Not direct democracy, not the rule of the people

[koikaze]

Good Morning, Michael

Please excuse my tardiness in responding.  I've been pondering your
message since I first read it.  Now, let's see how I can comment on
it.

Does your Figure 8 not make precisely the point I'm making?  There is
no opposition.  The node's representative or leader builds a power
base ... within leader's node ... with no ameliorating influence.
Your very neat flip-book says it more eloquently than I ever could!
The node on the right ... which must represent the people who are not
a part of the node on the left, and, consequently, must be (in spite
of the size difference shown in the diagrams) immensely larger than
the node on the left ... is excluded from the power structure.

That is not a good thing.  It is the people who need a mechanism that
lets them influence the government.  The organized elements of our
society already have that.  The rest of us don't.


You point out in your argument (1) that, under the present system, the
executive makes the appointments to certain offices at the executive's
discretion.  You don't mention that the choices are made from the 20
or so principal supporters who directly accomplished the executive's
election.  When you show in argument (2) that the executive makes the
choices from among the "20 or so principal delegates who voted
directly for her", you make a distinction without a difference.

The arguments that purport to show a change in the power structure
only show that the difference between (1) and (2) is that the power of
the vested interest represented by the leader's node is more
concentrated and effective under Votorola than under the present
system.  It does not improve the lot of the people, it improves the
lot of those in the successful node.

We have that ... right now ... in spades.


re: "So here (from 1 to 2) decision making is transferred to the
     voters.  Speaking more precisely, they take it upon their
     own initiative to make decisions regarding the structure of
     post-election power."

To say "decision making is transferred to the voters" is misleading.
It is only transferred to the voters ... IN THAT NODE.  It gives no
decision making power to the rest of us.


re: "Your Practical Democracy takes a slightly different
     approach ... it does not constrain her to follow that
     structure when delegating power to her subordinates."

I don't recall whether our earlier discussion of Practical Democracy
advanced to the point of discussing appointive offices.  In case it
didn't, the concept is that the Practical Democracy process
establishes a pool of people who have been carefully evaluated by
their peers.  At the highest level (which is determined by the number
of elective offices to be filled), some of those people are selected
as representatives.  The rest constitute a pool of tested pople for
appointive offices.  Thus, appointees are selected by the people, not
by the executive.

However, this discussion is less about Practical Democracy than about
finding ways to make Votorola a viable means of giving the people
control of their government.  Or, rather, I should say that is my
purpose, since you already think it does so.

Fred Gohlke