Moving on now to more of the Democratic side of my beliefs,
the third principle is as follows:
Free, open and representative elections must be held to
ensure that the government is accountable to the populace at large. The government is obligated to design
elections such that as many voices as possible are heard.
Policy consequences: Citizens
United was correctly decided, as this liberalization of campaign finance
will greatly help individuals to organize. I favor moving lower houses of legislatures
(House of Representatives, State Assemblies etc.) to proportional representation.
I think all chief executive races should
be done with instant run off voting (people list the candidates in order of preference,
the consensus choice wins)
Governing Consequences: If a law is going to make voting more cumbersome
on any group of people, there better be pretty solid evidence that it will also
combat actual voter fraud. (Most Voter ID Acts is current use would fail this standard)
Likewise, you better have solid evidence of voter fraud before saying an election
was stolen. The lower house of legislatures
ought to be the most “active” part of government.
Explanation:
Some of my thought process on this point is because I do believe
that the right to vote, as a means to select those who are discharged with the business
of government, is a positive liberty. It
is one way that I think everyone has the right to self-rule. But a lot of it is purely instrumental. The more voices at the table making the decisions the a slower decision making process is and the decisions are more likely
to be consensus positions and no faction is really ever going to have the power
to dominate the rest. As the main concern is always to make sure the government
is only acting in those ways that it is authorized too, and that the power of
the state should always be consistently checked, spreading out the power among
many hands is a simple and effective way of doing this.
Now my
point about the lower houses being the most active is related to it simply
being the closest to the general population, meaning it ought to be more representative
of the general will. This is exactly the
same reasoning the Founder used to give the House of Representatives the first
crack at funding bills.
Again I don’t
think this point is going to be that controversial and that’s pretty much all I
have got to say about it.
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