Dennis said it best…
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That’s not going to deal with people like MTG who are out to create a one party state. Anyone who comes to congress, whether they understand basic civics or not, are gonna have a major learning curve to understand how the sausage is actually made. Ignorance of how our systems work is correctable. It’s not the actual problem. It’s fascists in our government.
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The executive is far too powerful for this in the US, but I could see using this for one house of a bicameral legislature. It certainly makes as much sense as the House of Lords, or the original US system of having state legislatures appointing U.S. Senators.
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This kind of falls into the common fallacy, as I think of it as: “It’s easy, just…” where we assume that the reason why we haven’t done something is purely a matter of will or values, and not at all about any other complicating factors.
For instance, we grow enough food to feed the entire world. Ergo, there should be no hunger, period, and its existence is the proof of willful malice. This entirely ignores that growing is one thing, and shipping, processing, etc. are all work too. The same thing happens when people talk about growing things, for that matter, such as "why not just make it so there are fruit trees everywhere, because then edible fruit will just be free**.
Writing good laws takes practice and understanding, and the existence of bad laws isn’t just because people wrote them to hurt people (which is entirely true in many cases), but also because people who were trying to do better made mistakes with consequences. It’s like the push for term-limits above all, when congresscritters aren’t particularly good at their jobs for at least a term. It takes time to get good at what you’re doing and to understand how things fit in context, so, no I don’t think that picking any random schmuck off the street is “more democratic” than giving us an actual say as to who’s in charge.
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Yes, but the reason they could get away with that is very few of the Athenian offices mattered that much. For instance a judge could be decided at random, because he just kept order and the whole trial was going to be determined by the jury anyway – though their history shows the other problems with that. For the strategoi who led the armies and fleets, where competence mattered, they still held elections instead.
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I seem to recall some fiction/comedy set in the moderate future, in which the president was selected by lottery from amongst some minimally qualified citizens. It was akin to jury duty and people universally considered it disagreeable duty. Society had regrettably found that those who actively sought the job to have the worst motives.
If the one chosen was judged to have done an acceptable job, they were permitted to return home after 1 term, otherwise their ‘sentence’ was extended to 2 terms.
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Came here to say this. I don’t WANT the people who put their name in the pool if we’re having a lottery.
I will say this (though it’s not exactly scientific) - I have served on 5 juries in my life. The ones where the foreperson was picked randomly worked best. FWIW.
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Okay, we do not actually need legislation to do this. Who wants to start the Random Party? Our motto: “We send innocent people to congress!”
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Yes, I think that particular school has lost its right to discuss leadership and elections for a while.
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I vaguely recall a sci-fi story where the country was run by five (or was it seven) randomly chosen citizens, with the group changed out every X number of years. But one… or seven… there would be no way to tell who would not be susceptible to bribes and manipulation.
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Fucking Wharton…
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You know what I think we should do? Not have a single person for the executive branch. IIRC Switzerland has a counsel of 7. Why is it that so many executive branches need to have a single person at the top?
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Everyone has equal chances in Carousel
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Wasn’t there an Asmiov story about some random Joe being selected to make all the choices in one election? Maybe we should go to that?
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Who was it that said that anyone who wants to be president clearly cannot be trusted with the job?
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Also, if experts are appointed to the jury, they are not permitted to use their expertise in deliberations…
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Athens was a data point. So was Rome. We have so many more datapoints now, including more recent ones.
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Well…they’re told that, but that’s a bit like telling someone to spend the next 5 minutes NOT thinking about an elephant.
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I think it was intended that the president would be able to make decisions and act upon them immediately- but would be constrained by the legislature having the power to declare which decisions they would be responsible for.
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There’s nothing stopping you giving every penny to groups opposing the lobbyists too. Chumbawamba had a big influence on me.
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