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What alternative ways can you think of to handle making legislation and passing laws that would negate the increasingly polarized political climate that is happening in more and more countries?

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[-] Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 month ago

Randomly drawing citizen. Sure politics require some training, but it can be done on the job

Also, countries with proportional votes tend to force politicians to talk with each other more than countries with single representative per district.

Limiting elected official mandates to one or two. If you couldn't do something in 10 years no reason to think you'll do it latter

[-] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Have you worked with people recently? A decent amount can’t learn anything and don’t take personal accountability. I guess that does sound like Congress.

[-] Joshi@aussie.zone 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No. This sort of arrogant rubbish needs to be shut down.

In my job - a doctor - I routinely discuss difficult and complex topics with people of all backgrounds and education levels. With very few exceptions people are able to understand difficult topics.

It is my experience that the most difficult people to work with are not ordinary people but those who hold the opinion that everyone else is stupid.

With very few exceptions sortition and participatory democracy have worked well whenever they've been tried.

[-] GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 month ago

I disagree about sortition, but I appreciate pushing back on elitist, misanthropic bullshit like you did. I think elections with a strong ability to quickly recall faithless representatives is a much better solution because it involves the decision-making of the whole community, rather than a community member chosen at random.

[-] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I’m a branch manager in the trades and I see this daily. We’ve had to let go plenty because they wouldn’t take personal accountability for their actions and instead it was always someone else’s/thing’s fault. Maybe it’s just the current field I’m in. Who knows.

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 2 points 1 month ago

Maybe tech school should require electives like philosophy, logic, ethics, sociology and psychology classes? This used to be required here, but isn't, anymore.

[-] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

In their own words they are working a blue collar job because they learn by doing. It would also help if the common trade tech schools weren’t crap at teaching (at least where I am). Most learn more as an apprentice in 1 month than they did in school and they’re getting paid for it instead.

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[-] P00ptart@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

Well my good-faith arguments would be direct democracy (i.e. everyone votes on every change) or ranked choice, but that has its own problems. However, you didn't say it has to be serious. So I suggest a system that locks a chimpanzee on LSD into a room with signs (options) and blinking lights. Chimp starts rolling and points to the blinky light he likes (or hates) either way, your government is operating far more efficiently than hairless apes doing something that is apparently too much work, and most are just as ill-informed as acid-chimp. I honestly think acid chimp accidentally gives you a better (albeit random) set of values than capitalism/democracy ever has.

[-] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

You, I like you.

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 month ago

A bit is specific, but you can probably adapt them.

  1. Bring back pork spending, it's over all cheaper to spend 100 million on some garbage than beating people into submission to pass something.
  2. Increase number of representatives significantly, makes some things less efficient, but also massively reduces the power of lobbying, and increases the power of localized activism.
  3. Limit length of allowed legislation per vote. Smaller more focused bills are ultimately better than sweeping legislation that attempts to address everything. More votes also makes working together easier with lower stakes and more opportunities to collaborate.
[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 month ago

Soviet Democracy. Workers elect delegates from among themselves, who can then be subject to instant recall elections at any time. Remove the "career politician" aspects from government.

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[-] multifariace@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

End FPTP. House of representatives actually representing the people instead of state or party. Senate still representing states but not parties.

[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago
[-] multifariace@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

The US has an effectively two-party system. These parties make decisions based on the money they are given. In order to win votes, they find the most divisive issue to wedge a divide between their party and the other side. If they resolved these issues, they would have to create new ones so they are actually motivated to not compromise. There are many books and other writings about these problems.

As for the rest of the world, the US was dominant in the 20th century in power and influence. This meant that people who wanted power in other countries would look to the US way of doing politics for inspiration. I am not making all the connections for you, but I do want to mentioned how the parties in UK started hiring US campaign managers in the late 90s to help them gain power in their country. It clearly worked. Other countries have followed suit.

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[-] Joshi@aussie.zone 7 points 1 month ago

A bicameral legislature, one house elected by mixed member proportional system and the other selected at random from the voting age population. Legislation must pass both houses, if it passed one house but not the other it can go to referendum at the same time as the next general election.

You can also have things like citizen initiated referenda. Campaign finance laws similar to those in the UK are also desirable.

[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Hm, interesting take on the random group. The US has citizen initiated referendum. Just takes signatures. But the money spent on advertising for or against has a massive impact. I had to look up the uk campaign finance laws. They limit 3rd party spending, but I don’t see that as stopping someone from spinning off hundreds of organizations that each buy like one Comercial or something.

[-] Joshi@aussie.zone 3 points 1 month ago

I can't say that I'm very familiar with the UK laws in depth other than that they have been in operation for many years and are generally considered effective.

For referenda there's no reason you can't have a publicly funded campaign for yes and no and limit private advertising, we have something like that here in Australia.

Sortition, random selection, when combined with an elected body has a lot of benefits. It has the advantage of having professional politicians with institutional knowledge and relationships while also having a body the that is actually representative of the larger population.

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[-] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago

Greatly expand congress (like at least 10x), and have it work like jury duty.

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[-] over_clox@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

What's the opposite of congress?

Progress

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[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

IMO anything with a direct vote of the people will end up as spending wars between special interests with the funds to advertise.

[-] GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago

Seems like campaign finance reform is a more pertinent question then.

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[-] orcrist@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

You still have spending wars. Politicians are bought and sold every day, and any large company probably donates to politicians of multiple parties.

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[-] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

We all upvote or downvote a law

[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Lol, reddit making laws. I mean at least the names of the laws would be interesting. Lawy McLawFace

[-] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

Everyone forms communes that reflect their personal values. I would prefer one with direct democracy, and no representatives.

However big a commune you want, but I'd recommend keeping it at 2000 people or less. Anymore and people start to see each other as strangers, not community members. Plus direct democracy works better with smaller population numbers.

[-] shasta@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago

So once you get to 2000 people, how do you determine who to expel? Maybe it would be fairest to expel the people who have the babies, putting them over 2000.

[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Hm, I do agree that if you have too many people, things go down hill. But what if one commune decides to use all the water heading to another... or decides their personal values are that other commutes should serve them.

[-] leftytighty@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

What this person is proposing is functionally similar to forms of anarchism and anarchist theory has some answers to these kinds of questions.

For example the communes could have a federation where representatives are sent to settle disputes. Likewise instead of a fixed 2000 people with walls between you could have people in several smaller overlapping communities which act as bridges across a network of communities. Similar to how a person can be a family member and a company employee and a resident of an apartment building etc.

Though I don't completely buy in to everything it says, https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works goes into how anarchist communities can and have worked

[-] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Define a set of rules, and someone will figure out how to cheat it.

[-] orcrist@lemm.ee 4 points 1 month ago

I don't see the problem originating from Congress necessarily being polarized. I think the problem is that corporate and big money interests are too strong, and they fund politicians that will try to divide the people on social issues so that they can distract the people from badness happening on the economic front. In other words, I think we're seeing a problem with corruption that's expressing itself as polarization.

Even the term "polarization" can also be used as a trap, because it tends to be used in a way that frames politics as a linear spectrum, and your views are somewhere between these two end points. In reality everything is far more complicated. People have highly nuanced views on many different subjects with good reason, and there's no way you can easily capture it on one single sliding scale.

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[-] PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com 4 points 1 month ago

There's a few ways in practice.

  1. Court decisions are binding broadly. The conservative capture of the Supreme Court is political genius, honestly. They tend to have the final say regarding policy.

  2. Federal agency rules are also broadly binding. EPA rules that limit greenhouse gas emissions, for example, apply everywhere in the country.

  3. State legislatures are often less polarized, which facilitates a more productive legislature.

  4. State agencies, like a state environmental department, mirrors its federal counterpart but is more localized.

  5. Non-state organizations can get things done, though their interests are often limited and not necessarily in the interests of the broad public as state and federal institutions are.

  6. International institutions can 'set the tone'. They may not have any power to actually do anything within a specific jurisdiction, but people within those jurisdictions can draw policy inspiration from international organizations and try for something locally binding.

[-] esc27@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

This isn't an ideal solution, but a practical one. A simple hack for the U.S. would be to make congressional votes secret. Yes, this means congress people would be less accountable, but think about where their accountabilites lie. These people are far more worried about their parties' strongmen and sponsors than their gerrymandered constituents.

Impossible to implement in the present U.S. climate, but more idealistic is to divide the US into 50,000 person districts (greatly expanding an individuals access to their rep), then group those into evenly sized super districts. The reps choose from among themselves a super rep to attend congress, who they can recall at anytime. This should make gerrymandering more difficult, and dilute the effectiveness of corporate donors while increasing the influence of individual voters.

[-] esc27@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Oh, another thing about secret votes. It transfers blame from individuals to congess itself. If votes are public, and a popular bill fails, then the individuals and parties are blamed, if secret, then the whole of congress gets blamed and you could see incumbents lose reelection not because of how they individually voted but because of how the body as a whole did. That could force cooperation, but it could also introduce a new form of gamemanship.

[-] dillydogg@lemmy.one 3 points 1 month ago

I honestly wonder if sortition is actually the answer.

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this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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