The Federalist Debate

With the widespread failure of representative democracy we new need ideas regarding the desirability of direct democracy. The representative party system is a form of oligarchy. In a direct democracy, political parties should have no effect, as people do not need to conform with popular opinions. In addition to maintain party cohesion, representatives generally compromise in order to achieve other objectives. In order to satisfy one desire of the electorate, the representative may have to abandon a core principle. In direct democracy, each issue would be decided on its own merits. The use of direct democracy on a larger scale has historically been more difficult. There must be a new dawn, developments in technology such as the internet, user-friendly and secure software, and inexpensive, powerful personal computers have all inspired new hope in the practicality of large scale applications of direct democracy. I found an interesting debate led by a philosopher in favour of direct democracy. Please note that one of the original philosophers Socrates held the view that, "Ideals belong in a world that only the wise man can understand" making the philosopher the only person truly wise enough to govern others. Socrates the father of this ideal did however contradict that statement with the belief that a philosopher is only a lover of wisdom, and not actually wise. Mankind has been torturing itself with the issue of how we should be governed for a long long time!

No protection of human rights when the system of governance itself has failed

Reading this report highlights the fragility of our human rights.

Wiki-Style

How can technology bring greater democracy. An interesting experiment Tapping the Constituency was a fledgling attempt to get everyone involved in governing the way we live.

Red Hat Proposes Open Source Government

Expanding the thought processes of open source software Red Hat mirrors my belief that there must be a better way.

Why Ask for your thoughts?

Do you think the system of Westminster Governments is past it's sell by date? Though the head of state, be it governor-general, monarch, or president, has nominal powers to "check" those of the prime minister, in practice these individuals are little more than figureheads and they do not intervene in day-to-day politics. The operation of government has been hijacked by corrupt party(tribal) politics cloaked in a mask of party secrecy. The time has come to give a role to civil society but how can this be done in the fast changing modern world? Civil groups have been created in some countries to promote and protect the interests of citizens . Such organizations have been at the forefront of the struggle for open government and freedom of information. It must be said that we have predominantly seen corruption spiral out of control with horrendous consequences for ordinary people.

Like myself you may have seen the Prime Minister become a monster out of control, as he or she effectively determines when "consensus" is reached in cabinet, cabinet members do not have much independence to actively disagree with government policy, even for productive reasons. A cabinet member may be forced to resign simply for opposing one aspect of a government's agenda, even though they agreed with the majority of other proposals. Further many of the elected members are not part of the ruling party giving them zero opportunity to influence the direction of Government even if they have good ideas.

I write this to seek global feedback. Hopefully it will stimulate a broad discussion and lead to meaningful reformations of our antiquated system of Government. If we can solve open source code issues surely we can propose a more accountable form of Governance.