People
cannot stand politicians
This is no surprise as the political process in the United States - and most
other democracies - is subject only to the slightest of democratic control. All
a citizen can do every few years is tick a box and support one of a handful of
established - and discredited - political parties that are fronted by a narrow
clique of professional politicians.
Civil
Service Appointments
The
appointment of a former adviser to Tony Blair to become chief
executive of the unelected media and telecoms regulator OFCOM is
evidence a large sector of the economy and public life is hardly
subject to direct control by the electorate.
Not one person can run a country
Nor should he or she be expected to do so. Too much is expected from any
incoming leader of a new government. All major political decisions should be
taken after careful deliberation and decided by mandatory referendum. The
well-being of a country would not depend on the decisions taken by a single
person.
Politicians are the new Establishment
Politicians have replaced the old governing classes during the past 100
years and direct democracy is a necessary counterweight to the New Class that
rules without being subject to proper oversight given that there is hardly any
separation between Legislative, Executive and Judicial Powers.
Americans cannot stand politicians
This is no surprise as the political process in the United States - and most
other democracies - is subject only to the slightest of democratic control. All
a citizen can do every few years is tick a box and support one of a handful of
established - and discredited - political parties that are fronted by a narrow
clique of professional politicians.
More Power to Prime Minister
Brown?
Nothing can demonstrate the remoteness of politicians and bureaucrats better
than the advice given by a former head of Tony Blair's 'Delivery Unit' who told
Gordon Brown that he must increase his powers if he wants to make reform of the
Public Services a reality.
Apart from the fact that most democracies suffer from the fatal defect that
the executive and legislative arms of government are not separated (and the
independence of the legal system can be questioned as well due to the fact that
politicians have the power of patronage there as well) it is absurd that any
politician should be able to increase his powers more or less at will.
If anything, the powers of the leading politicians in most countries are already
far to comprehensive - why else would the media pay so much attention to the
leading personality in each country - be they called Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown or
Bush?
14-May-07
Visionaries can be bad for you
The politicians should not be
allowed too much freedom. They are not elected to 'impose' their vision on their
subjects like some monarch or dictator.
They are elected to look after the
administration of the laws and regulations set by the legislative assemblies and
ultimately sanctioned by the consent of the people (who will always have the
last say due to the right of to start a referendum).
Separation of powers means that
the legislature is solely in charge of introducing laws and the government is
primarily focused on keeping house and making sure that the machinery of
government functions smoothly on a day-by-day basis.
The unhealthy practice that of
so-called parliamentary democracies, where legislative and executive power are
linked together, makes it all too easy for parties and governments to combine
against the interests of the citizens.
Direct democracy would involve citizens directly in the introduction of laws and
severely hamper the ambitions of individual politicians.
Some try to explain the dominance
of families in the political process of various countries (Kennedy, Bush,
Clinton in the USA, Ghandi in India etc) with the fact that the average voter
does not have the ability to judge persons on the basis of objective facts
alone.
We think that this is more likely to be the consequence of an electoral process
that puts to much emphasis on the selection of one leading politician and
therefore puts the discussion specific policies into the background when
election day comes. Votes are swayed by promises that often are broken anyway
when the election has been decided.
27-Nov-06
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