I completely agree. I have a very idealized and unrealistic opinion of how measures should be constructed. If you have a body of 100 representatives, then someone writes a bill or document that will get someone done. Everyone else reviews it. If even one disagrees with it, they must register the details of their objections in the document, and if they don't, it's a forced abstention. Or some such process that puts the onus on objectors to continue a constructive process, under penalty of having their objections ignored. If objections are noted, they would have to be addressed, because bills wouldn't pass without unanimous approval of all remaining participants. You could only participate if you were one of the 100 representatives. The idea would be to provide incentives for constructive problem solving and consensus-building, and disincentives for political foot-dragging.
Distantly related to a legislative wiki I guess.
On May 15, 2004, at 12:04 PM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote:
It sometimes seems to me like we on this list spend a lot of time worrying about how best to choose among various alternatives, but relatively little worrying about how those alternatives are articulated in the first place. Perhaps I'm wrong - does anyone else think that is important, and have concrete suggestions for how to improve it?
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