October 15, 2009. Are perodic, closed, single-winner elections the best kind of democracy we can come up with? Hell no. "Closed" as in: laws made by entrenched political parties that discriminate against new political parties and unnecessary barriers to "getting on the ballot" such as arbitrary age requirements and requiring the resources to collect thousands of ink signatures on paper before a certain date. Periodic elections, for example held every two or four years, engage "the people" in finding leaders so infrequently that election issues are forgotten. "Single-winner" as in the result being forced on all those who did not vote for the winner. Chains of leadership and decison-making with a single individual at the top are dangerous and have limited capabilities. Any system with a single point of failure is a bad design. And who wants to be such a target for those who would use violence to try to change their leadership system? Beyond that, a system with a single leader is dangerous to the people as it has an inherent risk of the abuse of power. The capabilities of "one at the top" systems are also very limited. There are only so many issues and topics that one person can manage. The single leader must prioritize and let many important issues go unaddressed, so the best they could do would be to address the issues with the biggest impact to the most of their followers. Contrast continuous, open, individual-choice leader competitions where any individual can offer their leadership and every individual chooses their own leaders to represent them. The Internet makes it possible to continually adjust our choices. The result is groups of leaders who are extremely responsive to those they represent, specializing on various issues and projects. There is no single point of failure or abuse. The leadership structure is open to participation by anybody and can address an unlimited number of issues simultaneously. |