[Peace-discuss] my comment to WILL/IPR Fwd: Chat with Illinois Public Media's Kimberlie Kranich today over lunch and tell her what information you want from us so you can be an informed voter. Today at noon online

[Rohn Koester]

Karen, thanks for passing this along.

An interesting question behind the "voter" question is whether voting
is an essential characteristic of a democracy. Arguably, any elected
position could be made more representationally effective if it was
assigned by chance than by vote, somewhat in the way that juries are
empaneled sort of by chance. (And the extent to which juries aren't
randomly selected is one source of injustice -- all white juries that
rule disproportionately against black defendants, for instance.)

Imagine a Congress that was randomly selected to represent the major
demographical groupings of the U.S. at any given time -- no more
elections, just almost-random appointments. As with the present
congress, aids would be available to explain procedure, to provide
research, to communicate, and so on. I'll bet the general public would
be much more interested in watching that version of Congress arrive at
decisions than our present version.

In my opinion, the best way to try this out is to promote a reality
television show that enacts the idea -- 535 randomly selected cast
members to play the roles of Senators and House Reps, at least a few
of whom are guaranteed to come from someplace near you. The Reality
Congress would then compete, week by week, with the elected Congress
for market share. With enough ratings wins, the Reality Congress could
make the argument that it deserves the better location and time slot,
eventually swapping places with the U.S. Congress, which is sent to
some remote island and then canceled for lack of interest.

I want to juxtapose the debates Congress has and the actions promoted
by the President with the debates the general public wishes to have
and the actions it wishes to promote -- to end the wars, to prosecute
international banking fraud, to reform the prison industrial complex,
to revise the tax code, etc.

Rohn

On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com> wrote:
> The most important office of government is citizen." (often attributed
> to Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis who lived
> 1856-1941.)
>
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