[cons] Article 1 - Section 1 - We Can Do Better than Legislatures

So reviewing this section seems to be a really good place to discuss my thoughts on legislatures in general.  So broadly, people seem to favor these because supposedly people are more reasonable or more trained and not as subject to the crazy pressures that the public brings to bear.  Really?  Look at the republican house...how does the "great man" theory work there for you?  The tea party?

Or God help us all the United States Senate?

The point is that at the moment they don't function at all.  If you think they do, here is a little special hat and stool in the corner for you.  We can disagree but we need to be in the same reality to do so.   The majority of people are in the reality reality, not the Reagan Reality.

Legislatures are disconnected.  Legislatures are bribed.  Very few representatives anywhere in the world are really truly respected, and especially in this country?  Why?  Because by focusing the law making power among such a narrow group, you make it it easy to bribe them.

So...if we maintain separation of powers, besides just trying another broken type of legislature (any flavor of crap you want is still crap) what else can be done?  Why not direct democracy?  Sure there are a lot of problems but let's name the obvious problems....

You can't record that many votes:  Technology has changed that.  Welcome to the internet.

People are Stupid.  Lots of People Are Very Stupid:  Yes.  Very stupidly they keep electing corrupt and stupid law makers who do nothing.    If we use people as a validation of power, why not elect the middleman and go straight to the original stupid?  Plus lots of people are also more smart than legislatures.   Look at the legalization of drugs or gay marriage.   Polls reflect a change of attitudes much quicker than stupid legislatures.

Creating working legislation is difficult:  Difficult yes, impossible, no.  See below.

Legislatures halt the Wild Passions of the People:  Legislatures authorized the Iraq war.   Look at the debt ceiling.   Look at the sequester.  Look at Harry Reid and filibuster reform.   Legislatures are idiots.  Just do what Massachusetts does with constitutional amendments....require multiple votes over time...years even.

So...how to make direct democracy create codified written laws? (assuming you even want that but we need to start with concrete ideas somewhere)

Here are some ideas....

Wikilaws:  We write laws like we write articles on Wikipedia.  There are sysops charged with neutrality, but anyone can edit.  Once crafted and stable, they would be voted on by the populace at large.

Strengths:  Wikipedia has created some very solid articles, which, while not standing up to academic rigidity, are often very useful for a download of quick understanding.

Weaknesses: Sysops and wikifanatics can dominate an article to the point of obsession.  This would be worse.  Paid corporate operatives already haunt pages,  one can only imagine what they would do with laws.

Verdict: There is something romantic about a law open to all for edit but the process would need to be rigidly guarded.  Probably something that would require more advanced intellectual and emotional brainpower than baseline humanity.  Maybe something usable once humanity has moved beyond conservatism.

Usegroup - In the book, "Ender's Game" by the sadly now deranged author Orson Scott Card, he made extremely accurate predictions about the early days of the internet, in which people discussed very serious ideas on topics ranging from laws to news etc.  While that does obviously occur, strangely he didn't picture the rise of cat videos.  Could we make laws by virtual discussion?

Strengths: The format is less flexible but more comprehensible to follow than a wiki format.  People who followed these discussions seriously could use this tool both for research and also for evidence.  If the identities of all those attempting to make the laws were public, it would be a verifiable method of tracking their behavior.  A robust legislative investigative agency could in theory use this as evidence to track corrupt individuals.

Weaknesses: A group requires a moderator unless it is going to be filled with spam.  Imagine if you will the Constitution filled with ads for Viagra....and if there are moderators, then the moderators can be bribed.  Granted, with a sufficient number of moderators, this might be diluted, but if you are using diluted numbers, why not just have a legislature with a large number of people?

Verdict: In THEORY this idea could work on a purely practical level...in practice, it isn't really that much of an advantage over a legislature and can still be influenced by fanatics and corporate puppets.

Ballot Initiative: Many western states have a wide array of ballot initiatives that citizens can start if they get a sufficient number of people to petition.  In theory, if one were to lower the requirement for getting on the ballot and all ballots were on the public internet...well...its an idea.

Strengths: If just ONE person is writing each version of a proposed law, then sneaking in tricky language via amendment get harder.  It allows the populace at large to educate themselves on the nature of these ballots to become law, and bribing the entire population becomes very hard.  It also has the singular advantage that it has been tried and done in the real world, albeit as a supplement to a legislature.

Weaknesses: The public at large are idiots.  What this really would cause is that existing political groups would become the defacto power brokers not by bribing congressmen but by trying to persuade the public.  In a system where lying to the public about political matters was a felony it might be possible to reduce the damage from this, but if you apply the conservative test (what happens if conservatives begin to run the department that enforces lying laws) then you see the problem.  The other problem is that if you get an apathetic public where just voting 'yes' to everything is the default, then suddenly you could have puppies receiving just as much funding as defense.  This would rapidly prove unworkable and the likely result is some kind of a minimum intelligence or qualification test to be able to submit ballots.  Guess what that is likely to be....granted, most of our politicians are lawyers already, but in this case they would certainly be king.  It would be a mess...but despite conservative attacks on California...California has fixed itself to remove conservative obstruction of functional government whilst the federal government has not.

Verdict: As absolutely flawed as it would be, a ballot process instead of a legislature would at least stop both corruption and undue conservative attempts to destroy civilization.  Actual implementation would be difficult though not impossible.  Such a thing would likely come about in the most likely case if the states dissolve into their own smaller governments.  It could never be passed in a southern state.

CoEqual Legislative Branch - What if, instead of simply eliminating the legislature, we introduced a democratic body to act as a third branch of the legislature, or in other words require a popular vote on all laws, budgets and nominations?

Strengths: Crafting legislation becomes easier because basically this third branch doesn't.  It lets the legislatures do the refinement and it simply votes up and down.

Weaknesses: Of course, the problem with this is that legislatures, which are inherently flawed and corrupt would play games with the legislation.  You could say that all legislation must be single issue...but then rules lawyers will pass rules that try to parse what does or doesn't cover a single subject.  However, a combination of a ballot process and this 'co equal branch' of the legislature which allows a People's Assembly to over ride the legislatures might allow separation of issues into sane matters.

Verdict: This would largely vary on the culture of both the people at large and also the legislative assemblies.  Iceland could probably do this, but the United States, with the corrupt senate and the anarchistic elements determined to destroy civilization, a people's legislative branch would simply prevent any bill at all from ever passing.  Culture matters, and it matters most of all in the manifestation of its legislature and democratic assembly.

Virtual Chair - So what about a virtual non voting chair that is democratically controlled but can adopt actions typically currently taken by chairs such as acknowledging time, bringing bills before the committee etc?

Strengths: It allows a working group to perform the functions of a committee in terms of asking legislative questions in hearings, offer amendments, consider amendments etc, while removing the power of the committee chairs to be bribed, lock down things in committee etc.  It democratizes a legislature, and could be used in conjunction with a ballot initiative or a simple mass vote on legislation while removing things like spam etc.

Weaknesses: If there were not safeguards in place, a small group of people could potentially have the committee meet at three in the morning, manipulate the process etc.  It also means that those who are most familiar with the arcane rules of legislative procedure when voting for the virtual chair's actions would have the upper hand.

Verdict: I like this idea.  It's a hybrid system that works, and the weakness I cite actually has the advantage that the more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to actually understand the rules and be able to navigate the votes.  But in theory anyone could educate themselves, so while bribery is possible it would be MUCH harder to do.  But you could of course bribe committee members...but the chair could render them functionally useless if proven to be corrupt/conservative.

Multiple Virtual Chairs - So, I came up with this idea when brainstorming and in retrospect, I don't see much difference between a bunch of virtual groups working together and a wiki.
Strengths: It is kind of like a wiki and kind of like a virtual chair.  It would be VERY fluid, and with sufficient time locks in votes to prevent madness, it could work.  It would also be DANGEROUS.

Weaknesses: This is so radical a departure from any social construct or institution of which I am aware, that I really can't even begin to fathom what this would look like in practice.  Without some simulations or small scale implementation, it is simply too dangerous to try on any kind of a large scale.

Verdict: Nice theory.  Worthy of investigation.  My gut tells me it is perhaps ridiculous but would be fun to watch.

Real Time Vote By Proxy: So we live in an internet age.  Why not let me perpetually invest my voting power in a cause, party, organization and such that I like and be able to change it in real time? It's a representation situation and makes things highly fluid.  You would end up with ad hoc legislatures of the most powerful and most popular making decisions in a fluid way, but when you had some tiny little state or conservatives or the corrupt (IE....all one and the same) trying to obstruct things, such a fluid society could work around them with relative ease.  Timelocks against abuse in things covered by rights could protect by some of the worst abuses of the mob.

Strengths: Fluidity.  It would work.  It would therefore be a true manifestation of the will of the people without having weakness like static law makers or seasons of the year or specific election days.  If your legislator was obviously selling you out to RJ Reynolds, then you can depower them in the blink of an eye.

Weaknesses: Well, people are stupid and this means popular and pretty people become power brokers.  Think celebrity is bad now? This would make celebrity and power one and the same.  Hollywood would become Washington DC and you're likely to get the worst of both.  Furthermore, people are lazy and would likely be slow to divest their power to the unworthy.  It would require constant vigilance to prevent people selling their votes for money, and probably prove ultimately pointless like the war on drugs.

Verdict: I suspect ultimately we'll end up with something like this anyway.  And at least this way, people would get SOMETHING for their vote, as compared to simply 'screwed' over and over again by the elite.  This system acknowledges that bribery and patronage seem natural to human behavior and market based systems, and the result would vary with as many different  nations and cultures it emulated.  It would also make it more difficult for conservatives to stay in the way of change once the public could become convinced that whatever random xenophobic thing they're advocating against this time wasn't really the threat they pretended it to be.  Having said that, paranoia against drugs and communism and illegal immigrants have lasted decades, and so oppression would still occur.  Then again, legislatures do the same thing  And this way, once people did change, the oppression would stop much quicker.  So it would stymie conservatives and empower liberals...I think it better than legislatures but...not by much.

Overall verdict: I am starting to think the real problem is codified law, but haven't investigated or pondered the alternative sufficiently to propose something else at this time.