Amazeroth wrote:SSLU wrote: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!
I'm back. Back at it again with the white vans.