Globe
A Blueprint for Self-Government
If your car turns out to be a 'lemon', there is little point in tinkering with it. It will never be right. Better get rid of it and buy another car. So it is with our present model of Democracy. It turned out a lemon and needs to be exchanged for a new, better form of Democracy.
Oswald Spengler, in The Decline of the West, makes the following points. On the 'Fate of Democracy', he says that in the present state of Democracy, one can make use of constitutional rights only when one has money. The right to vote can only work in a democratic state if there is no organized leadership manipulating the voters in its own interests, with a large amount of money to back those interests. Spengler adds that as soon as such a moneyed, organized leadership emerges, the People's vote has no more significance to the organized party than a mere opinion, even though it is expressed by thousands of individuals. It has not the slightest influence over the party these individuals have placed in power.
Spengler did not foresee the advent of television and its power to influence, but he did realize that the press has the power to destroy the individual's ability to think as an independent mind. He claims we are not given the facts, to be allowed to make up our own minds; we are given the opinions of powerful charismatics who arrogantly assume omniscience.
The link between money and power in a democracy was understood by Julius Caesar, and under him the ideal of Democracy withered in a corrupted soil. The seeds of a new Democracy are still waiting, ready to spring to life, when the People are ready to take control.
The party system is not synonymous with the democratic system of government. Its beginnings stem from the political manoeuvres of the Earl of Danby in late 17th Century England, when he formed a 'Court Party' through bribery and corruption. He was eventually impeached for squandering public money and accepting what we now call kick-backs, to use his influence to help the East India Company gain charter privileges. Not much has changed in politics!
What is a political party? It can be described as an organized group seeking to control the personnel and policy of government. It is not a majority of the electorate, because control is wielded by only a small group, or caucus, headed by a party leader, who holds the political and often financial future of the members of that caucus in his hands.
The Party System has been the downfall of Democracy. The political party is little more than a scam, designed to divide and conquer the People. Parties are composed of three types of people, the politically ambitious, the self-serving, and the gullible. The first become members of parliament, legislature, or some such political haven, the second use their influence to grind their axes, and the third wave banners at party conventions.
In the development of the Party System of government, it has been forgotten that all ideas about how to govern acountry have validity. Some have a better chance of success than others, depending on the actual situation at the time. However, it is wrong to say one is good for a country and one is bad. This is what parties tend to do. 'My 3-Year Plan will work, but your 5-Year Plan will not', is a familiar hustings cry. The election period is not the time to put forward ideas to be battled over, trying to win points with the voters. It is now an expected event when Party Leaders meet in TV Debates. These usually degenerate into slanging matches. Exercises in Democracy they are not!
Ideas for government should be put forward in the house by all representatives, then discussed openly, without rancour. The vote should in every case be decided by the representatives as individuals who have consulted fully with an informed public. Party 'loyalty', as displayed at present, is nothing less than fear, and blind acceptance of the party leader's wishes.
People can tell the philosophy of a party by the colour of its umbrella. Usually a red umbrella is held in the left hand, and a blue one in the right hand! Sometimes a party leader appears holding his umbrella with both hands. People are then not sure which hand is bearing most of the weight. Between elections, the umbrellas are folded and are used to prod people into providing money for use at the next election - either to keep a party in power or to get a party out of power.
The Party then, is only the umbrella of particular, often selfish, ideas, that a group of like-minded individuals use to protect themselves from the people every election period. The one with the biggest muscles gets to hold the umbrella handle. That person can go anywhere he likes. (It usually is a 'he', but this is changing.) He invites people under his umbrella with wild promises nobody really expects him to keep - but this is just all a part of the Game of Politics.
So the Party is not the People. It is merely the supporters of the politically ambitious.The sad part of it is that these party members feel they are doing something worthwhile. Even those who are not members of any party feel they are doing their duty when they vote for one party or another at an election.
So who is that 'noble heart' of John Barbour's? It is the People. The people want to live at ease. When a soldier stands 'at ease', he relaxes all tension and stands comfortably. We all want to live freely, without misery and harassment. Our attempts to find a society that can allow us this freedom has led us along many paths, and given us many forms of government. These paths all have the same flaw; they are not truly people-powered instruments of government.
Each one of us has a good idea of what we want in government. This idea is fluid, and changes depending on circumstances. Just as a person changes, so does a community, a province, a state, a nation, the world. Our so-called democratic systems cannot cope easily with change. It creates governments that put barriers between those who want change and those who do not. Party names often reflect this dichotomy, e.g. a Conservative Party and a Reform Party. Sometimes, to confuse the issue, a party will call itself Progressive Conservative. And what is a 'Liberal' Party? Are Muslims allowed in a Christian Democratic Party; are Atheists?
To rely on the vagaries of Party promises is the most dangerous way to try to fulfil your expectations, and four or five years, depending on the whim of one power-hungry person, is a long time to regret a choice of Party. How can an X on a ballot paper adequately convey your wishes? What you are doing is giving up any chance of influencing your government. It is ironic that an X is used by the illiterate to make a signature. In politics the X reveals our political inadequacy.
Can stable government be created by giving direct control back to the people? Yes, it can! A nation is made up of millions of individuals. At any given time in history a concept will have a particular level of support. This support can show change over a period. Change, when it comes, may come imperceptibly, or suddenly. Our democratic system must be able to reflect that change, and not be frustrated by the political system in place. Politicians pay lip service to the idea of 'the Will of the People'. In practice, they often ignore it.
Any new system of Democratic Government must provide a way to ensure that the will of the People, at a given moment in time, be carried out. Voting is the Democratic Responsibility of everyone in a community. It is also everyone's Democratic Right. Instead of providing bureaucratic roadblocks, the system should make participation in the Democratic process as simple as possible.
