To improve our nation's government and our society, we can no longer allow unknown politicians to select our political leaders. Instead, we must select our leaders from among ourselves. We must insure they are the best of our people rather than the worst. In other words, our leaders must be selected FROM the people rather than FOR the people.
Our method must be democratic (i.e., allow the entire electorate to participate), and egalitarian (i.e., give everyone an equal chance to participate). The Selecting Leaders sections describe a way to accomplish this while harnessing human nature by making probity a prime concern when evaluating potential representatiaves.
Although the process is continuous, I will describe it as having two phases. The human factors dominating the first phase will metamorphose into a different set of factors as the second phase develops. This metamorphosis is the "magic" of the process; it makes virtue a valuable quality for aspiring candidates.
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8 comments:
Hi Fred, your dairy farm upbringing shows in your concerns and attitude. It is good. I am from Wisconsin, dairy farm upbringing too.
I appreciate your views on party's and people. We all seem to gather with others that think like us, thus I suppose party's of some type are natural.
http://bruceeggum.blogster.com/
My hope is that with Blogs like yours and cyber-media showing the way it REALLY is, we will have some better informed people who will make better decisions. Keep up your blogging. Thanks, Bruce
Thanks, Bruce.
Were you able to see the posts that described a different method of selecting leaders? (I've changed the post display count so the entire concept comes up on the first selection.)
Parties are, indeed, natural. The difficulty arises when parties gain power. The founders had it right; partisanship sews dissension and achieves power at the expense of the whole.
To reach their full potential, partisan ideas must be filtered through thoughtful minds. We must replace the destructive nature of partisanship with reliance on intellect and integrity.
Learning to do that is non-trivial.
If you haven't seen it before, I think you'll find Urbano dela Cruz' comments valuable. You'll find them at:
http://hundredyearshence.blogspot.com/search/label/series%3A%20design%20of%20democracy
Fred
Good Morning, Bruce
I tried to visit your site but the system insisted I sign up for a blog. I don't wish to do so.
If there is any part of your blog devoted to improving our political infrastructure, please let me know. Discussing the ills that beset us doesn't excite me. There are too many of them and they simply keep repeating. We have too few folks trying to understand why our system is weak and that's where I'd like to concentrate my attention.
Fred
Hello Fred, with a gap of too many months, I reply to your invitation, in Idopia I say why.
I would like this thread to keep ongoing and I believe that Idopia is easier to use ...?
I have read your comments on the selection of leaders and I think that you are very right on that point. As often, the problem is not what, but how.
Parties or no parties?
What controls on parties and their financing?
The role of the media?
I must leave in an emergency... hope to continue after
Back from my emergency...
These are impotant issues, and yet minor. There are fundamental ideas that must be revised. The modern concepts of constitutions and states, are based on the ideas of the antiquated historians. Those that believed that history is made by great men and their empires, and even put limits to the history of men at he end of the Dark Ages, or perhaps a few hundreds of years before. But modern deep history tells us that we must go deeper and farther than that.
From those antiquated concepts of history, we have been taught to look up for leaders, make us feel the need for leaders and leaders have, of course, supported these misconceptions.
We administrators and organizers and these may put a different perspective on our outlook.
I leave at this and hope some one else retakes thread
Pau
Good Afternoon, Pau
Thank you for your note.
I don't care for this site, either. I don't like the fact that comments are buried. It is not possible to have a sensible exchange of ideas in this manner. The problem may stem from my lack of expertise in selecting a layout for my blog.
I stopped visiting Idopia some time ago. As I recall they did not allow enough space to discuss a complex topic thoughtfully. In addition, although you may find it easy to use, I find it too confusing. I just went there and tried to find the message you referred to. I couldn't even find you. Using 'search' to find 'Anonymous' reported no finds. I'm not going to hunt through 25 pages of unordered aliases, hunting for you, and there is no obvious way to order the list. I can't even find my own posts. All-in-all, Iopia does not appeal to me.
re: "Parties or no parties?"
The problem is not parties, it is allowing political parties to control government. Our method of selecting those who will represent us in our government must function independently of political parties.
re: "What controls on parties and their financing?"
There are no controls, we simply use a method of selecting our representatives that does not require party affiliation. The next two sections: Selecting Leaders, Discussion (1) and (2) outline a method of selecting the best of our people as our representatives. It requires no campaigning and, hence, no financing.
re: Your view of the role of history.
I don't believe I understand what you have in mind with regard to the influence of history. If you mean that it teaches us the fallacy of partisan politics, I agree.
Fred
Thank you Fred for you repply,
When I wrote my previous post, I had not visited your site “Active Democracy”, therefore, and perhaps too quickly, I addressed myself to the subject of "Selecting Leaders, Foundation".
I must apologize.
And it is about the subject of leaders that I, a little incoherently, introduced my comments on history.
Practically all of us have studied history according to the vision of old and classical historians. That is, with the belief that history is made by great men, kings, conquerors, etc. and including the concept that only when written, history deserved its name. And we all know what happens to what the chroniclers writer!
This attitude has resulted in the great importance that we give to leaders, we subconsciously believe that leaders are the ones that make and drive history. I choose to believe what many modern historians believe today: it is people who make history.
Why, in democracy, do we search for leaders?. Leaders will ALWAYS take us where they want to go. If the people know where they want to go, leaders become superfluous, people do not need to be led where they want to go. And if they do not know where they want to go, leaders will "lead them by the nose" what they will in that case need, are teachers and thinkers.
I do not wish this to be taken as an apology of anarchy, all the contrary, administration, law and order, etc will always be needed.
If I may add my thoughts on political parties, let me say that being a social group, parties will always act in the way that social groups do: look for self preservation and unless their survival is endangered (are we seeing something like this today?) they will not change. The good of the nation, the well being of the people, etc.,will become secondary objectives, to be used only when survival of the group is at stake.
Pau
(For the time being, I do no wish to sign up as google blogger, that is why I appear as anonymous
Good Morning, Pau
I think our first order of business should be to select a site where we can exchange views easily. Perhaps we should exchange our site choices by e-mail. If you decide to do that, my e-mail address is: fredgohlke@verizon.net
For now, I'll start by recommending two:
The first is a site in the U.K. If we decide to go there, we can start a thread where we can exchange our views:
http://www.politic.co.uk/
My current discussion on this site is on the 'Your Thoughts On Ideology' thread on the 'Government in General Discussion Board:
http://www.politic.co.uk/government-general-discussion/8746-your-thoughts-ideology.html
The second site is Electorama. I don't participate in most of the Electorama threads because they use a lot of obscure terminoilogy and abbreviations. I am, however, in an ongoing discussion with a bright gentleman in Norway. He has an analytical approach to the complex issues we discuss. This site is at:
http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/index.php?title=Election-methods_mailing_list&oldid=8591
My current discussion on this site is in the election-methods list archives, on the '[EM] language/framing quibble' thread.
re: We "... believe that leaders are the ones that make and drive history. I choose to believe what many modern historians believe today: it is people who make history."
It is likely leaders will continue to get credit for the events that make up history. The fault lies less in the concept of 'leaders' than in the way leaders are ordained. Self-selecting leaders, those who achieve their positions by the manipulation of power, financial, military or otherwise, equate their private interest with the public interest; they have an "I am the State" attitude.
As the events of the past 200 years have shown, we can not delegate the responsibility for choosing leaders to political parties, because parties, too, develop an "I am the State" attitude. Worse, they degenerate into conduits for corruption.
The only alternative is for the people to select their own leaders. To accomplish that, we must design a method that lets us seek out and elevate the best of our people as our leaders.
re: "If the people know where they want to go, leaders become superfluous, people do not need to be led where they want to go."
I don't think that's exactly accurate. Even though we know where we want to go, we don't all agree in the best method of getting there. We need people of wisdom, judgment and integrity to make decisions between the multitude of alternatives. These people are the leaders we need.
As far as anarchy is concerned, one need look no further than the nearest stop-light to see that unrestrained liberty is neither attainable nor desirable in a populous society. When two automobiles approach an intersection from different directions at the same time, one or the other must yield. That is not subjection, it is maturity.
Our society must be organized. The question is, "Who makes the rules." Over the centuries, first individuals and then groups of partisans have arrogated to themselves the right to make the rules by which the rest of us must live. I think you and I are in agreement ... that is not right. I suspect we both believe the rules should be made by the people and we are trying to determine how we can accomplish that.
Fred
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