Re: [aso-policy] Re: IP address holders - are they represented?

[Phil Pennock <phil@globnix.org>]

Before continuing, I'd like to emphasise that I do prefer the concept of
representation and quite like what I've seen of the RIPE model, which is
the applicable one for my geographic area.  However, I'm going to point
out some glaring flaws in a couple of the pro-democracy arguments which
I've seen so far.

!Dr. Joe Baptista wrote:
> Many of your statements here hold no relevance.  Representative
> democracies do create sound policy if properly implimented under the
> concept of universal suffereage - in other words everyone get's a right to
> vote and decide the future.

s/do create/can create/

Check the fortune(6) database for the US Army Manual entry 2000-25
(IIRC) which is a 'definition' of democracy.  It was in the manual from
1928 to 1932.  It quickly degenerates into what is effectively a
definition of mobocracy.

Key point: unless you include the phrase "making informed decision with
the best long-term interests of the entire electorate at heart" then
you're defining mobocracy, not democracy.

By all means, push for universal suffrage.  However, I for one would
certain appreciate it if you design into your proposals protection
against someone with media power deciding to campaign to get as many
people as possible to "click this button on this web-page" without
understanding what they're doing.  Otherwise, you'll quickly get a
situation where a few institutions can manipulate the results and then
force changes through on the basis of it being "the will of the
electorate".

> Your making some entertaining generalized statements here, so let me
> contribute with this generalized fact.  Non representative political
> institutions almost always result in bad policies.

And you'd contend that the representative political institutions of the
modern 'Western' governments provide a good model for informed
policy-making without corruption?  Take a look around you - you have a
lot of politicians scrambling for short-term gain without looking to the
long-term, because they don't want the political risk of trusting people
to actually think through what the results of the policies might be.

> I'll go down the road of representation.  That provides an appropriate
> balance with all the necessary checks in place.

"all the necessary checks in place"?  What evidence do you have to
support this view?  Because on the basis of the evidence which you've
presented so far, that claim is groundless.


Separately ...
Michael Sondow wrote:
> A revolutionary war was fought in North America 224 years ago under
> the banner "no taxation without representation". When that war was
> won, the principle of representative democracy was expanded, in the
> form of a Constitution and Bill of Rights, to the legislative and
> judicial aspects of public life. This system has withstood, in the
> 20th century, two world wars, and has made the United States and the
> free world the predominant force on this earth.

The Roman Empire lasted several hundred years and exerted considerably
more direct control over an extremely large geographical area.  The
United States has been expanding its influence for the last couple of
hundred years, and is already showing many of the signs of decay evident
in the last days of the Roman Empire (they had serious problems with
their lawyers too ;^)

So, what's your point?
-- 
--> Phil Pennock, DeathWatch Admin.
"We've got a patent on the conquering of a country through the use of force.
 We believe in world peace through extortionate license fees."  -Bluemeat
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