What's Wrong with Democracy?

[firefox]

I'm sure we can all agree that America's political system is suboptimal, if not completely dead in the water. What do you think the situation's primary problems' solutions are?

For me:

A) I don't belive that democracy is a very good idea, and leads to tyranny (http://www.democracyisnotfreedom.com).

B) An improvement over the current status quo at least would be to implement Instant-Runoff Voting (Or ranked choice voting) and repeal campaign finance laws that are written by incumbents for incumbents at the expense of potential newcomers.

[Mayberry]

I don't belive that democracy is a very good idea And you call yourself a Libertarian? I do agree that campaign finance should be revamped to allow for newbies to get a foot in the door though. But more Libertatians/ Independents need to get out there and fight at the local level. Kinky Friedman has a fighting chance here in Texas it seems as the polls have him in second place, and he's dome it with less than half of Rick Perry's money. Hopefully come election day, He'll be in first! Go Kinkster!!!

[lily]

Ah, but Kinky Friedman has one thing going for him that no other candidate has.........free air time. I live in Michigan and even I know who he is, which is extremely unusual for someone running for governor.

Until real campaign finance laws are made, loophole free no third party has a chance.

[Mayberry]

Ah, but Kinky Friedman has one thing going for him that no other candidate has.........free air time. True, this is an advantage, but hey, ya gotta take what you can get and run with it, right? Perhaps if Independents made more noise as Kinky has, they could garner some air time as well. The media loves a good off the wall story, might as well use that to your advantage!

[Buck Laser]

Ah, but Kinky Friedman has one thing going for him that no other candidate has.........free air time. I live in Michigan and even I know who he is, which is extremely unusual for someone running for governor.

Until real campaign finance laws are made, loophole free no third party has a chance.

Kinky brings sad echoes of Jesse Ventura. He even has Jesse campaigning for him. What I don't understand is how he got Willie to back him. I thought he was smarter than that.:(

[Mayberry]

I thought he was smarter than that. Kinky wants to legalize pot:D He's also in favor of biodiesel, which Willie has a company that manufactures it. And the Kinkster is the best choice we have. Perry sucks, "Grandma" Strayhorn is just a Republican who couldn't win the nomination, and Chris Bell, well, he's worse than Perry. So Kinky it is!

[lily]

From the few times I've seen him being interviewed, I'd vote for him. He is a character, that I'll give him.....but he says what he wants and everyone else be damned.......the only people, up until him that did that didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of getting into office.

Perhaps if Independents made more noise as Kinky has, they could garner some air time as well.

It's also odd that you say this. I never voted, until John Anderson ran.

[firefox]

Kinky sounds cool what's his official website? Is he less "populist" than Ventura was? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've gotten the impression that he was for less than smaller government.

I agree with Lily that the campaign finance issue is of greatest importance. After all, Ross Perot and Ralph Nader (and to a lesser extent Harry Browne in 1996) scared the crap out of the Democrat and Repubican incumbents. Why do you think they decided to enact campaign finance "reform" laws during the mid-terms after the '96 and '00 presidential campaigns years?

BTW, Mayberry, I'm of the voluntaryist libertarian stripe. You are of the "neolibertarian"/reformist nature?

[Mayberry]

You are of the "neolibertarian"/reformist nature? I suppose you could say that. I abandoned the Republican ship about 10 years ago when they started to stray off course. http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/

[firefox]

What do you mean? BTW, I've been libertarian since day one, that being about 4 years ago or so.

Hmm. I checked out his site, and judging by the Issues page, he seems a bit too statist for me. Did he ever stop to think that perhaps the problem IS government, and not an alleged "lack" of it? According to Einstein, the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

[Mayberry]

What do you mean?About what? Hmm. I checked out his site, and judging by the Issues page, he seems a bit too statist for me. Did he ever stop to think that perhaps the problem IS government, and not an alleged "lack" of it? I believe from what I've read and heard from him what he means is that the current government is non-functional. As far as being "statist", he's less so than Rick Perry, and certainly less than Chris Bell and Carol Strayhorn. The Libertarian candidate hasn't got a prayer, so Kinky is the next best thing.

[firefox]

If I was in TX, I would still put my vote where my mouth is, and vote on principle. Voting for a "lesser evil" is still evil, no? That said, I do think it would be better for Kinky to win than any do-nothing (except when it robs liberty) D or R.

[Mayberry]

I don't consider Kinky a "lesser evil". I like a lot of his ideas, not all, but a lot. Like doing away with the TAKS test. Legalizing marajuana. Pushing for renewable energy. Putting the brakes on the lobbyists. OK he is for the Children's Health Insurance Plan, but I can live with that one. If that qualifies him as "statist", well.... I don't think so.

[piratemonkey]

Public Campaign Financing would remove a great deal of the corruption we now see in government.

If we pay for the campaign, the politicians don't owe anything to anybody other than the voters.

And, we pay for campaigns now anyway, just through corporate and union intermediaries.

[lily]

Personally, I could do with less commercials and less junk mail.

[Labrocca]

Firefox I gotta say you word your polls very poorly. I can't even vote in this one.

[firefox]

Why not? You get to pick multiple options. I voted for the first three myself. PM, I just had this same debate with a friend of mine via email earlier today. Here's an excerpt. The commented lines are his, the uncommented are mine:

"> RE: Help Support Clean Elections in California!

> My response:

> 1. It would save taxpayers money in the long run as politicians
> would not be beholden to special interest groups and expected to
> support their interests in exchange for campaign contributions.

I think this would still be the case, they'd just do it with this
extra money. Besides, they could and historically more than likely
will vote to increase it. Then ALL of us will be funding their
campaigns not just private/quasi-private groups. This is the
fundamental problem with government- It tends to get bigger and more
all-encompassing, and like it or not, government will not do what you
want, or in the way you want it done.

> 2. It is a citizen-backed inititive, not something in the
> legislature, so incumbents didn't write it.

The legislature can decide to modify it later or decide not to
follow it. It's not as if most jurisdictions respect the medical
marijuana initiatives all the time either.

> 3. This won't have any effect on competing viewpoints yet. When we
> have IRV and proportional representation, then people will be
> willing to support third party candidates so that they can get
> their message heard. Right now they wouldn't sign a petition to
> get them funding because either they don't agree with them or they
> don't want their candidate spoiled. Burlington, VT, the first city
> in the U.S. to institute IRV, now has a mayor who is a member of
> the Progreesive Party, a local third party option. IRV and PR are
> the way to go if the goal is increased competition, for now.

IRV is good, and I support that 100%. The problem lies with
collectivized funding. Say I'm the collector and you're the taxpayer.
Say there is a candidate that you strongly disapprove of. Should you
be forced at gunpoint to support this candidate financially? This is
the problem that I have. Also, large government means that everyone
wants a piece of it, and politicians have an incentive to manipulate
if not outright embezzle funding.
On the contrary, I'm sure we can both agree that the current
limits for national campaigns at least are extremely detrimental to
"third party" races. Is it fair that a D or R can get hundreds of
thousands of $2,500 donations, while a Libertarian or Green can only
get a small fraction of that, even if there are principled, non
selfish donors who are able and willing to donate much more than that
limit? Of course not.
Finally, I'm not completely sure what my opinion of PR is. Is
there a way to set it up so that we can get the selection of
individual candidates option as in IRV AND get a form of PR? In many
European parliamentary settings, you as a voter have no direct say in
who actually fills those X number of seats- the party decides. Also,
can it be done in a non parliamentary setting? The big thing I'm
worried about is the possibility of destroying federalism even more
than it has been destroyed already (17th Amendment, certain state
Electoral College laws, etc). Unitary government is NOT where it's at."

I hope this posting is relitavely clear. As I said, I copied it from an e-mail so formatting might be very off.

[wonder cow]

I would just point out that we practice a particular form of democracy, Representative Democracy, which is also a form of Republic.

Pure Athenian democracy is as firefox states, that is when tried with a entity larger than a village or city turns into anarchy. And here I use anarchy in the way it is generally used, meaning mob rule and hysteria and confusion.

But I think the main problem with our Democracy is the all out bribery that takes place in DC in the form of campaign contributions. All the possible solutions to this problem involve things libertarians would oppose and things the libertarian in me would have a negative knee jerk reaction to.

And this, IMHO, is the biggest problem with Libertarians in America today. Most seek, and this does not necessarily apply to firefox or others here, a pure consistency to their political views, and never cede to practicality.

Limits on campaign financing and possible limitations placed on campaigning violate the principals of libertarianism. However, ideological exceptions made in this particular area has potential to correct many problems.

I have learned that no ideology is perfect and attempting to keep it completely consistent just causes many problems. So I try to allow for some flexibility and openly admit the inconsistencies.

[firefox]

It's not anarchy, it's actually the exact opposite- you end up with a demented form of communism if you take it all the way. In reality, you just get stuck with socialism though, because the new power elites don't want to give their power up (obviously).

I think eliminating the $ restrictions means that there's less dependency and squashing of third party candidates. An illustration of this can be found today with Bruce Guthrie's campaign for US Senate in WA.

He's putting down 1.2 million, nearly his entire life savings, just to get into the debates and some misc fundraising. Apparently, there are financial restrictions to some of these things. I guess ballot access petitions didn't foil the LP for as long as the incumbents had hoped...

[wonder cow]

I think eliminating the $ restrictions

If by that, you mean removing the necessity to need so much money to run for office, then I am in complete agreement with you.

I also believe that much of the rules in the states regarding ballot access are intentionally written to protect Dems and Reps. I think these barriers should be removed or greatly modified.

[firefox]

This is very true. Check out my post about LP Senate candidate Bruce Guthrie in WA.