Is our current system of Government a good one?

Jodha

Jodha

Jedi smoker of da ganja
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This idea has ticked over in my head some months now but after seeing a vaguely related news article it reminded me, and I thought I'd see what you think.

Currently our governmental system is like a set menu at a restaurant, we pick a party with the best set of policies to run the country. Each party generally has some good policies and some bad policies - no party is actually the correct answer for the best way to run the country. And in this day and age realistically we are only left with a choice of 2 -

"Would you like chips, beans and cheese with a lot of very strong anchovie sir, or the smoked haddock on rice with an uncooked potatoe? Oh, yes you do have to swallow everything that is on your plate as well sir, did you not know that?"

What (I think) would be much better would be this:

You dont vote on a party, the people who look after the infrastructure of the country are actually the employed civil servents in the main, so why the frugging hell vote for what public face you stick on them anyway?

No, instead the people of the country should vote on idividual policies which are then carried out by the civil servents.

It would be a bit of a nightmare at first admittedly, but once this system has settled down the tick-over of policies would manageable - because the good ones would stay, the bad ones would go, and only the good new ones would be put in place.

We would have a much more dynamic and 'people of the country' friendly system of running the UK, and probably loose a hell of a lot of bolx that happens in parlourment enabling a more efficient Great Britian.

Do I speak from my anus or does this sound plausible?
 
sounds great. but, given the appallingly low turnout to vote at the last general election (which admittedly probably had something to do with the fact that our current system does seem to encourage apathy) it might be a bit difficult to get people voting on a more regular basis. :ph34r:
 
I'm sorry, but all forms of government are inherently WRONG!

My reality tunnel gets on quite happily without one!

I mean, Democracy? What a crock of shit!!!! First the US in 2000, and 2004, then Ukraine 2004!

Guess what, next year..... It's the UK's turn!!!!!!!!

Enjoy!




fnord
 
faster said:
sounds great. but, given the appallingly low turnout to vote at the last general election (which admittedly probably had something to do with the fact that our current system does seem to encourage apathy) it might be a bit difficult to get people voting on a more regular basis. :ph34r:
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If people where able to vote on issues more effectively I think more people would vote, and thats kinda where I am coming from with this idea.

If you had two parties and neither had a school system that you where inclined to agree with, and that was what you where most concerned about because everything else seemed to take care of itself one way or another, why bother voting. But if you could vote directly for a school system you agreed with regardless of everything else you probably would vote on that issue...

Then you be more likely to get into voting on other issues that had your interest at maybe a lesser level. And the ball would roll down the hill gathering speed.

You wouldn't vote on everything unless you were a fanatic, but thats unavoidable and not a harmful thing either.

People who care strongly about something have a much more valid vote than somebody who doesn't care about the same thing.
 
Jodha said:
People who care strongly about something have a much more valid vote than somebody who doesn't care about the same thing.
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I agree with most of what you said there, but not the word 'valid' because the function of a democracy is meant to be to fairly and equally represent the views of all members of society, not just those that hold strong feelings. Even people who don't care about issues necessarily have to have as much of a right to vote on those issues as the most committed fanatic.

Furthermore, I think that in an 'advanced Western democracy' :crazy: like our own, there might be problems with voting on inidividual issues. Whilst people are more likely to vote when they care strongly, they're also more likely to care strongly when they have extreme views. For example, whilst our current political system is heavily flawed, the party in power - be it for reasons of popularity, because of the presence of the opposition, or simply an unwillingness to make controversial or innovative policies - tends not to be able to get away with doing things that are too terrible. If, though, we were to have a vote on, say, whether we should close the doors of this country to asylum seekers, a minority of people with extreme views voting en masse might be able to skew the result in a way that did not reflect the views of a less committed majority. This is particularly dangerous if you accept the idea of a strong media influencing peoples' views and opinions, because it would enable a media hegemony to dominate policy (although you could easily argue that that happens already...), and especially because groups of people who are generally more likely to vote are often fairly homogenous in terms of what sections of the media they listen to.

Of course, I'm not offering any actual better alternatives, just pedantically criticising every good, forward-thinking suggestion that's been put forward. This is exactly what UK politics are all about. :!:
 
I think it sounds like an excellent idea frankly. I've never ascribed to a political party because I don't agree with everything that any political party espouses as it's ethos. I tend to pick and choose my opinions issue by issue, as do most people, (flame Boy says I'm the most right-wing, left-wing person that he knows :? ) so I think this would be the only way to get a really representative govt. It would also be the closest thing we could get to government of the people by the people.

There is no way that this system of government would ever be tolerated by those in power however as it would mean making themselves unemployed in order to hand over the reins of power to the people for real, instead of this sham we currently have where they claim we run the country, but all we do is vote them in and then give them carte blanche to shaft us up the arses.

Oh please sir, may I have another???
 
Mmmm - thanks for trying Jodha

Problem is that many many political 'issues' are in fact interconnected - however much you might dislike the.reality. Economics has a real relationship with practically every area of policymaking, such as social policy or 'defence'/offence. Ideas of liberty and freedom are also connected to concepts of opportunity, level playing fields, and wwhether one should attempt to interfere in the economy or people's 'right' to earn as much as they like and at what level the govt should 'rightly' or fairly levy tax on them.

Do you really think that everybody has a coherent view on health and safety policy issues, for example? Business people will (I assure you) have their views and workers will perhaps have quite opposing points of view. But for the wider populace? Do they care?

Party politics, and political parties, have evolved as organic sets of ideologies and actual practices over a long period of time - so to a degree there is a coherence WITHIN political parties on the interconnectedness of issues - so lib dems, comimg from their background reject certain socialist policies and have always had a concern with lessening inequalities but tempered it with a concern about state intervention etc.
This doesn't mean that parties can't change their ideological direction - look at Thatcherism - not conservative at all - why? because conservatism is about (traditionally) tradition and not trying to fix things if they ain't broke and seeing society as an organically developed organism over time. Thatcherism, by contrast, was ultraradical and wanted widescale social, economic, and political change - not conservative at all.

It may appear that having to accept the whole package is unfair - but hey! is your life a smorgesboard of opportunity and fun that you can pick'n'choose as you like? Thought not...
And anyway, political parties are always open to new members - nothing stopping you from joining and 'taking over' but too boring and time-consuming for most people (unsurprisingly) - they want their views acepted now.
Single issue politics remains in the domain of pressure groups but even they get stuck in the political metaconnectedness of things - Oxfam got into a lot of bother in the '90s because they wanted to discuss some of the underlying causes of poverty but this meant being critical of government and also spending money on campaigning AGAINST certain govt policies - too political that according to their critics

IMHO separate party politics from single issues, join prssure groups for things you feel strongly about, but accept that parties and therefore govt will always be a 'broad church' . As for civil servants doing things - I shouldn't think they'd want the responsibility.
 
Shit this has had a lot added to it since I was last here... cant read it all just yet but want to, will dedicate some time later this afternoon.

Just a quick on to Meijin, although not read all what you have said, I reckon economics is a bunch of arse really. It's been proven by brainy mathematicians that money has gravity - once you go over a certain threshold the more you have the more you will acumilate as long as you dont blow it all on weed.

As this is the case and as world trade is oiled by the stuff, we are in the shit. The rich will keep getting richer and the poor will keep getting poorer. Human nature stops out intellegence from proventing this and the system will explode, maybe in the next few decades or maybe next century. But this material for an entirely new thread I feel, and have not had a revolutionary idea on the subject yet :(
 
Indeed Jodha - economics IS a load of shit and the biggest pair of emperor's new pants that have ever been designed or purchased. Doesn't mean that 'we' still haven't got issues about how 'resources' are allocated tho'...but I totally agree that if you don't like what one economist tells you then you should sack her/him and get someone who CAN achieve what you want them to do....
 
Jodha said:
This idea has ticked over in my head some months now but after seeing a vaguely related news article it reminded me, and I thought I'd see what you think.

Currently our governmental system is like a set menu at a restaurant, we pick a party with the best set of policies to run the country. Each party generally has some good policies and some bad policies - no party is actually the correct answer for the best way to run the country. And in this day and age realistically we are only left with a choice of 2 -

"Would you like chips, beans and cheese with a lot of very strong anchovie sir, or the smoked haddock on rice with an uncooked potatoe? Oh, yes you do have to swallow everything that is on your plate as well sir, did you not know that?"

What (I think) would be much better would be this:

You dont vote on a party, the people who look after the infrastructure of the country are actually the employed civil servents in the main, so why the frugging hell vote for what public face you stick on them anyway?

No, instead the people of the country should vote on idividual policies which are then carried out by the civil servents.

It would be a bit of a nightmare at first admittedly, but once this system has settled down the tick-over of policies would manageable - because the good ones would stay, the bad ones would go, and only the good new ones would be put in place.

We would have a much more dynamic and 'people of the country' friendly system of running the UK, and probably loose a hell of a lot of bolx that happens in parlourment enabling a more efficient Great Britian.

Do I speak from my anus or does this sound plausible?
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It's strange, I had a conversation about this not long go with a mate. Direct democaracy is the way forward, you could even go so far as to abolish goverment all togeteher and everyone would vote on every individual aspect of life that affects them. Not that people from London would be voting on housing issues in Newcastle or anything like that. The issues would have to be localized, posibly brought to peoples attention by their local councill, who would be ellected by their local comminity and not because they are affiliated with any political party.

The problem with doing this would be how the infrastructure for accepting the votes would work, and wether the system would be susceptable to abuse. We could have a website that everyone could vote on, but not everyone has a computer. Or maybe from the red button on TV but that would put emmence power into the hands of the broadcasters (even more than they have now). Postal votes would be out of the question as they would require a central hub in order to process them.

I think that although this may happen in the very distant future we are stuck with things the way they are for the time being.
 
A consitution that has referendums on all contentious issues?

referendum - The submission of a proposed public measure or actual statute to a direct popular vote.
 
It would be a bit of a nightmare at first admittedly, but once this system has settled down
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That's yer problem right there. You've got a blockage in your Blindingly Obvious valve.

I can fix it, but it'll be a long job. Your pipes need a complete cleanout and that won't be cheap, on top of that you've got the price of ripping out all this rusty cogwork and a total overhaul on your braingut. I could do it for a backrub and a Strongbow, if you like.
 
Mmmm, I 'm with you on some sort of constitution Albs - but probably ON the contentious issues - you know things like human rights - I think those sorts of things need to be enshrined in law or a constitution so that NO govt whatever their hue can meddle with the fundamentals - and include things like right to shelter/housing, right to healthcare etc. - they're things that can't be touched.

Referenda can be useful but I worry that they'll be highjacked by the press (see what the scum Mail/Sun/Excess are like on issues of immigration - the amount of people who ruin a perfectly useful conversation by dropping some racist bombshell in these days is just heartrending)....do YOU trust the media's representation on single issues?
 
Meijin said:
....do YOU trust the media's representation on single issues?
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Personally I don't trust the media on any issues. Each media device appears to be owned by a biased entity. But some like the BBC, for example, have attempted to be unbiased and have tried to gain the real facts. The UK right wing government of the present has had a go at restricting the BBC in it's search for the truth.

I agree with you though on the power of the media. In the Ivory Coast the media stirred up all the violent trouble against the French expatriates. People who have lived there in harmony with the locals for decades, suddenly find they are outcasts.

I think education is the only way to stop ignorance and fear which the media like those you have mentioned Meijin spread.
 
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