Part 2 - Democracy has absolutely nothing to do with the voting structure which in fact, is biased against a section of the community in its result of allowing a majority to rule over the minority. Voting is called suffrage. Politicians use the term democracy wrongly to remove our understanding of its truth, and to allow it to be used to incorrectly support "mandates" and such. If you think about it, a majority rules vote is clearly an undemocratic process if it refuses to allow an individual to protest the result on a personal level via a Trial by Jury.

Australian government's, both Fed and state have removed democracy from our court system by either refusing an individual his Constitutionally protected right to a Trial by Jury, or stating that it is not part of civil law structure.

Civil law is not recognized under the Common Law of our Constitution and the High court has declared that no court, commission, panel, board, etc except a Chapter III court (local, district, supreme, federal and High) can legally make a judicial decisions over any issue. Only the Criminal law can and should punish a citizen under the Australian Constitution.

Without Trial by jury for every situation, Australia does not operate under a democracy.

Kalin

The electorate is fair bit different to a committee in a couple of ways;

Firstly, a large portion are disinterested in having any input into a referendum or other political decision-making process or researching sufficient information to make a balanced decision about a particular issue.

Secondly, many would vote with a strong what’s-in-it-for-me-in-the-short-term motivation, whereas most committee members would (presumably) vote for improvements on a basis greater than their personal level.

So empowering the public to make decisions to a significantly greater extent than at present would probably be much worse than forming committees to research issues and make decisions.

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I don’t think that unambiguous endorsement of a winning candidate is necessary. This is only possible with 100% support is it not? Or do we consider anything over 50% to be sufficient? If there are say eight candidates and the winner gets only 20%, does it matter any more than a winning candidate in a two-horse race getting 60% of the vote? I can’t see that it does.

What does matter is that the voting system is fair and that the most favoured candidate wins. This means ditching the god-awful compulsory preferential system that we have in Australia at the federal level and in some states and replacing it with the optional preferential system.

“If a real solution to this problem could be found, then much of what Demos seems to envisage would be functionally possible.”

I am not understanding this. A candidate that wins with 80% is not necessarily any better at decision-making or at keeping the constituency onside than one that wins with 20%.

SuziQ

Part 1

Here are the definitions I found for Democracy. I did not find one which mentioned juries. If you are not a lawyer you are missing out on a life of pointless hair splitting which it seems you might be good at.

Democracy is government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system." http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/whatsdem/whatdm2.htm

Liberal democracy is a representative democracy along with the protection of minorities, the rule of law, separation of powers, and protection of liberties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/democracy

a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/democracy

"[T]he democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's vote."
http://economics.about.com/cs/economicsglossary/g/democracy.htm

Government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by officers elected by them. In mod. use often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege. http://www.icele.org/site/scripts/news_article.php?newsID=137

The system we live under is more appropriately called a liberal democracy

Democracy is the rule of the people and there is no better way of understanding the will of the people than to listen to the majority. Democracy sure isn’t about minority rule or the right of the individual to override the will of the majority. I suspect that SuziQ and Demos just don’t like the decisions made by today’s democracies. No matter what system of gov’t you prefer, a minority are always going to feel like they have no voice

SuziQ said “ If you think about it, a majority rules vote is clearly an undemocratic process if it refuses to allow an individual to protest the result on a personal level via a Trial by Jury”

The idea of juries reviewing all decisions is even less representative/Democratic than the current process. If the juries are voted in, then the system is like Americas democracy on a much smaller scale. Anyone in the legislature can introduce a bill. It will only be passed into law if it gains the assent of the executive branch. If the juries aren’t voted in, then the idea that the people hold the power is thrown out since only a small select group decide whether something becomes law. Even worse, these unelected jurors are not responsible to anyone for their decisions. Politicians who make unpopular decisions can at least be thrown out at the next election.

Do you have any idea of the number of frivolous cases brought before the courts as it is. Every single law ever made has a least one opponent. Your and Demos’s ideas sounds very nice, but in the real world there are no utopia’s for a reason.

Some quotes for you

Lewis Carroll “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Herbert Humphrey” The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.”

My favourites both by Winston Churchill“ The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.”

And

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

Kalin that is a fundamental tradeoff in democracy. You delegate your voice to someone else to reduce the amount of effort you have to put into collective decision making, but you have to tolerate inferior decisions. Fiddling around the edges of your system doesn't really change this.

Ludwig,

Electorates are exactly like committees. The objections you cite are true, but this just demonstrates why electorates are actually bad committees.

In regard to the need for 50% support for any particular motion, I was making the point that any time you have less than 50% support it is questionable whether you have a true mandate from the people as the result often depends upon the mechanics of the particular voting system. The will of the people is not then the decisive factor, which is clearly a long way short of the democratic ideal .

Paul.L,

Taking the first definition of democracy you graciously provided, and dividing it into 3 parts:

1) Democracy is government by the people
2) in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them
3) or by their elected agents under a free electoral system."

The essence is 1) and I think we'd all agree on that. Demos vision seems to demand 2) exclusively, which is the utopian ideal. 3) is plainly a big compromise since "government by the people" is limited to the nomination of rulers - Nevertheless, others, me included, accept this as a necessary practical compromise on the ideal of 2).

It is unfortunate but true that "the people" cannot, for the reasons set out in my previous post, make cohesive executive decisions and for that reason Demos and others' dissatisfaction with present democracy as it exists in Australia is valid. It is not the democratic ideal.

Nevertheless, for the same reason, there is no utopian fix. I'll go with Churchill's quote above - "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others" - which I too regard as a favourite.

Everyone,

Ultimately, the point of this thread should be to learn why things are the way they are, and to explore ways in which workable government could be more democratic. Simply advocating more democracy is trite. Details please!

Hmm.. I've waffled enough.