Good Afternoon, Juho When you say, about changing the political system, that "... the party behaviour and rules of behaviour should be improved.", I agree. The difficulty is, in America, the parties write the rules for their own behavior. Throughout my 79 years on this earth, the people have sought reform innumerable times. A little over a year ago, in my state, the legislature passed a bill to prevent a certain type of corruption. Within a month, someone found (and published) a memo written by one of the lawyers who drafted the law. It described the loopholes in the law and how our politicians could take advantage of them. As long as those with political power write the rules for their own behaviour, change is unlikely.
re: "Parties need not be tyrants and nests of evil but just free groupings of people with similar opinions." I agree. As I said earlier, "Partisanship is a vital part of society ... provided it is always a voice and never a power. The danger is not in partisanship, it is in allowing partisans to control government." Your citation of party-controlled representatives is "Right On!". It's true that all systems are targets for corruption, but the ease with which it can be done varies considerably. While static systems are relatively easy to corrupt (it's the apples in the barrel that rot), it is much more difficult to corrupt dynamic systems where candidates are subject to careful examination during each election cycle. I addressed the problems you mentioned in "Selecting Leaders From The People" on February 4th. That outline does exactly what you suggest: It lets the voters seek the problems ... and the solutions for them. Like you, Thomas Jefferson warned us "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." But, as we've seen over the past 200-odd years, vigilance without the means to forestall abuses is futile. It is only by carefully examining every candidate during every election that we can detect and eliminate unprincipled people. re: "We have taken many steps from the pure 'laws of jungle' model but certainly also further improving steps are possible." You're right. But it is more difficult than it appears. We've been told so many times through so many years that our political system is the best in the world, some of us can't admit it is a cesspool of corruption, funded by special interests that buy the laws we endure. If we are to improve it, we must study the disease while we do our best to alleviate the symptoms. re: "Thorough understanding of the dynamics of the political system is needed to make its operation better." That is precisely the point I sought to make in my comments. They are the background which led to, "Selecting Leaders From The People". Can we pursue this line of inquiry? Fred ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info