Open Source Program To Give Voters More Active Role In Government 60
An anonymous reader writes "Argentinian political activists are developing an open source program that will allow voters to direct their representatives on how to vote on certain issues by giving voters a platform to debate and vote on issues themselves. Started as an accompaniment to and a fundamental feature of a new political party in Argentina, Democracy OS is not designed to be anonymous (i.e., no secret ballots, no anonymous comments). 'Fortunately, the software isn't yet being used to gather real votes, just to gather public feedback.' Critics see this program as yet another iteration of Germany's Pirate Party, which could not engage enough voters in its own open source program, Liquid Feedback, to gain any meaningful policy direction from their constituents. German newspaper Der Spiegel once called the movement 'a grassroots democracy where no one is showing up to participate.'"
Silence is deafening (Score:3, Insightful)
A few hundred "activists" who ahve the word "Democracy" in their organization's name are not interested in democracy.
that will allow voters to direct their representatives on how to vote
Not really.
Change human nature first and good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
All such schemes have the same flaw which is that only a small minority of people have the interest, time and intelligence to understand the issues to a deep enough level to actually make their vote matter more than a random toss of a dart. Hence, that minority controls the process and pretty soon begins to exclude anybody who doesn't fit in with their groupthink, defeating the whole purpose.
Re:Change human nature first and good luck with th (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, but the "Open" system is a proposal for a cure instead of requesting maintenance of the status quot. As someone mentions below, the issues we currently have are only partially related to an clique of self appointed 'elites' running politics. The bigger problem is that information is excluded and muddied so that people have no sense of reality.
In an "Open" forum I would happily debate Obama, or Biden, or anyone else on foreign Policy for example. I'm not the best or only example either, I can think of many that would do just as well. Stefan Molyneux (even though he's Canadian) and Ron Paul immediately come to mind. If people debated in a controlled forum and saw two sides of a debate, they would automatically be more educated. Currently they only get one side of a debate on nearly all issues of importance.
For example, how many people would vote for Common Core knowing the complete issue? I have yet to hear any media station talk about the copyright issues, lack of educators on the boards controlling content, lack of ability for educators to influence change in content or curriculum, and how the majority of that information is trademarked and can not be changed. If people knew the rational arguments against, it would not be taken so lightly. What they have today is nothing from media on why it's bad, just that "some [insert ad hominem] is against it".
Surely I would agree that not every issue would be voted on by every member of the public. It's impossible for everyone to have enough knowledge about every subject to do so, especially when it's not all of our full time jobs to read and process this type of data. It is a politicians job, and look at how many House and Senate members claim ignorance or simply abstain from voting on issues when it's their full time job.
Having enough debate would surely draw interest, and we would have better than we have now which is only an Oligarchy, Fascism, or Despotism depending on how you are grading our current Government.