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Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!larry
From: larry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Alternative to Elections
Message-ID: <614@grkermit.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Aug-83 14:52:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: grkermit.614
Posted: Tue Aug 23 14:52:47 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Aug-83 02:01:46 EDT
Organization: GenRad Inc., Concord, MA
Lines: 24

Here's an interesting topic that was tossed around on the Arpanet
poli-sci mailing list, and which I haven't seen here yet:


The reason we have election in this country is supposedly to represent in
government, as best as possible, the will of the people.  Yet it seems that
time and time again, our elected representatives turn out to be a bunch of
bozos who belong to a small class of special interests. (mostly lawyers and
businessmen [no lawyer flames!]).

It seems to me that we really don't have a truly representative lot in the
Congress today.


So, instead of electing our congressmen (or M.P.s) why don't we choose them
at random.  Lets say we were to just choose 435 people, 1 from each
Congressional district and let them become the lawmakers for a two year
term.  They would be given professional staffs who would know how to handle
all the technical details, so level of experience would not be a factor.

I'm not advocating this issue, I just want to hear what others think. -- 
Larry Kolodney (The Devil's Advocate)
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry
(ARPA)  rms.g.lkk@mit-ai