Equality by lot

Reddit user “totalialogika” wrote the text below in the Reddit r/PoliticalScience forum. The commenters on that forum dismissed the text with various versions of “Sir, this is a political science sub. Please go rant somewhere else”. This raises the question of what makes a certain text a piece of “political science” as opposed to “a rant”. Is it merely that the style needs to conform to certain customs, or is there more to it than that?

Sortition might be the only way

We need to rely on Jury Duty rule to eliminate corrupt and sociopathic politicians, especially those who make a career out of their rhetoric.

And for those who claim “expertise” and “experts” are the only thing that can rule. It is expertise to pervert the rule of law and to promote special interests and experts versed in hollow promises and empty talk meant to address emotional and not rational responses from the denizens.

The degeneration of today’s political system in America is the symptom of how inadequate is an archaic system setup by a few million settlers at the 18th Century for the interests of a patriarchal racist and male dominated country, and now inadequate to serve the need of a 350 million people strong superpower. There were of course attempts at putting lipstick on the pig i.e Civil Rights reforms and more access for minorities and women, but those are as ineffectual and “for show”.

Nothing has changed in the way America votes and selects rulers and creates laws since the mid-19th century. Back when Slavery was still legal and when the country had only a tenth of its current population with a very different makeup.

Now as a side effect of Sortition we need to improve basic Education if you want the common citizen that will be selected at random to rule to have a solid grasp of their duties.

The greatest fake argument against it is claiming the poor state of Education in America is justification for what is a split single party system where “candidates” and “laws” cherry picked or written by lobbies and special interests masquerade as a way for voters to express their opinion.

Said Education system btw is currently meant to crank out consumers, not thinking human beings, and was crafted by, you guessed it, the same kind of special interests that pushed for junk food to be offered to growing children in schools. Currently the same pollution of the mind is happening to create a populace incapable of being ruled except by “experts”.

The current political system is therefore a near dictatorship where citizens cast an insignificant ballot for captive and filtered policies outside their control.

Realistically I understand it would take a near impossible change in the Constitution for Sortition to become as entrenched as the 3 branches of Government, and by the very same ones whose power and privilege it would erase. Not happening.

Only a near collapse and probably a Civil War 2.0 could potentially bring about those changes, maybe after enough people believe in it and after the foundations of the Constitution would become soft again for a brief period so things can change radically enough for Jury Duty rule to become the norm but also for new technologies like blockchain to guarantee its integrity.

Filed under: education, Elections, History, Sortition |