h a l f b a k e r yAlas, poor spelling!
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
|
|
|
Please log in.
Before you can vote, you need to register.
Please log in or create an account.
|
Like a jury, a group of people would have to agree or
there would be a mistrial. People would have to be
picked randomly by a computer or a monkey, and they
would probably have to be given a chat room (a school
room or each other’s phone number) to work out
weather or not they can come to a
conclusion.
I’m not saying a whole country should do this, but a city
could try it. In the criminal system a jury has to come to
a consensus, or there is a mistrial. This forces the jury
members to talk out the problem. You could try and
encourage the same system in politics. You could have
the post-office divide up neighborhoods so that every 3,
5, or 10 households are assigned one vote. If they can
come to a consensus then they get one vote. But if they
don’t, it gets thrown out.
Advantages of this idea:
1. In a war of ideas, the best ideas will only win, if those
ideas are given forums in which they contend against
each other.
2. In America you have republicans and democrats that
never talk to each other, and they don't have to, because
each side can go into an election booth, and vote for
their guys.
3. There is a complete lack of public discourse; people
rarely have to make an argument for their position. In
the olden days people would have to face each other and
argue out a logical decision. Now things have become
very de-humanized. The people at voting booths aren’t
really necessary. You could do everything that we do now
online. We need to bring back a sense of community, to
our decisions that we make as a community. Debating
shouldn’t just be for those on debate teams.
4. If rational people can’t come to a consensus, then
their vote shouldn’t count.
5. This system would help where the population is
basically evenly divided, by forcing people to work threw
their disagreements.
6. This would probably result in a better informed
society. No one wants to look foolish when expressing
their beliefs, and so they would probably do some
research into why they believe what they do.
Items remaining to be addressed
1. How large should the groups be?
2. How long should they be given to come to a
consensus?
3. What issues would they vote on? Probably just the
propositions that politicians don’t want to address. (I
know some states don’t have propositions. California
has tons of them).
Explanations:
The jury would be selected by a computer (randomly).
Angry Men is a reference to a movie by the same name,
about a jury that could not decide. I'm not meaning to be
a sexist.
Personal Government
http://www.ornery.o...h/2005-02-13-1.html
This article explains why my idea is a good one [myclob, Apr 01 2005]
Idea with better formating
http://myclob.pbwik...e-should-get-1-vote
[myclob, Apr 05 2008]
[link]
|
| |
erm.. who selects the jury ?
is it "Every 12 people should get 1 vote" |
|
| |
or "Every 5 people should get 1 vote" ? |
|
| |
//people rarely have to make an argument for their position//
Why is that a problem? Why should I have to justify my opinion? |
|
| |
I can honestly say that at this time I don't get it? |
|
| |
Yes, that's why there is a chat room, to talk about the current climatic conditions - the Brits'll love it.
Or maybe there'll be a chatroom to talk about castrated rams.
This is in the HB [general] category - is it a proposal to change the HB's voting scheme? |
|
| |
Wasn't that the problem in the last 2 USA elections - that 50 percent of people thought one way, and 50 percent of people thought exactly the opposite. So, how would this system help situations where the population is basically evenly divided? |
|
| |
That means that 5 people voted for, but 30 voted against. Hmmmmm.... |
|
| |
monkey, probably because 75 percent of either side didn't do much thinking at all. This might force them to. Completely unworkable though as nothing would get done. - |
|
| |
I don't know if you've seen my other post, but I'm new at this and got some people really mad for deleting their anotations. Do you mind if I delete the one's about spelling and the use of the word weather? I was in a hurry, am a terrible speller, not as fast as the rest of the kids, and these items combined to result in the perfect storm that was my post. However, I think these have been cleaned up a bit. |
|
| |
Re: "Completely unworkable though as nothing would get done." We had millions of individuals vote in the last election in America. India had in 2001 1,027,015,247 persons. If you made groups of 3 and they ALL came to a consensus, than that would be 342,338,415 votes. If only half of the people voted (or came to a consensus) than that would still be 171,169,208 votes. Clearly enough votes to determine what the will of the people is. |
|
| |
I know that we have a long tradition of voting in private. But I equate things that are done in private with secretive meetings in dark smoky rooms. I want a transparent system where people would only vote for things, that they would be willing to admit to their neighbors. Imagine someone who wants to make pass a law that would end up hurting a minority group, such as the handicapped, with someone who is handicapped in the room. That could be a life changing experience. Could something like the holocaust happen in America? I don’t know. But if we keep going into dark places to vote, without being accountable to the community that we live in, it might. |
|
| |
[DrBob] The Simpsons did that too - Homer disagreed with the rest of the jury so he could get to stay in a hotel. |
|
| |
I like this. It is of course totally unworkable, but it's actually a good idea at heart addressing some of the fundamental problems of democracy. Putting a vote into a box every four years isn't enough to make a democracy work, people need to consider carefully why they are voting the way they are and be able to back that up with some sort of reasoning. That won't happen unless you engage people in some sort of political debate. |
|
| |
Right now we (US/UK/most of Europe) do politics from the top down. The parties disseminate their policies via the media, and the electorate mostly lets the media do the thinking and debate for them - to a large extent our voting decisions are made for us by the media. Forcing us into political debate (especially with those of other persuasions) would shift some power away from the media and back to the electorate. |
|
| |
Of course most people wouldn't bother, they'd just cede their 1/12th of a vote and hope that everything would be ok. All the same I'm going to bun you because I like the approach and no one else seems to get it. [+] |
|
| |
[hippo] Malcolm in the Middle did that too - Malcolm's mother disagreed with the rest of the jury so they would take the time to think through the case. |
|
| |
Re: "Twelve Angry Men was also parodied by Tony Hancock and Sid James in a way which tells you exactly why this idea will not work." |
|
| |
I don't get it. You go to a fictional story to say that juries don't work, when they seem to work in real life all the time. |
|
| |
Sure, maybe juries shouldn't be used to vote for our elected officials, but don't say that juries never work. |
|
| |
We already live in a political system often described as “winner takes all”. It doesn’t matter that Ross Perot had thousands of people vote for him, unless he gets a majority of the votes, he is not going to win even a proportional amount of power. |
|
| |
//I’ll assume you don’t have anything of substance to contribute //
I shan't waste my time on you then. |
|
| |
Good film, great play, bad idea. [-] |
|
| |
//...to say that juries don't work, when they seem to work in real life all the time. //
I can surmise from this statement that you are neither a member of the legal profession nor David Jacobs. |
|
| |
Re: "I can surmise from this statement that you are neither a member of the legal profession nor David Jacobs." |
|
| |
I'm not sure who David Jacobs it. Google gives me a book, and a singer. |
|
| |
So members of the legal profession do not have faith in jury systems? |
|
| |
I'm puzzled by the reference to David Jacobs too. The one I know is/was a BBC Radio 2 "DJ", and a Michael Howard sound/lookalike. The fact that Michael Howard was a former UK Home Secretary may be relevant. Dunno - care to elucidate [calum]? |
|
| |
I thought about adding the word "legal" to the search.
Among the immediate answers I found this (linky). I think it looks like I have found the relevant Mr. Jacobs. |
|
| |
[Jinbish] - Thankyou very much for your link to Dr Batty's research on the way herring communicate by farting from their swim bladders. It left me none the wiser about David Jacobs but thoroughly amused. |
|
| |
DrBob, eh? he kept that research quiet. didn't know his last name was Batty. |
|
| |
It's not a name [po], it's a description. Dr Bob - batty. |
|
| |
I truly had to check the date when I read that article - dragging herrings into it just made it seem more like April 1st. |
|
| |
<hand up>
Ok, I made an arse of cutting and pasting a link and didn't even have the wherewithall to bother checking.
</hand down>
Quite clearly, if I want something done properly -I'd better get someone with at least some vague semblence competence... I don't even know if that's the guy in question. |
|
| |
I posted a link to an article by Orson Scott Card where he argues for local government. I thought some of his points apply to my idea. I like the thought of a towns citizens having to argue out their decision, instead of just going into a dark private place, and voting for people with D's or R's by their name. |
|
| |
Orson Scott Card.. writes pretty good books, too. |
|
| |
I just love the idea of writing someone's name on the ballot paper, and getting him into office. |
|
| |
As for the idea: don't see the point. And [myclob], I hate to be a Whinging Morris, but can we get rid of the 'reasons to agree' thing? It just gets my back up for some reason. How about 'on the one hand', or 'Advantages of this idea' or something? I may have reasons why I think this is a good idea which have nothing to do with yours, and I feel bad about bunning an idea for reasons which may be subversive or counter-revolutionary or something. |
|
| |
My God. It's Friday night and I'm sitting in front of a computer, typing rubbish. |
|
| |
//My God. It's Friday night and I'm sitting in front of a computer, typing rubbish.// Hey, that's reason #7 in the list of ways to tell if you're a halfbaker. |
|
| |
I'm reassured. Still, might change my name - 'moom' has a nice palyndromic feel to it... |
|
| |
Your real name or your 'baker name? If the latter, send an e-mail to bakesperson (click the "report a problem" link) - she might help you out. If the former, then perhaps it's time to turn the computer off for a while. |
|
| |
Yes, the username can be changed and all posts will be changed to reflect that. "chown" |
|
| |
Ah. My unix/linux days were few and long ago. |
|
| |
If I'm doing something wrong, then I can delete my "copy paste", but I thought if I gave his name, and said, "Copyright" that it was OK. |
|
| |
Thx, [myclob]! I appreciate it. |
|
| |
Good idea, but the problem with this is that it would favour large parties over small ones. This would almost certainly lead to a two-party system. Also, smaller emerging parties would find it impossible to get their foot into the door. The ruling parties would become complacent as they have nothing to fear. |
|
| |
I like this, on grounds of 'trying to make people listen/think', so [+], even though it will never happen. |
|
| |