Are we actually 'democratic' in the West?...

[Scott Mayers]

Proportional representation, any of three or four models, is a good idea.
Elected upper house might also be a good idea, with some alteration, and there is no serious impediment to limiting its power.
But giving the lower house unbridled power is not a good idea. For one thing, they're easily swayed by popular ideas and short-term gains, and somebody needs to safeguard the land. For another, the Canadian and British model provides a certain amount of stability, as senators and peers serve for life: free from the shifts of party and PMO. The reason the US Senate blocks legislation is that it also has a partisan agenda.

It may not be such a great idea to pass every crappy piece of legislation that comes out of congress, and it certainly doesn't hurt for grayer heads to nod over it a while and consider the long-term effects. What should be reformed out is the ability of senators to add all kinds of riders and amendments to a bill that have no bearing on its original [stated] intent.

The same moneyed interests that finance and support senate candidacies also effective put the congressmen or parliamentarians in the running. The horrible campaign costs and their financing still puts every elected representative in the pocket of an oil baron, a used car franchise or a sugar conglomerate.
No amount of structural reform will do any good, unless you 1. can get somebody elected to office without either family wealth or indebtedness to a mob of one kind or another 2. educate and inform the electorate. 3. eliminate polling fraud

Your interpretation of our Canadian/British models are flawed because of the fact that they are elected by the very interest of the lower house (PMO) who appoint them. So if you doubt the lower chamber, this includes the PM and so your rationale is faulty.

[Obvious Leo]

I read a good book a long time ago (can't remember the name) that investigated all the types of voting. The method the author suggested rather than the first-past-post method was one where each person voting would have to select their best to worst favors by number, eliminate the least favored by all and sliding up the next orders of best to worst favorites until one is left on top.

This is the system that obtains at all levels of government in Australia and it seems to work very well. It is known as preferential voting and in the upper houses of our state and federal governments it is combined with proportional representation. No serious political commentator has ever suggested we should move away from this system but voting is also compulsory in this country and I've always wondered to what extent this corrupts a true democratic process. Surely the right to vote also includes the right not to vote as a matter of principle but this doesn't actually work either. The US proudly proclaims itself as a democracy and yet at best only 25% of the population have ever voted for the particular government in power because over half of the eligible population never even bother to vote.

Is a person who doesn't vote entitled to an opinion on the decisions of his government?

[Scott Mayers]

I read a good book a long time ago (can't remember the name) that investigated all the types of voting. The method the author suggested rather than the first-past-post method was one where each person voting would have to select their best to worst favors by number, eliminate the least favored by all and sliding up the next orders of best to worst favorites until one is left on top.

This is the system that obtains at all levels of government in Australia and it seems to work very well. It is known as preferential voting and in the upper houses of our state and federal governments it is combined with proportional representation. No serious political commentator has ever suggested we should move away from this system but voting is also compulsory in this country and I've always wondered to what extent this corrupts a true democratic process. Surely the right to vote also includes the right not to vote as a matter of principle but this doesn't actually work either. The US proudly proclaims itself as a democracy and yet at best only 25% of the population have ever voted for the particular government in power because over half of the eligible population never even bother to vote.

Is a person who doesn't vote entitled to an opinion on the decisions of his government?

Ours does differ. I like the forced concept. Yet I think that, in line with Richard Pryor's character in Brewster's Millions, we should include a "None of the Above" admission to force a re-election and require any reassigning of candidates needed.

Our local city elections (in Canada and in the States) go as low as 25% (See New York) and similar in my city (for those eligible). As such, I think that forcing might be a good idea.

[bobevenson]

Voting is compulsory in this country. Better get out your boots -- you're already living under a tyrannical government! The US proudly proclaims itself as a democracy and yet at best only 25% of the population have ever voted for the particular government in power because over half of the eligible population never even bother to vote. Is a person who doesn't vote entitled to an opinion on the decisions of his government? You're goddamn right he is, fool!

[Obvious Leo]

On balance I would say that compulsory voting is better than not compulsory because it forces citizens to engage with the democratic process at some level at least. However the experience in this country is that it leads to a "lowest common denominator" form of demagoguery which often inflates the significance of the most trivial of issues. Our politicians pander to the innate racism, sexism, religious bigotry, homophobia and xenophobia which pollute the minds of the most poorly educated in any population. Australia is no more infamous for these unattractive characteristics than any other nation but they seem to be always driven to prominence at election time and thus have a disproportionate influence on the public debate. Compulsory voting may be exacerbating this problem because one suspects that it is more likely that these less socially inclusive opinions would be more prevalent amongst those who wouldn't bother to vote unless they had to. This is what research in other countries seems to indicate.

[Skip]

Your interpretation of our Canadian/British models are flawed because of the fact that they are elected by the very interest of the lower house (PMO) who appoint them. So if you doubt the lower chamber, this includes the PM and so your rationale is faulty.

My point was that the lower chamber flips with every election and flops with every banking crisis. Life-long senators remain in place after the government that's appointed them is long gone; they're immune to lobby pressure because they don't need re-election funds, and they can't be replaced for being inconvenient and unfashionable: they can afford to vote their conscience (always assuming they're got one and stay awake for the rollcall).

[Obvious Leo]

That's not how it works in Aussie, skip. Our upper chambers are elected at both state and federal level although according to rather different electoral protocols which allow minor parties a bigger say. It makes little difference at the state level but at the federal level it is very rare for an elected government to have a majority in both the lower and upper houses. Ordinary government business is always transacted in the lower house where the government has the numbers by definition. However before new bills can pass into law they must also be passed by the upper house, a process which often requires some horse-trading, deal-making and promise breaking. It can lead to a few problems but on the whole I reckon it works pretty well.

[Skip]

I'm not invested in the senate or lords or whatever. It's a useful check, where it's working; a pain in the ass when it's dysfunctional.
If it's an impediment to democracy, it's a minor one. The biggie is money.

[Obvious Leo]

The biggie is money.

Agreed. How are we to escape the inescapable truth that he who pays the piper calls the tune? It was for this reason that Winston Churchill described democracy as an appalling system of government and only marginally better than any of its alternatives.

[Skip]

It was neither the idea nor the system that was appalling; it was the way Churchill's contemporaries (and himself, without shame or apology) malpracticed it. Actually, democracy would be a terrific system of government.
We ought to try it.

[bobevenson]

On balance I would say that compulsory voting is better than not compulsory.

American translation: "I think despotism is better than freedom."

[Obvious Leo]

On balance I would say that compulsory voting is better than not compulsory.

American translation: "I think despotism is better than freedom."

I know that Americans love all their truths in black and white, Bob, but this is not as clear-cut as it seems. I would agree with you on ideological grounds that the right to vote must surely also entail the right not to vote. However on pragmatic grounds there can be no doubt that optional voting leads to a skewed and less representative democracy. In the best of all possible worlds everybody should want to vote and thus the question would be moot.

When it comes to questions of despotism and freedom you'd have no hope of making the case that the US electoral system is less despotic than the Australian one. Yours is such a vaudevillean charade from top to bottom that it makes Juvenal's lament of politics as a game of "bread and circuses" look rather noble by comparison.

[bobevenson]

Please, don't play the village idiot by suggesting that somehow Australia's compulsory voting is less despotic than America's non-compulsory voting. But you do raise a valid point. Under AEP political theory, everybody's vote should be counted, from the criminally insane to babies in utero, whether they actually cast a vote or not. The only way this can be accomplished is by market research sampling such as that conducted by the A.C. Nielsen Company for product sales data and TV viewership, and done far more accurately and at a fraction of the cost of taking a total count.

[Scott Mayers]

Please, don't play the village idiot by suggesting that somehow Australia's compulsory voting is less despotic than America's non-compulsory voting. But you do raise a valid point. Under AEP political theory, everybody's vote should be counted, from the criminally insane to babies in utero, whether they actually cast a vote or not. The only way this can be accomplished is by market research sampling such as that conducted by the A.C. Nielsen Company for product sales data and TV viewership, and done far more accurately and at a fraction of the cost of taking a total count.

You're counting on a great amount of faith by the public to place 'trust' in some organ that 'tests' society's will to replace the ones voting. And I disagree with your contention on in utero babies or those who may be unqualified to possess an ability to think. Do coma patients count, for instance? Maybe we could include the dead or the preconceived too?

[Obvious Leo]

Maybe we could include the dead or the preconceived too?

I already made this point elsewhere, Scott. What could be more despotic than discriminating against people just because they don't exist?