "a consultative, not a decision-making function". How absurd. Citizen deliberation is nothing other than a decision-making function [unless it is deceitfully carried into a system in which citizen decision-making is prohibited. It appears that Jiri is the one who rejects the idea of the modern forms of citizen deliberation, unless by "modern forms" he means no citizen decision-making allowed.]
Third, he implies that I have argued for "constant referenda on everything" when, clearly, I have not.
Fourth, he states that to expect the people to be "adequately informed on everything" is unrealistic. This is simply a repetition of his original assertion. My arguments in the 05 April message extensively examined that assertion, demonstrating that it rejects facts, sustains no related truth statements, contains no fact-truth-derived sound arguments, and leads to a variety of unacceptable consequences. Additionally I referred to a source of quantitative research, one of political science's own core activities, which shows that the assertion is invalid and incorrect. And yet, Jiri has the gall to repeat his worthless assertion, as though I had not addressed it at all.
There is something intellectually dishonest at work in Jiri's 07 April message. I believe that it shows an intention to keep the people down.
Further, there is an unmitigated arrogance there. Jiri is implying that he is above the requirements of accurately describing facts, creating their truth-related statements, or deriving sound arguments from them. And the arrogance includes the implication that his bald assertions are superior to any sound and sustained arguments brought against them. All of which is roundly unacceptable.
Stephen Neitzke
Direct Democracy League
http://ddleague-usa.net
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Stephen Neitzke, DDL Founder
stephen@ddleague-usa.net
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