Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s recent remarks on the Senate floor have been viewed half a million times. She decries the coziness of the big banks with government and names names, coming close to Russell Brand and unknowingly making a case for the use of lot.
The questions these sort of sharp, honest protests raise are the following. Must someone as sophisticated as Sen. Warren draw the connection between contributor-driven electioneering and corruption or could one simply attribute it to the acts of an unscrupulous few who break the rules? When does a critic of a system ceased to simply criticize the system’s non-conformity to its own ideals and begin to question the system itself?
Filed under: Applications, Elections, History, Press | Tagged: Elizabeth Warren, Russell Brand, Senate | 2 Comments »
Senate by Lot in Australia?
[This item was pointed out by other Kleroterians as well.]
The first three minutes of this video commentary in “Business Day” of The Sydney Morning Herald is a ‘modest proposal’ to choose the Senate as juries are chosen — but excluding members of political parties, or their families, from the lot.
Filed under: Elections, House of Lords, Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: allotment, legislature, media_commentary, random_selection, selection by lot, Senate, sortition, upper_chamber, voteless_democracy | 4 Comments »