Preamble to an underpinning bill of rights/constitution

I think that this organization has had a good try at it:
http://mini.freeworldcharter.org/en/charter

I like that they have used simple and clear language rather than conform to current legalise expectations. They have kept the definition of problems goals and solutions extremely broad, which when dealing with global issues is probably a necessary starting point to make things understandable.

I agree that we have rights for citizens. What I am missing though is that they also have responsibilities. Firstly, to maintain these rights for themselves and secondly, to make sure they take the responsibility to enact them and ensure others have the same rights. I find in the current climate we make government responsible for everything and expect them to fix everything without taking responsibility ourselves.

hi claudia, and thanks for coming along.
you are spot on in that its a two way street, and one of the reasons i think we should draft our own constitution is to put into law the responsibilities of a citizen in a direct democracy. responsibility is the only thing that will see any new system through

since everything else in the system will be underpinned by this, i think it should be first.
but we can come back and make amendments to this document until we are happy with the blueprint

just because it gets started doesnt mean we cant make changes

On another note, direct democracy is mentioned above. I am originally from Switzerland which has a direct democracy. I can tell you with confidence that their system is broken too. DD has the following issues:
* The number of referenda to change law have been on the increase overburdening citizens.
* Citizens vote 4 times per year on numerous issues at the national, state and local levels. Hence the involvement needs engagement for which many people are not ready.
* the people voting are now the minority i.e. less than 50% vote. Hence a tight majority means that law is changed based on about 25% of people voting for it.
* Votes are skewed by marketing and PR campaigns, fear tactics by politicians and the ignorance of citizens.
* National Votes are skewed by Regions e.g. the more populous German region beats out the less populous French and Italian regions. The same could happen with the states.
* Law changes which impact international relations are too complex for most people to grasp. A good example is the vote on restricting the movement of people into Switzerland. It was in relation to other nationals entering Switzerland for work/settlement. The majority wanted to restrict the movement, yet, this majority were country people who did not have any foreign nationals in their region!. More importantly they were also creating a problem with the European Bilateral Agreement which requires the free movement of people. Now the Swiss legislators have the headache of merging these two in an amenable way.

So these are just some examples how DD is also failing. I have simply saying here that DD based on the Swiss model should not be adapted. But rather that we brainstorm for another model in joint citizen/government policy development.

@claudiaperrybeltra you may remember that this is my position too.
i am against keeping representatives.

some of the suggestions I think are needed are means to offset some of those points.

reduction in the work week.
direct democracy and self governance will require more participation, more time to consider proposals and even just more time to spend with your family and live.
just throwing a direct democracy into our current lifestyle will do exactly what you describe.
i suspect that's why this model is being used in the world, because it will exhaust the population and allow skewing of the outcomes.

small direct democracies is the key, as long as everyone is always making choices that affect what we now call countries there will always be this kind of skewed and offset result of people who have no stake in the matter getting in on the action.
my concept is to use small independent city states.
so the first level is the individual, protected by common law and constitution
second level is the community. an independent zone, where direct democracy occurs constantly.
no times referendii, but people can propose an action or request a proposal directly to everyone inside that zone constantly.
with set time limits on proposals and a threshold for approval it would flow constantly on a local network from each home.
this would eliminate people in far away places making decisions that affect everyone.
its important these zones, cities, communities or nodes are independent of power, recycle water and grow food to provide for themselves. its important to maintain themselves from external corporations or controls. its also important to generate as much as we can from the lands around us. power from air, sun, tides whatever we can to provide each community with secured assets while simultaneously lowering emissions.

ill go into all of that stuff more somewhere else, but that eliminates one of those issues, the issue of exterior groups controlling the outcome via voting in issues they don't really have a stake in.

the next level up would be for major issues, things we currently call international. (as I am for the abolition of nation states, I'm having trouble with nomenclature for these old structures)
the smaller city states would also be interconnected on a global scale, allowing for interaction on issues that affect all people. this level is what Claudia brought up in the last point on her post, and it is the hardest.
this would I guess be used to update constitutional matters, since everything else would be at the jurisdiction of each city state.
it may cover more but this needs more exploration.

the last point I want to touch on is media and PR, as this was ultimately what brought down the athenian direct democracy.
its something that cant be done without restricting media and speech.
this one topic needs its own post as well.

so those are just some of what I have thought about to deal with common issues arising from direct democracy.

with everyone here all chip in in we can develop and refine new methods to enact this kind of system, since that's what we all think is needed.

I have no desire to derail the thread, but regarding the direct democracy tangent: I believe that supermajority is the answer to many problems which arise from simple majority process.

its not a derail, can you elaborate on supermajority?

Well, supermajority is simply any voting rule which requires more than "50% plus one" yes votes in order for a proposal or bill to pass. However this depends also on whether or not a quorum is required for voting, in private organizations. In political votes, of course, no quorum tends to be present-- if only 20% of eligible voters turned out for a midterm election, the results would still be binding for everyone.

Anyway, I very strongly believe that simple majority voting encourages and facilitates the development of factions. It encourages interested parties to aggressively push for proposals which will practically divide an electorate in two. This gets all tangled up in the mess of parties, personal loyalties and campaign financing, but I believe that simple majority voting inherently leads to competitive attitudes, instead of looking for the common good or the general welfare.

If the common good could be mathematically defined, I think it would be the supermajority of informed people.

This relates also to the need for preservation of human rights and minority rights, regardless of what the majority of citizens in a given electorate desire. (Which relates to the 'bill of rights' idea.) I think we need both: enshrined minority rights and supermajority-oriented process, designed to find common interests.

im all for a set percentile of positive results for a accepted resolution. i think its how we need to work here, and how it should work in function out in the world

@directadmin , do you mean a set percentage of "yes" votes in relation to the total number of eligible voters?

I would prefer to require supermajority "yes" results plus a defined quorum (voter turnout) in order to pass a proposal. For instance, maybe you need at least 2/3 yes votes, out of at least 1/2 of eligible voters. This 'double condition' may seem complex, but I think it more accurately accounts for the true will of the electorate than the alternatives would.

For instance, if 70% of a 10% voter turnout wanted something... something's deeply wrong. That citizenry is deeply divided and alienated from each other.

On the other hand, if 51% of a 95% turnout wanted something, I would also say that the voters are deeply divided, and those results are not satisfactory to me.