Find the problems of this system(New Title)

[SSLU]

Welcome to my Thread!
Below is a system created entirely by me, as you can proably guess, this is my small version of the "perfect" system. I always wanted to create a unique direct-democracy by replacing the typical collective head of state with a god-like elected "dictator". Without further ado, enjoy the lecture!

*ANNOUNCEMENT: The system will be updated tommorow, until then please not reference to the system itslef but to my latest post, Thank You!*

Section One, Legislation and Cabinet
1,1. The Executive power of commanding the nation shall be vested among all of its citizens.
1,2. Citizens shall be the only, unquestionable legislative authority meaning that refferendums are going to be created for every bill, wherther it is submitted by the people or the Great Leader.
1,3. All Adult citizens have the indisputable right to create a single-issue bills which will be submitted to the legislative body(refferendum) upon reaching 60 thousand signatories.

2,1. "Great Leader" is the HOS(head of state) and HOG(head of government) in one.
2,2. Great Leader is elected in a general first-past-the-post election with universal suffrage for a term of 2 years.
2,3. Great Leader has the ability to convene a single-issue refferendum at any moment and is able to veto 2 refferendums a Year
2,4. Great Leader appoints Ministers by himself, yet he is required to mention people he wants to become Ministers during his electoral campaign.
2,5. In case one of the Ministers resigns, a new Minister is elected by the people in a general FPTP universal suffrage election.
2,6. Great Leader is the supreme commander of the armed forces.

3. All Multi-issue bills are illegal with the efficiency of the legislature in mind.

Section Two, Ideologies, Constitutional Rights and Personality Cult

1,1. All political activity associated with spreading Representative Democracy or trying to overthrow direct-democracy is considered a grave offense and all offenders caught will be executed. The death penalty shall be used for this crime no matter what are the current death penalty laws.
1,2. Great Leader is the supreme leader of the nation, he/she shall be worshipped and praised by all citizens of the nation as their great savior.
1,3. All who do not respect and dignify the Great Leader shall be fined and expelled from the country if they persist.

2,1. Citizens of the nation have the indisputable right to express their opinion in any way they desire, unless they desire to spread anti direct-democractic agenda or disrespect the Great Leader.
2,2. Internet shall be completly free from gvernmental regulation.

That's about it... I admire simplicity as I believe that it is the shortest way to achieving efficiency. Personally, I think that this system is at least corruption resistant, if not completly immune to corruption. Even if someone bribes the GL to veto a bill the population can immediately recreate it and there is no way one could bribe the entire population, right?

Now it is Question Time!
Please tell me wherther you think corruption is possible within this system, or not. After that, feel free to express your opinion on the system and inform me of any possible problems you think could ravage a country that uses this system. Thanks for answering!

[Amazeroth]

Now it is Question Time!
Please tell me wherther you think corruption is possible within this system, or not. After that, feel free to express your opinion on the system and inform me of any possible problems you think could ravage a country that uses this system. Thanks for answering!

Corruption is certainly possible, and will most definitely occur. There are a number of problems that will lead to corruption, however, I think the greatest possible problem that could ravage a country using this system is a short and efficient revolution, or, perhaps even more likely, the first supreme leader taking over and turning it into an old-fashioned dictatorship.

There are too many possibilities for failure to list, so I'll only go into detail a bit:

1. Which people would give themselves such a constitution? This seems like installed by force, and won't have much backing with the people.
2. Citizens can't be the only unquestionable legislative authority, since they're not allowed to bring anything forward that could seem disrespectful of the great leader, or spreading representative democracy.
3. Nobody will worship or praise anyone as their great saviour if they've elected him for 2 years. That's just highly unrealistic. All the historical leaders who can be said to have been worshipped this way have been worshipped for some quality of theirs, and most were neither elected nor had a term limited to two years (with the exception of those whose worship turned in under two years, maybe).
4. There might be no way to bribe the entire population, but you wouldn't have to. Since a high number of people won't vote (since voting is done very, very often in this system), at least if they don't care highly, it will be just a fraction of the population you'd have to bribe. And that is easily enough done, if you have the money.
5. This system might be fine for big issues, but having to vote for every single law only leads to a lot of incompetend people following their guts when it comes to complicated matters.
6. Since there is no election, anyone who actually wants a vote will target the people directly - so populism will wreck the entire system. Parties, or whatever organisations that will form in order to get bills voted through, will have to be popular not just to get elected, but for every single bill.
7. The great leader is completely unnecessary - it might be good to have an instance that can choose to hold single-issue referndums, depending on how many citizens this country has (since there's no way to know how big a requirement like 60 thousand signatories is without knowing the size of the population), but there's no reason a system this hell-bound on direct democracy should need anyone with the power of vetos, someone to appoint ministers (which could be elected just as easily); and the supreme commander of the armed forces could be just that, but doesn't have to play any other role in the political system.
8. Even all that aside, the system would be highly ineffective, and extremely expensive, since there will be referenda for every single bill that's submitted (and, especially since multi-issue bills are illegal, there will either be thousands of them, or much too few, depending on how great a percentage of the population 60 thousand are). There's nothing to ensure that the bills put forward will work well together, there's no instance that could ensure that bills aren't contradicting each other, and there aren't rules to find a solution if that happens.
9. Unless it's an error, and you meant "Legislative power", 1,1. would make sure that only a few bills would be enforced, if that.
10. It's pretty worthless to declare the internet free in this. It conflicts with the exceptions of 2,1., and again seriously limits the citizens' role of being legislators.
11. By far the most corruption happens in the executive portion of government, not in the legislative one. And while the second case might be limited a bit by a direct democracy, the first isn't at all by this system.
12. A veto is pretty much worthless if nothing prohibits that the same bill is put to a referendum again. Although voting in favour of something the great leader had previously vetoed should, of course, be interpreted as not respecting the great leader, and lead to expulsion.
13. Which country would the citizens be expelled to, precisely? Are they just shoved over the borders in the hope that the neighbouring countries won't mind that much?

Anyway, that's just the first things that come to mind - I could probably go on for a while.

[SSLU]

Now it is Question Time!
Please tell me wherther you think corruption is possible within this system, or not. After that, feel free to express your opinion on the system and inform me of any possible problems you think could ravage a country that uses this system. Thanks for answering!

Corruption is certainly possible, and will most definitely occur. There are a number of problems that will lead to corruption, however, I think the greatest possible problem that could ravage a country using this system is a short and efficient revolution, or, perhaps even more likely, the first supreme leader taking over and turning it into an old-fashioned dictatorship.

There are too many possibilities for failure to list, so I'll only go into detail a bit:

1. Which people would give themselves such a constitution? This seems like installed by force, and won't have much backing with the people.

Firstly, thank you for your lenghty answer. It did contain a lot of problems I'll have to deal with if I want to improve this system.

I totally agree that revolutions could easily eliminate this system from the planet with ease during its first 50-60 years of existence, it is something that I cannot find a way to deal with. You're also right when it comes to point 1, such a system would have to be enforced, yet I think that the next generation of citizens would stop opposing it after being educated and raised in a country that uses this system(unless their parents were devout opposers of the system, in that case it would take several generations).

2. Citizens can't be the only unquestionable legislative authority, since they're not allowed to bring anything forward that could seem disrespectful of the great leader, or spreading representative democracy.
3. Nobody will worship or praise anyone as their great saviour if they've elected him for 2 years. That's just highly unrealistic. All the historical leaders who can be said to have been worshipped this way have been worshipped for some quality of theirs, and most were neither elected nor had a term limited to two years (with the exception of those whose worship turned in under two years, maybe).
4. There might be no way to bribe the entire population, but you wouldn't have to. Since a high number of people won't vote (since voting is done very, very often in this system), at least if they don't care highly, it will be just a fraction of the population you'd have to bribe. And that is easily enough done, if you have the money

2: Fixed, I overexaggerated the citizens' role, you're completly right.
3: It might indeed be unrealistic, yet
4: Hmmm... Enacting compulsory voting and e-democracy seems like the perfect solution for this one. It will make all people vote except some members of the richer brackets who would rather pay a fine than click the left mouse button a few times.

5. This system might be fine for big issues, but having to vote for every single law only leads to a lot of incompetend people following their guts when it comes to complicated matters.
6. Since there is no election, anyone who actually wants a vote will target the people directly - so populism will wreck the entire system. Parties, or whatever organisations that will form in order to get bills voted through, will have to be popular not just to get elected, but for every single bill.
7. The great leader is completely unnecessary - it might be good to have an instance that can choose to hold single-issue referndums, depending on how many citizens this country has (since there's no way to know how big a requirement like 60 thousand signatories is without knowing the size of the population), but there's no reason a system this hell-bound on direct democracy should need anyone with the power of vetos, someone to appoint ministers (which could be elected just as easily); and the supreme commander of the armed forces could be just that, but doesn't have to play any other role in the political system.

5: Actually, I made the single-issue bill law as I felt that some people might not be competent enough to read entire big documents and understand everything properly.
6: Exactly, they would have to please the majority and actually grant them what they desire, not what these "parties" themselves want to give them. Such a society would be mostly ruled by populists, although certain factions such as the media, corporations and religions would proably also get their hands on the legislative system making bills and ocassionally beating the populists.
I blindly hoped that corporations would manage to use their money to spread the ideology of capitalism and gain power, sadly I realize that it wouldn't work and the nation would turn into a battlefield for the Populists and Religious radicals. Yet no matter what ideologies would be dominant in the political life of the nation, it would be a constitutionally direct-democratic state, at least until the first revolution/Great Leader-led Coup.
7: Pop is 217 Milion, it is an Indonesia-sized country. You are kind of right, there could be 10000 bills being voted on at the same time if I don't place a regulation, yet if I limit the number of bills that can be voted on at the same time it would make bills have to wait years to be passed. I think that the only solution is to rapidly increase the required number of signatures, scrap the Great Leader and replace him with a "Refferendum Minister" who keeps only the ability to create refferendums. Ministers will also be elected directly and the Minister of Public Safety and Defense will be the supreme commander of the army.

8. Even all that aside, the system would be highly ineffective, and extremely expensive, since there will be referenda for every single bill that's submitted (and, especially since multi-issue bills are illegal, there will either be thousands of them, or much too few, depending on how great a percentage of the population 60 thousand are). There's nothing to ensure that the bills put forward will work well together, there's no instance that could ensure that bills aren't contradicting each other, and there aren't rules to find a solution if that happens.
9. Unless it's an error, and you meant "Legislative power", 1,1. would make sure that only a few bills would be enforced, if that.
10. It's pretty worthless to declare the internet free in this. It conflicts with the exceptions of 2,1., and again seriously limits the citizens' role of being legislators.

8: E-democracy would solve the financial issue(those without internet do not deserve suffrage) and increasing the signature requirements would hopefully prevent 1000 new bills from being created everyday.
9: Fixed, I wrote Executive instead of Legislative for some reason.
10: No laws enacted in the country are legally-binding in the internet, the internet is a place completly free from government interference, be it police investigations or censorship. Even those who wish to violate Article 1,1 are free to do it on the internet. This is a constitutional article that is meant to prevent authoritarian regimes from rising.

11. By far the most corruption happens in the executive portion of government, not in the legislative one. And while the second case might be limited a bit by a direct democracy, the first isn't at all by this system.
12. A veto is pretty much worthless if nothing prohibits that the same bill is put to a referendum again. Although voting in favour of something the great leader had previously vetoed should, of course, be interpreted as not respecting the great leader, and lead to expulsion.
13. Which country would the citizens be expelled to, precisely? Are they just shoved over the borders in the hope that the neighbouring countries won't mind that much?

11: I think that I fixed the corruption of the executive portion a bit by making all cabinet positions elected directly for a term of two years.
12: The Vetoes were thrown into the trash can, you're completly right.
13: The policy you suggested is amazing! As long as they don't close borders, if they do it we can always commence naval landings of political prisoners. Nevertheless... that won't be a problem as I have removed the entire GL part.

Anyway, that's just the first things that come to mind - I could probably go on for a while.

Yuuup
Thank you very much for your input, I'll modernize the system tommorow and let you seek more loopholes. Your post is very appreciated, as well as any other feedback. Thanks!

[Arizal1]

I like those recent threads about the best political system. Let me try to answer to it, as one person who like representative democracy (I answered to the posts in order, so there might be some questions or comments that have already been answered by you, SSLU). Starting by the beginning :

2,1. to 2,2 (Great Leader, before reading he was scrapped) : Your Great Leader controls everything. There is nobody who can counterbalance him and he his likely to coopt everybody to be his loyal servants, This seems to me as he has the legislative power too, since a popular demagogue could use the system in order to have the laws he like. And, quite as I am saying in Lizard's thread, he would be free to interprete the existing law in the most satisfactory way for him and his goal.
2,3. How can you determine if the referendum has only one issue or many? The interpretation could vary widly from one person to another, depending on how they see the issue.
2,4. and 2,5. Ministers... I suppose you could require for ministers to be named in the electoral campaings... However, I find it strange that a minister has initially no democratic legitimacy by himself, but acquiere an enormous legitimacy if he is nominated between two campaings. You would almost be with a dual executive. In practive, it could even become a practice to divide the functions of Head of State and minister.
2,6. This of course gives to the Great Leader the possibility to stage a military Coup (which Amazeroth pointed). Well, every Head of State has this ability, as far as I know, but if some conditions are united, such an act (a Coup) may be possible.

3. In my opinion, this is impossible without a body examining the bills to determine which are multi-issues and which aren't. At this point, you created a chamber of review, which could either work as a legislature (having the power to create bills too) or as a judicial court (which can interprete the laws).

1,1. Harsh... Why killing me? Until then, I thought your system could be friendly, but why do you want so much to punish people asking for representation if you have already the best system and should be able to convince everyone of that?
1,2. and 1,3. Strange. Why praising this dude which is elected every two years to a function everyone could occupy if the People is the one who has the real power. (before reading he was scrapped)

Now, about Amazeroth comments :

2. Citizens can't be the only unquestionable legislative authority, since they're not allowed to bring anything forward that could seem disrespectful of the great leader, or spreading representative democracy.

The way to make citizens the only legislative authority is to say that there are rules which are unquestionable. This is however strange for a direct democracy and the direct result of setting unquestionable rules is to create a judicial body which has to review laws.

4. There might be no way to bribe the entire population, but you wouldn't have to. Since a high number of people won't vote (since voting is done very, very often in this system), at least if they don't care highly, it will be just a fraction of the population you'd have to bribe. And that is easily enough done, if you have the money.

You don't even have to "bribe" properly people. If you have money, and even more, praise, people should vote with you without checking too much the little characters. If the Great Leader is careful enough, he could gradually extend his power and making the legislative power vested into the people a pure fiction.

I think that the only solution is to rapidly increase the required number of signatures, scrap the Great Leader and replace him with a "Refferendum Minister" who keeps only the ability to create refferendums. Ministers will also be elected directly and the Minister of Public Safety and Defense will be the supreme commander of the army.

Ok, without the term "Great Leader", it already sounds less as if it was an autocracy. And we can actually ask if a country without an Head of State is possible. As I see it, with your recent changes, it would be a Council of ministers, which would run the country. Those ministers would be elected on FPTP system and... Then you have almost a representative democracy, since you have an assembly which would probably assess the validity of referendums and interpret bills. And this assembly will probably be dominated by one minister or a few who will start to control others.

8: E-democracy would solve the financial issue(those without internet do not deserve suffrage)

Hem... Okay... This is your system, but I disagree with this idea.

2,2. And how exactly do you reconcile that with the idea that you will execute people wanting representative democracy? (actually never asked, but thought)

10: No laws enacted in the country are legally-binding in the internet, the internet is a place completly free from government interference, be it police investigations or censorship. Even those who wish to violate Article 1,1 are free to do it on the internet. This is a constitutional article that is meant to prevent authoritarian regimes from rising.

Very interesting and bold, considering many exchanges are made on the internet. So no taxes on the internet, no police, no regulations imposing free domains... nothing?

[SSLU]

Thanks for answering, Arizal.

I really need to consider wherther I want to continue with hardcore direct democracy, or make a hybrid of representative dem. and dir. dem. where all Ministers(directly elected for a term of 2 years, FPTP method, universal suffrage) have refferendum organizing powers alongside the citizens. I think I like the second option better. It wouldn't be a copy of the swiss system as the Ministers wouldn't be the de-jure collectivve head of state and they would have some executive powers(comparable to Polish Ministers' powers).

I wanted to write a bigger and more complex answer, but I have to leave my home town. I would like to shut down this thread for a week.

[Amazeroth]

Now it is Question Time!
Please tell me wherther you think corruption is possible within this system, or not. After that, feel free to express your opinion on the system and inform me of any possible problems you think could ravage a country that uses this system. Thanks for answering!

Corruption is certainly possible, and will most definitely occur. There are a number of problems that will lead to corruption, however, I think the greatest possible problem that could ravage a country using this system is a short and efficient revolution, or, perhaps even more likely, the first supreme leader taking over and turning it into an old-fashioned dictatorship.

There are too many possibilities for failure to list, so I'll only go into detail a bit:

1. Which people would give themselves such a constitution? This seems like installed by force, and won't have much backing with the people.

Firstly, thank you for your lenghty answer. It did contain a lot of problems I'll have to deal with if I want to improve this system.

I totally agree that revolutions could easily eliminate this system from the planet with ease during its first 50-60 years of existence, it is something that I cannot find a way to deal with. You're also right when it comes to point 1, such a system would have to be enforced, yet I think that the next generation of citizens would stop opposing it after being educated and raised in a country that uses this system(unless their parents were devout opposers of the system, in that case it would take several generations).

I don't think opposition could ever be eliminated, since people are completely free to advertise their anti-direct democracy thoughts on the internet legally, and illegaly through any other means. And since the penalty for anti-direct-democratic sentiment is death, and not just a fine or something, people will probably be very reluctant to report their friends for these - or report anyone, really, if they're against a death penalty.

4. There might be no way to bribe the entire population, but you wouldn't have to. Since a high number of people won't vote (since voting is done very, very often in this system), at least if they don't care highly, it will be just a fraction of the population you'd have to bribe. And that is easily enough done, if you have the money

4: Hmmm... Enacting compulsory voting and e-democracy seems like the perfect solution for this one. It will make all people vote except some members of the richer brackets who would rather pay a fine than click the left mouse button a few times.

All that will achieve is that people who otherwise wouldn't vote will mindlessly click yes or no without informing themselves, probably very often even making mistakes and accidentally voting for things they would have been against if they'd paid more attention (and vice versa).

5. This system might be fine for big issues, but having to vote for every single law only leads to a lot of incompetend people following their guts when it comes to complicated matters.
6. Since there is no election, anyone who actually wants a vote will target the people directly - so populism will wreck the entire system. Parties, or whatever organisations that will form in order to get bills voted through, will have to be popular not just to get elected, but for every single bill.
7. The great leader is completely unnecessary - it might be good to have an instance that can choose to hold single-issue referndums, depending on how many citizens this country has (since there's no way to know how big a requirement like 60 thousand signatories is without knowing the size of the population), but there's no reason a system this hell-bound on direct democracy should need anyone with the power of vetos, someone to appoint ministers (which could be elected just as easily); and the supreme commander of the armed forces could be just that, but doesn't have to play any other role in the political system.

5: Actually, I made the single-issue bill law as I felt that some people might not be competent enough to read entire big documents and understand everything properly.
6: Exactly, they would have to please the majority and actually grant them what they desire, not what these "parties" themselves want to give them. Such a society would be mostly ruled by populists, although certain factions such as the media, corporations and religions would proably also get their hands on the legislative system making bills and ocassionally beating the populists.
I blindly hoped that corporations would manage to use their money to spread the ideology of capitalism and gain power, sadly I realize that it wouldn't work and the nation would turn into a battlefield for the Populists and Religious radicals. Yet no matter what ideologies would be dominant in the political life of the nation, it would be a constitutionally direct-democratic state, at least until the first revolution/Great Leader-led Coup.
7: Pop is 217 Milion, it is an Indonesia-sized country. You are kind of right, there could be 10000 bills being voted on at the same time if I don't place a regulation, yet if I limit the number of bills that can be voted on at the same time it would make bills have to wait years to be passed. I think that the only solution is to rapidly increase the required number of signatures, scrap the Great Leader and replace him with a "Refferendum Minister" who keeps only the ability to create refferendums. Ministers will also be elected directly and the Minister of Public Safety and Defense will be the supreme commander of the army.

5. That will be a big problem still, because even single-issue bill laws will be complicated. Think about equity laws, or financial or technical stuff in general.
6. In such a society, there wouldn't be a necessary difference between "populists" and "media, corporations and religions" on the other hand. They'd all have to do it in a populist way. Also, there's of course the problem of a lot of the people being ignorant or incompetent, which would make for bad laws.
7. The problem is that if you do place a regulation, you still have no guarantee that the more important bills will make it, especially since only single-issue bill laws would be allowed.

8. Even all that aside, the system would be highly ineffective, and extremely expensive, since there will be referenda for every single bill that's submitted (and, especially since multi-issue bills are illegal, there will either be thousands of them, or much too few, depending on how great a percentage of the population 60 thousand are). There's nothing to ensure that the bills put forward will work well together, there's no instance that could ensure that bills aren't contradicting each other, and there aren't rules to find a solution if that happens.
9. Unless it's an error, and you meant "Legislative power", 1,1. would make sure that only a few bills would be enforced, if that.
10. It's pretty worthless to declare the internet free in this. It conflicts with the exceptions of 2,1., and again seriously limits the citizens' role of being legislators.

8: E-democracy would solve the financial issue(those without internet do not deserve suffrage) and increasing the signature requirements would hopefully prevent 1000 new bills from being created everyday.
9: Fixed, I wrote Executive instead of Legislative for some reason.
10: No laws enacted in the country are legally-binding in the internet, the internet is a place completly free from government interference, be it police investigations or censorship. Even those who wish to violate Article 1,1 are free to do it on the internet. This is a constitutional article that is meant to prevent authoritarian regimes from rising.

8. E-democarcy would make it cheaper, but true, but have all the negative effects outlined in my response to 4. above.
10. Can't really prevent authoritarian regimes, since they would be very capable to use the internet in their rise to power, and, being authoritarian, could just scrap this rule once they come into power. However, it would be great to all kinds of criminals who can sell their stuff over the internet then, plan bombings, heists, assassinations, and all that, without fear of being discovered, since the government can't do police investigations there.

11. By far the most corruption happens in the executive portion of government, not in the legislative one. And while the second case might be limited a bit by a direct democracy, the first isn't at all by this system.
12. A veto is pretty much worthless if nothing prohibits that the same bill is put to a referendum again. Although voting in favour of something the great leader had previously vetoed should, of course, be interpreted as not respecting the great leader, and lead to expulsion.
13. Which country would the citizens be expelled to, precisely? Are they just shoved over the borders in the hope that the neighbouring countries won't mind that much?

11: I think that I fixed the corruption of the executive portion a bit by making all cabinet positions elected directly for a term of two years.
12: The Vetoes were thrown into the trash can, you're completly right.
13: The policy you suggested is amazing! As long as they don't close borders, if they do it we can always commence naval landings of political prisoners. Nevertheless... that won't be a problem as I have removed the entire GL part.

11: Not if you take into account that the underlings of ministers are just as capable of corruption as the ministers themselves (and usually even more capable, since they're under a lot less public scrutiny). Also, being elected doesn't make you incorruptible in the least, which can be seen in every country on earth (as long as there are elections, of course).