Well said. You sound like our founding fathers talking about checks and balances.

Obviously, you've thought more about this than me so kudos. I'm usually thinking about trying to make the checks and balances we have work.

Meanwhile, there's even more room at the top

I have to say I'm a little sorry to see Huckabee drop out. Though I disagree with most of his ideas, he at least seemed like a genuine, decent guy.

Note that in this scheme there are no commands to the public. Laws affecting the public are mediated by commands to the executive branch to do whatever is involved in enforcing those laws. Commands to the executive branch can be permissive (telling them to do as they choose within certain limits) or restrictive (telling them not to do certain things regardless of subsequent commands from the same tier or lower).

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It seems as though the dynamics of minor-party formation would be the same in both schemes, but significant parties would face different incentives about forming coalitions at the higher levels.

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In both schemes, the choice of ten is arbitrary. Two makes a ridiculously large number of tiers; a hundred makes a ridiculously small number of them. In between, I don't know whether a different number would be better.

Who gets to frame the questions? Who gets to pay for ads about the proposals? How many ballot questions can voters realistically be expected to pay attention to, enough to sort out which is what it sounds like and which is double-talk?

Politics is inevitable. Rather than pretend we can get a pristine decision procedure where everyone is reasonable, the question of how to structure deliberative institutions must be approached with an understanding that politics and especially money will be an integral part of how any such institutions actually work.

My #1 favorite idea is eliminating geographical districts for the House, as I said. My second favorite is much further from any existing institution.

I want a tiered system of deliberative groups. The first tier is open to all citizens, just by registering. Within any tier, a member can designate one and only other person as their potential delegate. Anyone so designated by nine other people is thereby qualified for the next tier. The first tier is always qualified to legislate. Whenever one tier is qualified to legislate, and the next tier represents at least 50% of it, then the next tier is qualified to legislate. However, legislation can be passed only by unanimous agreement of a qualified tier. Finally, legislation passed at a lower tier trumps legislation passed at a higher tier, and the courts can rule higher-tier invalid under the provisions of lower-tier legislation, just as they can now rule laws unconstitutional, and rule executive-branch decisions invalid under statute.

Thus any organized group of ten people can get a representative to the second tier. Any organized group of a hundred people can get a representative to the third tier. Ten thousand people, organized in a minor party, would have a voice in the fourth tier, where deliberation would begin to actually matter (and be covered by the media). But to be effective, a fourth-tier minor party would have to form a coalition with other parties. The highest level would probably be the sixth, with something like a hundred members. Sixth-tier obstructionism would be checked by the threat that a bare majority of the sixth tier would get together and designate a seventh tier of something like five members. The seventh tier would be much like what parliamentary systems call "a government", while the fifth tier would be a standing constitutional convention.

So I would expect this system to have two grand coalitions, but with minor parties retaining their identity and independence within those coalitions.

Now, I'm not advocating not voting Democratic. But I'm frustrated by the fact that many elected Democrats don't fight for the principles I believe in.

And why do you think that is??

Is it possible that the principles you believe in are not compatible with the reality of the here and now?

Isn't that even SLIGHTLY possible??

As long as one cannot entertain the possibility that they are wrong, they will always be part of the problem and not part of the solution..

Don't get me wrong.. I know it's hard to question one's own principles..

Take torture for example.. Despite the overwhelming and unequivocal evidence of the past decade that shows torture of terrorists can produced accurate and actionable intel, there are still people who believe we shouldn't use it..

Their beliefs and principles are so ingrained into their very being that it is impossible for them to even CONSIDER the fact that they might be wrong..

It is THIS attitude that needs to be fought...

The very first step for finding common ground is admitting to one's self, "Hay.. I could be wrong about this.."

Here, here. In the age of the Internet, why not simply let people vote directly on issues?

For the same reason we don't give automatic weapons to chimpanzees..

"A person is smart. People are dumb panicky animals and you know it."
-Agent Kay, MEN IN BLACK

:D

BTW- If you need a laugh on a Friday morning ...

http://www.theonion.com/articles/trump-unable-to-produce-certificate-proving-hes-no,20250/

See?? NOW who's keeping the birther nonsense alive??

So much for "that's not who we are", eh?? :D

Spike the football and be done with it...

Michale.....

http://www.theonion.com/articles/trump-unable-to-produce-certificate-proving-hes-no,20250/

Here, here. In the age of the Internet, why not simply let people vote directly on issues?

DSWS, you've hit the nail on the head. People vote Republican or anti-Republican. They vote for Democrats, but they don't vote Democrat.

This is the system Glenn describes. Republicans constantly shifting the right further right. And Democrats being the counter vote that play to a center which is always shifting further right.

In this system, conservative corporate philosophy largely wins regardless of who is in power. Look at Clinton's authorizing deregulation of the financial system. Look at Obama's continuing support of the Bush positions on surveillance, power, and war.

Now, I'm not advocating not voting Democratic. But I'm frustrated by the fact that many elected Democrats don't fight for the principles I believe in.

Why don't they do it? Because under the current system, they don't have to. They know they can count on my vote because of radical Republicans.

This is why I'll donate, but I will donate to groups and individuals that are willing to fight for things I believe in rather than to the Democratic party whose only position is largely "we're not crazy".

This is what I mean when I say the difference is largely cosmetic. It's a difference of culture, a difference of what seems radical to who, but in terms of policies which get enacted, the corporate agenda advances regardless of which party wins. This is what I believe needs to change.

Good discussion!
-David

I don't buy the premise that the difference is largely cosmetic. Democrats aren't radical; Republicans are. Big difference.

Oh puuuullleeeeezzzzeeeeeee

Maybe you weren't around in the 60s all thru to the 21st century...

"Democrats aren't radical"....

That's right up there with "Jimmy Carter was the best American President"... :D

Michale.....

There has been a change since about 1980, though, following on changes before that. Used to be, both parties had to go to the center in contested general elections, to attract swing voters. And used to be, the Solid South was solidly Democratic. Then MLK and LBJ finally rocked the boat enough to get the South to forgive the Republicans for having once been the party of Lincoln. During the transition, swing voters in swing states were on the far right.

But something else happened. Swing voters are no longer where it's at. Turnout voters are. A swing vote counts double: an actual vote did get cast for one side, and the might-have-been vote didn't get cast for the other. A turnout vote only counts once: a vote gets cast, or a might-have-been vote doesn't get cast, but not both. Turnout voters are where it's at, though, because they outnumber swing voters by *more* than two to one. That might have already been the case, at least potentially, before the Southern Strategy. But by making a bid for the far right in the South, the Republicans committed themselves to a fringe strategy. That left the center unclaimed, so that moving into the vacuum was (at least apparently) a better strategy for the Democrats than "hey, we can be extreme too".

There was also the political awakening of pentecostal Christians, with the campaign of Jimmy Carter.

Fair enough. I'm just not sure at what point the differences between the two became largely cosmetic. Seems like the '80s to me but I'll admit this is a guess.

Or perhaps a better term would be a duopoly. Like Coke and Pepsi. Really not much difference. And they don't compete too much with each other in terms of price because they've got a good thing going.

-David

"Current" here meaning since about 1828?

http://www.out.com/detail.asp?page=2&id=30073

His view is this:
“The Republicans have long lived by what they call the Buckley Rule: always support the furthest-right candidate who can plausibly win. That’s because they believe conservatism will work and want to advocate for it. Democrats [by contrast] prop up the most centrist or conservative candidates -- i.e., corporatists -- on the ground that it’s always better, more politically astute, to move to the right.”

Sadly, but for a few exceptions, I agree with this analysis and there's been several discussions here which have talked about this.

Here's what the article says about Johnson:

"One of his hopes for 2012 is that candidates will emerge to take on the red and the blue teams -- he is keeping an eye on Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, who is pro-gay and antiwar, and who could run with a Democrat like former Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold. He would also be happy to see a billionaire run without the help of either party, to 'disrupt the two-party stranglehold.'"

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Johnson, but more an indictment of the current 2-party system.

Appreciate you mentioning Osborne as I hadn't heard about this and its a great topic.

-David

That'll just make it that much longer and harder of a fall.. :D

Seriously though, with this make-up of GOP 'talent', I might just have to sit this one out...

Gods know I won't be fooled into voting for Obama again, despite his recent "victory"....

Michale.....

2.) I freaking LOVE to read that Roy Moore is a "vanity" candidate. Because that's what he is. He's a lot like Sarah Palin in the sense that neither of them wants to do a minute of homework on any issue.

3.) Nobody knows what Palin is thinking because she usually isn't.

4.) Have you SEEN the new Mrs. Gingrich?! She's freaking SCARY!

5.) Herman Cain is a wind-up toy: entertaining, but repetitive. He'll flame out more spectacularly than Ross Perot.

6.) Trump got destroyed the other day, Chris, I think you might've heard about it.

7.) Bachmann laid her longshot plans a long time ago. God "calls" her to run, which means He has a jackass sense of humor.

8.) Huckabee is the most likely to emerge on top, IMO. Romney's biggest problem is his own record, which he now disowns. The culture warriors can unite behind him. I'm not sure he can excite the Randians very much, but most of them are Ron Paul zombies anyway. Which brings me to:

9.) Ron Paul is not just a vanity candidate, he's a cult candidate. And I am so sick of the one asshole who always shows up at any given peace demo to yell "NINE-ELEVEN WAS AN INSIDE JOB! RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

In any event, the really serious Republican candidates won't be officially entering the presidential primary race until sometime after the re-election of Obama/Biden. :)

That's my prediction, anyways.