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From: jmg@sftig.UUCP (J.McGhee)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.legal
Subject: Re: Re: On Democracy: A Plan to Implement a Practical Modern Democracy
Message-ID: <689@sftig.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Feb-86 13:03:48 EST
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Posted: Fri Feb 21 13:03:48 1986
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Tom Tedrick writes:

> In article <1294@pucc-i> afb@pucc-i (Michael Lewis) writes:
> 
>  [ ... flaws in democracy ... ]
> 
>>     Any comments?
> 
> Good article. I think the fundamental problem of establishing
> a political system which is not corrupt is sometimes glossed
> over. I claim that it is extremely difficult to implement a
> non-corrupt democratic system. I think the corruption
> problem is at least as important as the problem of
> which form of government is best in theory, ie it is no use having
> the theoretically ideal form of government if in practice
> it is going to be corrupted.

	I would say that corruption is an ever-present problem in **> ALL <**
forms of government. Like friction and energy loss in any physical machine,
it is inescapeable. The best that we can do is design the machine
(or government) for maximum efficiency ( i.e. minimum corruption). The more
that power is concentrated in the hands of a few people the greater the
potential for corruption.

		"All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

	Therefore we should design for maximum power-sharing
(i.e. a democracy).
	Our present republican form of government is an an excellent starting
point from which we could evolve a true democracy for which the following
changes would be necessary:

Judiciary Branch:

	This branch could remain essentially as it is, except that all federal
judges and all members of the Supreme Court would be directly elected by the
people.

Executive Branch:

	This branch could remain essentially the same, except that the
President would only be allowed to use his veto power three times during
a single term of office. Later this could be modified to allow no vetoes
of laws passed by the people. The President's main function would be to
execute the law and not make the law as the name of this branch implies.

Legislative Branch:

	The present structure of Congress could remain, but members of Congress
would have no voting power other than as an ordinary citizens. (In the
beginning the voting power of the electorate could be restricted to domestic
affairs with voting power on foreign affairs to be retain by members of
Congress during a certain transition period.) Eventually the Congressmen would
mostly function as advocates of various bills which they would explain and
argue for in the national communications media. They would still be elected by
the same process. They would also occupy themselves with drawing up legislation
requested by various groups among their constituents who petition for a certain
type of bill to be composed.
	Groups of citzens would also have the power of composing their own
bills to be presented to the electorate if a certain minimum number of
signatures are collected for that bill. Bills would be placed before the
national electorate on a priority basis determined by the number of signatures
on each bill, so that a bill which has 100 thousand signatures would be moved
ahead of a bill on the agenda which had received 80 thousand signatures
although the one with 80 thousand signatures was submitted at an earlier time.
	The process of obtaining signatures and voting on specific bills could
be automated and collected through the telephone network during late night
hours (12 midnight to 6 AM) using encrypted passwords for identification.
The price of computer equipment for the home can be expected to fall steadily
because of recent discoveries by scientists in the semiconductor industry.
	Of course, none of the above is written in stone and can be adapted
as needs require. I'm suggesting this plan as a starting point. The guiding
priciple should be the return of lawmaking powers to the people.


					J. M. McGhee