Thanks to James G., Bart I. and maybe others. Your comments prompt some further details I omitted on a first posting.
James worries about infringing on rights or anyhow desires of some citizens not to be bothered with full participation in decision-making, even for a few days every few years. I don't want to get into arguments over whether government has a 'right' to draft every citizen into a bare minimum of equal-burden-sharing service. Rather, I think all will likely run just fine if government observes a basic common-sense principle: first recruit volunteers (and in this case randomly select from among them) before drafting the unwilling. For instance: in providing for the USA armed forces, this common-sense principle was NOT followed by Lyndon Johnson's during the Vietnam war; but it has been since. As Bart notes, juries are NOT perfect. In particular (like the elected long-term legislatures and councils they would replace) they will often lack needed topical expertise. Well, I should note that today's trial juries are only a rough and incomplete model for decision juries: the latter, like some grand juries and legislative committees, would both have the POWER to subpoena experts and be REQUIRED to take testimony from all interested public - including experts and activists. Bart also suggests that we 'take the idea a step further-- take everything which does not absolutely need to be the responsibility of government and place it back where it belongs, on the individual citizen.' Well, I wanted to keep it simple and focused. Just what does and does not need to be government responsibility is a policy question. Rather than dictate that we must change not only our decision procedures but also our policies, I prefer to split the question, and let an improved procedure address policies. I actually agree with Bart's policy principle: I simply don't see why a fundamental procedural improvement has to be bundled with and held hostage to one or another version of what Bart's policy principle should mean. Bart observes: 'I'm not sure that limiting elections to a "collegiate scale" is the answer either, if an example of such would be a typical homeowner's association. They seem to specialize entirely in functions which are unnecessary.' Well, who said that election procedures, let alone better election procedures, always have to be THE answer - or even any part of one? If the decision-making is unnecessary, then don't do it by ANY procedure - be it good electoral, bad electoral, or nonelectoral! Joe Weinstein Long Beach CA USA _________________________________________________________________ Join the world�s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
