Gods, I fucking love Chumbawamba.
Also, the time they went on TV to promote their album and told people to go steal it from a big box store.
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Other than a nuclear weapons strike, what is so pressing that a council couldn’t vote on it? In 1787 you had wait hours, even days to hear relevant news to act upon, yet we survived.
I think it is because even though they (meaning most of European democracies) acknowledged Monarchies sucked, they still liked the top down power hierarchy. Which I am not convinced is the best way to run things. It works well when you have a GOOD leader, but not so well other times.
Oh I admit, it would add a level of bureaucracy, but it would be less likely to have one authoritarian goon try to take everyone over. Though I guess you could have 4 of them, maybe 
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But in a republic, where every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his behavior in office the reason which in the British Constitution dictates the propriety of a council, not only ceases to apply, but turns against the institution. In the monarchy of Great Britain, it furnishes a substitute for the prohibited responsibility of the chief magistrate, which serves in some degree as a hostage to the national justice for his good behavior. In the American republic, it would serve to destroy, or would greatly diminish, the intended and necessary responsibility of the Chief Magistrate himself.
The idea of a council to the Executive, which has so generally obtained in the State constitutions, has been derived from that maxim of republican jealousy which considers power as safer in the hands of a number of men than of a single man. If the maxim should be admitted to be applicable to the case, I should contend that the advantage on that side would not counterbalance the numerous disadvantages on the opposite side. But I do not think the rule at all applicable to the executive power. I clearly concur in opinion, in this particular, with a writer whom the celebrated Junius pronounces to be "deep, solid, and ingenious,‘’ that "the executive power is more easily confined when it is ONE’';2 that it is far more safe there should be a single object for the jealousy and watchfulness of the people; and, in a word, that all multiplication of the Executive is rather dangerous than friendly to liberty.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed70.asp
History has produced counter examples-- for instance, several states elect the Attorney General separately, or endow the Lt Governor and/or Land Commissioner with real power. And Nixon and Trump almost succeeded in ammassing enough power to become Tyrants.
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One of my jury duties was a civil case in Orange County, CA, and we had a fellow juror who was a general contractor. He felt that he had some expertise about chain link fencing (pertinent to the case). The eleven of us were sticking our fingers in our ears and telling him that we couldn’t listen to him. It was actually pretty funny.
I think jurors tend to follow judges’ instructions.
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Oh I agree, but there’s no way that contractor pretended he didn’t know what he knew. It might not have affected your decision as a jury, but it’s really hard to just ignore your own knowledge.
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Hmmm, ok, so let’s elect our legislators by:
- Randomly pick a pool of 100 adults
- Exclude any who have some pre-agreed upon reason why they cannot serve (legal dementia, brand-new parent if they don’t want to serve, etc)
- Each party (where officials get selected by existing democratic methods) get to strike 10 people without cause, hopefully eliminating the extremists and crazies.
- Randomly select from the remainder.
This would mean the parties go from the organizations that promote candidates to simply the strikers of the other side’s extremists.
I guess it means that it would be impossible to get an AOC or a Bernie, but equally it would be impossible to get an MTG or Trump.
… In general, I don’t think this would work at all. I can imagine that a randomly-picked leader could work in specific situations, like designing a new company-wide policy, but I doubt a random person is likely to ever think big, like create a New Deal or win the Civil War.
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I don’t have access to the Times article, but I read this summary the other day: Professor Suggests Replacing Elections in US With Lottery System
The case against elections is summarized as such:
“‘Systematically selected leaders can undermine group goals,’ Dr. Haslam and his colleagues suggest, because they have a tendency to ‘assert their personal superiority.’ When you’re anointed by the group, it can quickly go to your head: I’m the chosen one,” writes Grant.
Which is a fair argument. We’ve seen it before. But:
Let’s be clear: the concept is a long shot to the point of near impossibility in American politics, and it would presumably require basically shredding the Constitution. But still, it’s tantalizing to imagine not only picking better leaders, but eliminating the ugliness of election politicking and the bloated capital geared towards campaigning.
It’s better as a thought experiment than an actual course of action. I would argue that our current system leans more toward people with some level of position-appropriate competence ending up in the positions for which they’re running than a lottery would give us. Maybe this would be nice for lower level positions that we consider to have lesser need for specific expertise. This may also have the effect of offering lower wage workers not only a temporary improvement to their economic state but also job experience that might help them beyond the position.
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I’m going to say Douglas Adams in his HHGttU story
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Oh, yeah, please don’t mistake anything I said as an endorsement of any kind of lottery for choosing legislators. It’s a batshit idea. Not to mention undemocratic. And that doesn’t even address the fact that this would probably require either multiple Constitutional amendments or a completely new Constitution, which is just not going to happen.
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If it’s one thing Americans of all political views can agree on, it’s the democracy has failed.
I remain unconvinced, like an out of touch rube.
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… RENEW 
RENEW
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This is similar to how the Coptic Christians choose their Pope.
They take the name of the top 3 candidates, put them in a jar and get a young, blindfolded boy then plucks one out and he is “ordained by God”
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To the contrary, I know a lot of Americans who think democracy works well and the country should actually give it a real chance instead of smothering it.
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Wouldn’t that be relatively easy to solve in a small community? “Okay everybody, Eziekiel’s being an asshole so let’s ignore all the dumb stuff he says and have another draw for leader.”
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Maybe we should randomly choose cops for the same reason.
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That would be the logical way to go about things, but it might also mean arguing against the Divine Will, which some people don’t do. I mean, in a lot of people’s opinions, Trump is still a viable candidate, or even a desired candidate, even though logically, he should spend the rest of his days under a large rock, writing apologies to everyone he ever wronged.
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A lottery to eliminate fascists? Only if it’s done Shirley Jackson style.
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Yep. From the original radio scripts:
The major problem – one of the major problems, for there are several – one of the many major problems with governing people is that of who you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize:- It is a well known and much lamented fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary:- anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary:- people are a problem.
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