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From: esk@wucs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: More on Participatory Democracy
Message-ID: <223@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-May-84 15:51:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: wucs.223
Posted: Wed May  2 15:51:46 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 4-May-84 01:05:02 EDT
Organization: Wash. Univ. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 34

[Ah, that was a good year, that was!]

      I think that many of us are overlooking some of the reasons behind
our current form of government.  Governing our country is no minor job,
we supposedly elect our representatives so that they (or more
importantly, their staffs) can devote themselves full time to that job. 
I think the idea of a true participatory democracy, where the people do
all the decision making, is rather naive for any large organization. 
Town Meetings in New England are fine for a town, for a country I don't
think they have much of a chance.  Just to consider our population
trying to consider something such as foreign policy when most people
can't even tell you the capital (sp?) of Canada, much less what is going
on somewhere in Africa or Southeast Asia right now.  How can we be
expected to make a choice based on anything other than chance (or based
on the advertising of various special interest groups - much like we
have now!) when most of the population is grossly undereducated on law,
history, current events or economics.

      Now, I realize that much of time (most, or all, of the time?) it
seems our elected representatives don't seem to do a very good job as
far as making intelligent policy decisions for us.  I agree that
something should be done about this state of affairs.  When being a
politician is almost synonymous with being corrupt, something is wrong! 
I just think that participatory democracy is not a very viable,
realistic alternative to suggest.

      Sorry if I seem to be cracking down on a proposal without anything
concrete to suggest as a solution, but I thought that this idea needed a
little closer examination.

						Eric Kaylor

No, I'll stop....  No, not the thumb screws!!!!  Aghhhhhh......
....ihnp4!afinitc!wucs!esk