There is a critical flaw in the process by which most free countries are governed.
It is very basic and yet overlooked as an important aspect of the political process.
It can be fixed but only when the public recognizes the issue and demands change.
There is little doubt that people are upset and disillusioned with the political process of the day. We are not talking about a specific group of people but the entire population of the world. Be they Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Environmentalist, Pro Life, Pro Choice, European, Asian, rich, poor, taxpayer, welfare recipient, etc., etc… any daily newscast confirms that just about everyone is angry about anything political. In an even broader sense, historically, this has pretty much always been a constant element of human existence. As we continue to listen to our candidates discuss their sincere desire to serve the public and correct the multitude of perceived injustices, the problems continue and our hopes seem doomed to eternal disappointment.
It doesn’t seem possible that every conceivable cause and effect of this human condition has not been considered and a solution sought. Perhaps we have missed some underlying cause that we have not considered. This article hopes to provide a new perspective that may change your understanding of these problems. It is an unusual viewpoint that logically leads one to the realization that we may play a more significant role in causing these problems than we realize. The anger that we direct at our politicians and the political process may be self-fulfilling outcomes of our own nature. Even more importantly, there may be a solution that has not been considered before.
To establish a pathway to understanding this solution, it is necessary to start the journey at the beginning.
We should consider the question of, “Why do we elect representatives to perform the job of governing for us?” The answer is obvious and simple.
The job of governing our town, county, state, province or country is a reasonably complicated process requiring a great many decisions on an extensive variety of issues that each have significant amounts of information to consider. Something as basic as deciding how to best accomplish the communities process for picking up the garbage requires those involved in the decision to review costs, logistics, environmental impacts and many other factors. We elect representatives to do this job because it is simply impractical to do this ourselves. With today’s level of technology, it would be possible to have every citizen vote on every issue but the probability that even a minute portion of them would take the time to review all the information on every issue would be very small. We elect representatives to do this work for us with the understanding that they will review the details and make the decisions that best serve the community, county, state, province or country.
Lots of the decisions that governments get involved with could often be left to the private sector to sort out but even deciding what they will and will not get involved in is something we have delegated to our elected representatives for the very same reasons.
So, let’s try to create a fictitious country to make the conversation more realistic.
We’ll assume we have a democratic republic whereby the objective is “Government by the People” but includes some restrictions on that based on a Constitution or Bill of Rights.
Let’s put some numbers on this concept just to give the discussion some context:
1. A country of 100 million citizens.
2. It has 10 states each with 10 million citizens.
3. Each State has 10 districts
4. Each district has 1 elected representative.
5. The constituency of each district has the typical variety of individuals with a variety of opinions on any particular issue.
In this scenario, each representative is elected by 1 million constituents and sent off to the capital to perform the job of governing our country. This body of 100 representatives is now empowered with the authority to make decisions about how our country operates within the limits of the constitution.
On any specific issue, these representatives must consider the relevant information and decide on the appropriate action. Their decisions will take the form of legislation that will define the laws of our country.
Now let’s consider what representative government means in this case:
1. We started with 100 million citizens electing 100 of their fellow citizens to represent them.
2. Each citizen “voted their conscience” in this election because the vote was by secret ballot.
3. Each constituency decided which representative they wanted to represent them.
4. They empowered their representative with the authority to make decisions for them.
5. Each representative can now “vote their conscience” on any issue considered.
6. We now have a representative “government by the people.”
Oops, something just went wrong with this model when it is compared to the realities of today’s governmental process. We were in good shape all the way through item 4 but item 5 seems to have a problem.
There is no question that our representatives do not have the freedom to “vote their conscience” in today’s governments. They are coerced and controlled by their party, special interest groups and powerful individuals. Secret ballot in the government process would protect them from this but in all free countries of the world, open balloting is the existing process. The seemingly noble cause of transparency in government has turned out to be the unwitting benefactor of the powerful elite who control our governments and influence legislation to lean in their interests.
In a political campaign we have the opportunity to listen to hopeful candidates tell us how they want the chance to improve society as our elected representative. We sometimes listen, sometimes hope they can actually do what they say and sometimes vote for them trusting they can actually improve society via their role as our representative. We are hopeful and supportive of their stated mission in the face of historical disappointments from all who have gone before. We trust them enough to vote for them and send them off to implement the improvements we desire. I guess you could say we trust them to do what’s right, fair, logical, etc.
Our representatives probably assume their role with a similar sense of hope in improving our society (especially the first-timers). They would like to represent us honorably, face issues head on with logical and fair resolutions. Unfortunately, they soon realize that their ability to face issues head on and vote their conscience is almost impossible. On every issue there are factors that overshadow the subject at hand. Their party exercises power to coerce, special interest groups have the ability to pressure, their financial supporters expect reciprocity, their constituents expect to benefit, people with questionable ethics may even bribe or threaten them. All of these 3rd parties have power to enforce their positions because they can verify how their representative votes on all issues and therefore coerce conformance.
The very factor that makes us so adamant about protecting ourselves from these external influences in a public election have been tossed out as unacceptable for those who represent our interests in a governmental role. We loudly and consistently affirm our “right to know how our representatives vote” without realizing the harm this causes. All the while we blame politicians, special interest groups and corrupt individuals for the fact that the government does not address the issues that concern us.
It is time we considered our role in insisting on a practice that assures our representatives cannot actually deal with the issues of the day. Trusting politicians to act responsibly is not the point in this concept. The well-established understanding of human nature and group dynamics is the issue. Requiring open balloting at the political level actually causes many of the problems that exist in the political process. We have instituted a system that violates these well-understood principles of human nature and its failure to accomplish our intended outcome is guaranteed. We are facilitating, albeit unintentionally, the power brokers and enabling their ability to eliminate any possibility of government by the people and for the people. We need to address the cause of the problem instead of attacking the inevitable outcome of this flawed system.
An outcry from the public, based on an informed understanding of the problem, is the only way to eliminate open balloting in all political bodies. This is counter-intuitive to the norms of the day and building support for the concept will take time, review and open discussion.
If you recognize the common sense of this concept, it is obvious why our politicians continue to disappoint us as they have no real control over the process. If you would like to fix this flawed system, you can join the Association to Improve Government and be part of the movement.
No comments yet.