On Jun 6, 2008, at 17:53 , Fred Gohlke wrote:
re: "I just pointed out that it does not guarantee full
proportional representation."
This point seems to center on what one considers proportional. You
appear to believe minorities should have representation in
proportion to their size.
I do have some sympathies in that direction (but that is of course a
separate topic from just pointing out the fact).
I understand that you believe the mechanism I described will
operate to the detriment of minorities while I believe it gives
them a greater advantage than they have in a partisan political
structure.
I guess that depends on what kind of a political structure we are
observing.
In my view, the method replaces emotion with reason. As a result,
minorities with a rational basis for their goals will achieve them
more easily.
Yes, the new method has some properties that support this. It is
however not guaranteed that feelings, parties and other
differentiating factors will not find their way in and play some role
also in that method.
Partisan politics is based on confrontation and rests, ultimately,
on violence. We should avoid it.
Yes, artificial division of people into such boxes indeed encourages
confrontations. Party life may be more or less sophisticated, and
the border lines more or less strict.
Democracy is a majority rule concept. Those who would change
society and its government must persuade the majority of the people
to accept their views. Anything less than that is oligarchical in
structure and offensive to reason.
That is most typical. I hope also the minorities will be treated
well and they will have their opinions heard.
... to be molded by the thoughtful minds on this site into a viable
electoral method.
The process was a bit confusing since I believe there are many
viewpoints and ideas flying around in this mailing list. I think the
process works better if there is either some clearly set target that
narrows the search space and that everyone can follow, or if some
single person simply dominates the process and makes the method
reflect his/her personal visions (while expecting and reacting to
comments from others).
Juho
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