Instigator / Pro
7
1493
rating
7
debates
42.86%
won
Topic
#4865
A New Form of Democracy
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 1 vote and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...
Yesterdaystomorrow
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
3
1500
rating
1
debates
0.0%
won
Description
I have an idea, a vision for a new form of democracy. Taking inspiration from meritocracy and combining simple pluralist democratic ideals with it, I believe that we can make a powerful combination. In brief, it would work like this:
The government ought to be split into many bureaucratic-styled branches that focus on a specific issue only – such as the Commission of Economics or the Commission of Agriculture. Depending on one's job, people may vote for precisely one assigned commission: An economist may vote only for the commissioners of Economics, and teachers may vote for those of education. There will also be one head commissioning group everyone votes for, whose task is to appropriate funds and to assign issues to a branch – or branches should it be needed.
Round 1
This form of governing has a cornucopia of benefits. For a start and most obviously, the electorate will be much more informed about who and what they are voting for. It accomplishes this in two ways:
1. It helps the message of a politician be much more understandable to their electorate. Take scientists, doctors, mathematicians, and the like who are all set to vote for the same commission – we'll call it the Commission of Science and Medications. Since the politicians that they are electing are constrained to a very straightforward agenda – being sciences and medications – it'll be far easier to convey ideas to their electorate. This directly attacks misinformation and misinterpretation, which in coming years has shown to have detrimental effects on politics.
2. The electorate is by nature much more knowledgeable about what the politician is talking about. Therefore, it would be exceedingly difficult for a mal-intending politician to spread false information. If a bad actor were running for the Commission of Science and Medications, they'd find that it would be much harder to convince their electorate of scientists that climate change isn't real than they would when trying to convince the general public.
Another benefit: Since there are smaller groups of people working on one issue, and they all specifically understand the policy that they are handling, policy would be made more swiftly than in a massive body that even the smallest issues must trudge through.
This is simply the truth. It is much easier to move policy through a council of say 11 people than it is to move policy through a group of 545 people (435 representatives, 100 senators, 1 president, and 9 supreme court justices). This is especially true if the 11 people are all experts at understanding in specific the policies that they are voting on, while in the American government, 50 or even 99% of the people voting on the issue don't fully understand what they're voting on.
Benefit three (to rest my opener), this would prevent any one branch from gaining too much power. Even the head commission does not have that much power (Despite budgeting showing to be extremely powerful).
All commissions will have their specific role, and their power cannot extend beyond it. The Commission of Retail Labor Practices – this will include cashiers, servers, and even restaurant owners – will be able to decide what is and isn't allowed in the common retail workplace, but that's it. They won't have direct power to sway the economy, nor will they have the power to ban books or websites that they don't like.
As for the head commission, we will need some strong safety breaks on them since they control two potentially completely overpowering powers. After all, it's clear that this commission could potentially have a heavy bias for the commission with the largest electorate, therefore funding them too much and potentially even assigning them issues that they certainly should have no reign over. We can actually look at the electoral college for our answer (of all places). If we value all commissions equally in a movement for impeachment, then one would find it much harder to pick on the little guys. Say it takes only 2/5ths of the commissions to impeach an administrative official. With such an easy method to impeach them, that would certainly keep the Administrative Commission on better behavior.
This debate is about the philosophy as a whole, not necessarily how any one government would run with all of the niche logistical details, however I believe that it'd be more clear and easy to debate if I try to set up a basic level government that runs on this philosophy. However, the government would be very baseline given that I'm only 1 person... I can't set up a full constitution, create every law, explain how every small bureaucracy will work, and any other thing of the sort.
However, here is my baseline government that will certainly be expanded on as we go:
- We will have a court system similar to the US court system. Administrative Commission selects candidates for the supreme court, other commissions vote. Simple majority needed for approval.
- There will be local governments that are set up just like the federal government. There will be the local Commission of Education, and there will be the federal Commission of Education. This country will be divided into 11 sectors, and each one appoints 1 commissioner for the federal commissions. These smaller sectors will also be further split into representative districts which vote for the local government. The representative districts will be redrawn every 10 yers.
- To combat gerrymandering for the representative districts, a computer will draw the maps under 2 basic rules:
1. The districts must each overall be as close to a square as they possibly can.
2. The largest district may be at most 10% larger than the smallest district in terms of population.
- Local commissions can impeach an official of their related federal commission if 1/2 of the local commissions agree.
- Unemployed people will be able to vote for the administrative commissions, however that is it.
- People with multiple jobs will be assigned to whichever one they have the most education in. If they have an equal education in all, it'll be whichever one they had first. They can however file a motion to swap to a commission of one of their other jobs with good reason.
- Ranked choice voting will be in use since it is mathematically better, and it destroys 2-party systems.
- Bureaucracies such as the DMV and the such will have one head that is selected by the Administrative Commission and approved by the other commissions. This one head will appoint all lower people and manage specifically that bureaucracy.
Forfeited
Round 2
/ff
Forfeited
Round 3
Waffles are better than pancakes
Forfeited
Round 4
Forfeited
Forfeited
Round 5
Forfeited
Forfeited
Exactly as Bella3sp stated.
Pro (Me): This idea could be an ideal form of governing compared to our current ones.
Con: Another style of government is better.
I would assume that pro is aruging that the new form of democracy he suggests should happen, con disagrees and argues against that.
What is the debate about?
Also, apologies for the unusual formatting. This would be my second debate posted ever, and the first one was years ago.
Given that I maxed out the description limit, it wouldn't hurt to slide in some rebuttals/extra details here:
- Unemployed people. They will still be able to vote for the Administrative Commission, however, they will be barred from voting in other commissions.
- People with multiple jobs. The one they have more education in will be in use, or if that is not possible, the one they had longer. In the rare scenario that they get the jobs at the same second, they will be randomly chosen. They will be chosen randomly so that people can't exploit it by having economics as a side gig even though they're a teacher, and they choose to be able to vote in economics for whatever bad intentions. I'd imagine that if someone managed to get both jobs approved at the same time, they are up to some shady things.
- Voting will be swapped to rank-choice voting because it's simply better.
- Local governments will follow the same principle. Federal law has rule over local law, however, local commissions can impeach their related federal commission if 2/3rds of the local commissions agree (Like if the board of education from New York, California, Utah, etc. voted to impeach a commissioner from the Federal Commission of Education).