Comments on: Setting the bar a little low, aren’t we?

By: skookum

skookum — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:59:52 +0000

Re: No. 5, the purpose of having an elected legislature is: A) to represent the people, and PR does a better job of that than first-past-the-post. And B) to do the business of the legislature. Experience in many countries has shown that having a lot of parties makes “B)” more difficult. Of course a dictatorship is easiest, the dictator doesn’t have to answer to anyone except those who have the guns, and if he can keep them divided and off balance, then he can stay in power. Democracy isn’t the antitheses of dictatorship, chaos is. Democracy walks a line between the two. Single-issue parties, or those who are very dogmatic gum up the works of a legislature. Yet without a diversity of views (and without more than one power center) corruption sets in, bad judgement sets in. Just as examples, the last days of the Soviet Union (before Gorbachev) were characterized by ossification of the system. And the 2004-2006 US Congress, a lot of legislation was passed without challenge by the Democrats and some of this doesn’t look too good in retrospect. People like Kucinich and Ron Paul can help to stir things up a little but they don’t have the power to make the legislature sit back and say “What ARE we doing?”

The line between too few parties and having the Beer Drinkers Party and the Exterminate-the-Belgians League represented is an unclear one, but it is there. I don’t think that either the Korean or the US system approaches it adequately.

By: Arghaeri

Arghaeri — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:24:47 +0000

“Three percent? Who is the genius that set the threshold that low? The Stark Raving Loony Party could run a PR list and get three percent.”

Thats the whole point of proportional representation!!!, to allow minority groups, and minority schools of thought to have their views represented. Getting their views through however is another thing, since they won’t have enough representation to defeat majority views. They do sometimes get minor trade offs though when borderline voting issues are at stake.

If you don’t want proportional representation then try to stop it, but it hardly logical to have it and then stop it from working by setting a high bar to block the exact same minority views it was designed to protect.

By: SomeguyinKorea

SomeguyinKorea — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:41:24 +0000

If it truly were a democratic process, any political party would be allowed to run for those seats as long as they get enough people to sign a petition demanding that they be included on the ballot or have received a minimum number of votes in the previous elections.

By: SomeguyinKorea

SomeguyinKorea — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:40:05 +0000

If it truly were a democratic process, any political party would be allowed to run for those seats.

By: jtb-in-texas

jtb-in-texas — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:11:20 +0000

My wife, a Korean, tells me she never understood (or trusted) the politics in the Land of the Morning Calm. It’s hopeless for us foreign barbarians to understand the filial responsibilities of Korean government…

By: skookum

skookum — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:19:53 +0000

PR would solve some electoral inequities that now exist in the US. But I agree that 3% is too low - 5 or 6% would be more in the range to balance out giving people a reasonable choice vs. overloading the system with nut groups. There’s no guarantee that we won’t elect people that are way out there anyway - even David Duke got elected to an office in Louisiana. And there are lots of elected officials that are just plain incompetent and ignorant, not to mention corrupt. Wonder how many parties would make the cut if Korea had a 5% minimum?

Instant runoff may be a more acceptable change that would make electoral systems that don’t currently use IR less clunky. And allow minor parties to lose with less bad feeling.

– Skookum