Having read through Jar's last post I have had a minor revelation: I don't know what a politician actually does. What is their job description? Never really thought about it before. Hmm ...
Having read through Jar's last post I have had a minor revelation: I don't know what a politician actually does. What is their job description? Never really thought about it before. Hmm ...
fountainpenkid (April 13th, 2016), SIR (April 3rd, 2016)
You'd think it'd be an ability to formulate solutions from and for disparate and often conflicting values, motivations, and agendas.
Assessing the situation dispassionately but rather cynically, one might estimate by the current spread, that an over inflated sense of self worth would be high on the list of essential/desirable character attributes.
In recent times usual must haves have appeared to be family oriented (including ability to manage multiple concurrent intimate relationships), experience in business and finance (particularly negotiation, facilitation, and ability to ensure agreement in advance), sporting but with good academic references too, and well connected (like a puppet);
but mostly just an everyday John or Jane, mass appeal is a necessity - I'll leave Jar to explain why that ain't necessarily such a good thing.
Last edited by SIR; April 3rd, 2016 at 10:08 PM.
And that is I fear a fairly common revelation. People don't think much about what the politicians talents and capabilities should be.
I think I can provide at least a basic list but all the items on the list come back to the point of learning how to think.
Maybe a conversation I had with one of our politicians may help clarify. The conversation was a few years ago (and he is no longer in office anyway) so it is paraphrased from memory.
The subject was Global Warming and he did not believe global warming was happening. When I pointed to all the evidence he changed his position (without realizing he had actually changed) to man made global warming. He was willing to admit that global warming was happening but denied it was caused by humans.
So I said we would assume that he was correct and see where that led us. He agreed that the result of global warming would be rising sea levels and changes in water availability and storm patterns.
Some progress.
I then asked if global warming is caused by nature which of those processes could we control, could we change the solar contribution? He said we can't control such processes.
So next I asked him which factors that might lead to global warming could we control.
There was silence. Then, and this I definitely remember word for word, "I don't like that answer!".
We continued talking over the coming months and eventually his position turned to the worst case scenario for humans would be if global warming was totally natural since there is absolutely nothing we can do to really change that and our only recourse is triage, prepare for dealing with the consequences.
And then he campaigned on that new position that we needed to curtail as much of the human contribution as possible and also prepare for the consequences ...
and was soundly defeated.
So back to the question of what we want in a politician.
Too often it seems we want a politician who tells us what we want to hear.
But is that what we need?
Global Warming is somewhat unavoidable; the Milankovitch cycles means that the Sahara was once, and will again be, a lush and fertile savanna.
Irrelevant in what way? That we cannot affect them, or because in your statement "long term" still relates to human lifespans? I say this because we have never had a truly long term human plan. My definition of long term is not bounded by my life expectancy. Unfortunately it would seem that a lot of politicians behave as if it does. Or to put it another way, they do not see their work proceeding beyond their own term in office. That's just my opinion of course, but I have yet to meet a politician (and I've met a few) who think or behave further than their own limited view.
I am reasonably confident that most politicians - despite many of them being well-educated and possessing good thinking skills - have no real understanding of any issue beyond their own areas of expertise. Essentially, if you're not a scientist then you will be most unlikely to properly understand scientific rigour and the true import of evidence-based research. People say that they understand but in extended conversations it becomes abundantly clear that they really only have a rudimentary understanding.
A typical example, if I may be allowed a digression, is the theory of evolution. Many, many people, including some apparently very smart ones, think that evolution is a process. It is not. Understanding that it is not is a profound realisation. So people may say that they understand but they are really deluding themselves. This does happen to all of us quite frequently. We really are quite limited in our true understanding of a great many things, despite our own protests.
What hope then can we have that any mere politician is able to make an informed decision? And what, then, is their ultimate function?
bluesea (April 4th, 2016)
Irrelevant because the Milankovitch Cycles are on the order of 20,000 + year fluctuations.
Human planning, reasonable planning, is whether or not we like it based around funding cycles and not Milankovitch Cycles.
The function of politicians is to make decisions, but as you rightly point out, they are unlikely to be prepared to really make reasoned decisions on many subjects.
And that may let us return to the topic which is "On Direct Democracy and Universal Suffrage".
A limited universal suffrage has already been achieved in much of the world. I say limited because there are still age restrictions on voting as well as limits on certain felons; perhaps other restrictions as well. There are also the unacknowledged restrictions, Gerrymandering, requirements of getting registered, intentionally slowing voting to discourage a segment, selective locations for registering or voting and other tactics.
So Universal Suffrage should not be an issue.
That leave Direct Democracy.
If the prospect of having politicians qualified to make decisions is unlikely, what would be the likelihood of a Direct Democracy doing so?
So we return to what qualification for a politician would increase the likelihood of making informed decisions?
Imagine someone actually trained in decision making techniques; a person trained to seek out the sources of knowledge and then make decisions based on the evidence; trained in using the scientific method and critical thinking and peer review and the actual techniques science uses to arrive at conclusions.
Instead of a person having any given set of facts, imagine a person trained to gather those people who do have the facts and then make decisions based on what they present.
Look again at the current US Presidential campaign. Over half of the candidates deny the earth is old, that evolution happened, that humans are simply one primate species, that global warming was proven.
How can we expect someone who demonstrates that they make decision based solely on their beliefs or the beliefs of some group to make any reasonable, rational decisions?
I'm going to say corporate and banking interests, including the all powerful arm of the lobbyists, have superseded your questions of democracy and suffrage. The U.S. as a democracy is at this time entering a new and irreversible stage. The people over time will have less and less ability to make any kind of fundamental change. Really, fundamental change is currently the only kind that can make any difference to the path of American democracy becoming basically a sham--a political metaphor of reality TV. We are living science fiction.
At that I will leave the sidelines of this thread.
That is not a new issue and in fact Theodore Roosevelt warned about just that issue.
There is one possible glimmer of hope (although I will admit I find it really faint) and that is if a significant change in the Supreme Court could be made that would reverse the decisions that Corporations have a voice and that money is speech and if corporate lobbying could be made illegal then possible. just possibly the US can avoid become the next mainstream fascist state.
RNHC (April 8th, 2016)
Universal suffrage is a key stone of modern democracies. Does it produce better Govt. ? Probably not simple because many don't understand or can foresee the longer term implications of decisions but this would be an issue in every system. On the other hand it probably doesn't make Govt. worse either. What it does do is encourage policies to be better explained so more can get a basic grasp of the situation. I prefer representative democracy over direct democracy because it works in practice. Again direct democracy requires many to have a sound knowledge of the issues, now so many to render it impossible. The role of a politician under such a system is to ensure he/she seeks the best possible knowledge from various sources as to be able to determine the best action to take.
"Public servant," to me, means people who works for the government, people who carry out various policies and directives of the government, i.e., bureaucracy, if you will. "Politicians" are elected to represent and lead. They are more of "public master."
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