Direct Democracy II: Stealing my thunder

NZPols has an excellent post on this topic, which has stolen a lot of my thunder. Damn other bloggers!

Along the way she admits to "a rather unpopular lack of faith in the ability of people in general to make good decisions". To a certain extent, I share her lack of faith - but then again, I don't think the purpose of democratic government is to make good decisions, but rather our decisions. And I prefer this to any number of Platonic philosopher kings.

A lot of the specific concerns about affordability and trampling minority rights can be dealt with by proper checks and balances. One method would be formal judicial review to ensure consistency with the Human Rights Act and Treaty of Waitangi, though I'm not sure that it should go so far as a veto (I'm not sure that I would want to give quite so much power to judges); NZPols' method of a formal report an explanation by the government is probably adequete. But the easiest way is simply for Parliament to be able to overturn a referendum on a simple majority; this would enable the government to say "no, we can't afford that", or "no, that's not consistent with our international obligations", or simply "no, it would cripple our policy direction". Like NZPols, I think the PR cost of going on record to vote down a referendum would be a significant deterrant to doing it casually.

So, my preferred version of positive referenda would look something like this:

• Voting on specific legislation, rather than vague one-liners.
• Formal judicial review to ensure consistency with the Human Rights Act and Treaty of Waitangi.
• A minimum turnout for a referenda to be passed (50% of enrolled voters is probably about right).
• If passed, a referenda would become law after one month, unless Parliament explicitly voted it down (or, I suppose, unless the Governor-General withheld their assent - but how many times does that happen?)

How "binding" this system would be is really up to the public; we can make it strongly binding if we vigorously punish governments who ignore our wishes, or we can cut them some slack. In other words, we can decide how much direct democracy we actually want, and shift that consensus depending on the politicians we elect.

And needless to say, we should have a referendum about it first.

New Fisk

The lies we tell to appease the enemies who are now our friends

Book Review - The Ten Thousand by Michael Curtis Ford

My knowledge of Greek History is pretty sketchy but I'm a sucker for any sort of historical fiction (I'm drooling at the thought of Robert Harris' latest offering on ancient Pompei). The Ten Thousand is set in the chaos that followed the Pelopennesian war in the 5th Century BC. With the war over, there are lots of bored soldiers sitting around with nothing much to do until the Persian Prince Cyrus starts recruiting Greece's finest to do his dirty work for him.

A large mercenary army sets out from Greece and it eventually emerges that Cyrus is attempting to usurp the throne. At Cunaxa, near Babylon, battle ensues and Cyrus is killed. In the subsequent peace negotiations Cyrus' army is betrayed and most of the senior officers killed. Ten thousand Greeksoldiers now find themselves trapped far from home in hostile territory facing an army 10 times their size. Into the breach steps the brave Athenian Xenophon who now has the task of bringing his army home.

The story traces their 10 month journey north as they flee to the safety of the Black Sea struggling against raids by Persian forces and hostile tribes, infighting within their army, starvation, disease and the worst the elements can throw at them.

The story is based on Xenophon's own account of events, the Anabasis, which I would probably find quite daunting reading - from that perspective the author has done well to make an interesting historical tale much more accessable to the average reader and he sets the scene very well giving a good insight into ancient Greece.

Unfortunately the author never quite manages to get the reader emotionally involved in the story or with the characters (with the possible exception of the part where they are reduced to chewing on the marinated sphincter muscles of sheep for sustinance) and the attempt to add a love interest into the story never really works. By the end of the story this reader felt quite flat. Rating 6.5/10

Answers

NZPols has responded to my question about forcing people to go to church with a "yes":

At the level of considering the morality of any particular cause of action, I would countenance just about anything. I wouldn't necessarily do it, but I would countenance it. Being a fairly rabid consequentialist, I don't really believe that anything is inherently off limits - it all depends on the situation.

I have a certain fondness for consequentialism as well, but I'm far from rabid about it. While its a useful tool in the moral armoury, there have to be limits on its use - otherwise you run smack bang into the problems laid out by McCloskey. To some extent you can get around this by retreating to a rule-based version, but not if you allow exceptions for the specific case as NZPols does.

As for what those limits are, as a liberal I think there's a wide sphere around the individual which is off-limits to government intervention. Libertarians would justify this on the grounds of natural rights; Rawlsians from the original position; Kantians on the grounds of respect for autonomy; and rule consequentialists on the basis that people are generally happier that way. What's in that sphere will vary depending on your specific basis, but I think all four versions agree that what you believe and who you live with are well and truely covered. "Encouraging" marriage is as illegitimate as "encouraging" people to go to church. These things are simply too important to people's life-plans, their sense of self, for the government to interfere with them - no matter what the benefit.

Good news for a change

Preliminary rulings before Ahmed Zaoui's judicial review have gone in his favour. The Human Rights Commission will be allowed to make submissions, and better yet, the head of the SIS may be cross-examined on some questions.

It's not a total victory for Zaoui's lawyers - the cross-examination is restricted to three questions - but it's a step in the right direction.

The hearing proper starts tomorrow.

Restaurant Review: The Bangkok Thai

The Pad Thai alone is worth driving to Palmerston North for.

Oh, and did you know that the official hood colour for a Massey University bachelor of Defence Studies graduation gown is "pansy"? Was someone poking fun at the army there...?

New blogs

Welcome to MediaCow, and to Morgue (another Gamer), who is currently hanging around in Europe somewhere.

AFK

I'll be AFK for the next two days. Normal blogging service will resume on saturday.

New Fisk

Attacked for telling some home truths

Caricatures

Sock Thief quotes Andrew Rawnsley in The Guardian:

It is a delusion to think that all that is needed to make the world safe is a change to the occupants of the White House and Number 10. Charles Kennedy could be Prime Minister and Michael Moore might be President of the United States. Al-Qaeda would carry on killing. Because, to them, freedom is an ugly thing.

and then goes on to say:

I can see why some could disagree with his overall argument but to consider this view as something completely beyond the pale is a bit extreme.

But once again he's directing his arguments at a caricature - and an exceptionally poor one at that. Noone I know thinks that regime change in the US will cause al-Qaeda to stop killing people. What they do think is that it is the best way to get a change in policy - in particular to policies that have some hope of actually defeating al-Qaeda, rather than driving people into its arms.

The "war on terror" is a war of ideas. It is not won on the battlefield, with tanks and laser-guided bombs, but in the hearts and minds of those who actively or passively support terrorism. There's that old Mao quote about guerillas being fish who swim in the ocean of the people; they need both the active support of people who hide and fund them, and the passive support of people who look the other way and ignore what they do, in order to operate. Al-Qaeda's ocean is the poor of the Muslim world, the oppressed, and those who despise modernism. The way to defeat al-Qaeda is to dry up this ocean - to "drain the swamp" - and make them rich, free, and fans of MTV.

That's a slow process - and to its credit the US is working on some of it (promoting democratic reforms in several Gulf states, for example). But at the same time, they are doing some extraordinarily counterproductive things. Propping up authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia. Blindly supporting Israel. Creating their very own West Bank in Iraq. Threatening Iran - a nation which is relatively democratic, and whose people (as opposed to rulers) are very definately modernist... it's almost as if they want to turn people against them.

Changing the occupants of the Whitehouse and Downing Street won't stop al-Qaeda from killing people, but to the extent that it changes these disastrous policies, and puts the focus firmly back on al-Qaeda rather than Iraq, then it will make the world safer.

Question for NZPols

NZPols says:

...the question we need to ask is "what is the most effective way of changing this situation?" If attempting to change family structures is it, then we should do it. The potential returns are great enough that it warrants the "intrusion".

And if the most effective way of changing things was to force people to go to church, would you countenance that as well?

If so, then are there any limits at all to State power?

He really is an authoritarian

NZPundit has a lot of handwringing about families and children being murdered by their parents. But his "solution" - effectively stopping people from getting divorced - is a complete non-sequiter. I don't see how this benefits anyone, apart from maybe sad loser men who need to use legal and financial coercion to keep their relationships "intact".

(Likewise his "starve the poor" policies - and he has the gall to call himself a human being?)

I'm surprised that someone who is so anti State-intervention in the economic sphere can be so supportive of the State dictating personal relationships. This is an area which is central to people's life-plans - certainly on a par with religion, if not even more important - and therefore one that the State should steer clear of. It has no more right to dictate family arrangements than it has to interfere with what goes on in people's bedrooms. If people want to live or raise children alone, with a partner, or as part of a larger unit, then it is no concern of the State.

Yes, the State has a compelling interest in protecting the lives and welfare of children, but all it can rightfully demand of its citizens is that they fulfil their duty as parents. How they fulfil that duty - or who they fulfil it with - should be entirely up to them.

"We were doing our jobs"

That's the excuse of one of four US soldiers accused of beating Iraqi POWs.

Maybe someone ought to tell her about the Geneva Convention?

Sock Thief may want to read the latest Monbiot.

Best line: "The genius of the hawks has been to oblige us to accept a fiction as the reference point for debate."

My Precious

I now have a copy of the Return of the King soundtrack. Ho ho ho.

Direct Democracy I: What's wrong with Winston's proposal

A couple of weeks ago I played at journalist and attended the launch of Winston Peters' direct democracy policy. I've been meaning to blog about the details ever since - unfortunately, other people have beaten me to it. There's an excellent article by Tim Bale in the Herald, which points out (some of) the flaws in Peters' proposal, and Russell Brown was appropriately cynical about the whole thing. Like Russell, I think that

It would be easier to feel comfortable with such a proposal if it wasn't being wielded by an incurable demagogue like Peters.

I'd add that I'd also feel a lot more comfortable if Peters' proposal made the slightest bit of sense, and didn't have loopholes that you could run a Mûmak through.

While Winston gives a lot of detail on the logisitics and timing of the polls, there's very little on the precise form of the referenda, or how they would fit into the existing legal structure. In particular:

• Clarity: Referendum questions must be able to be "clearly understood", but what exactly does this mean? One of the reasons our current referenda system is non-binding is that the questions are one-liners or general policy statements, requiring legislation to implement them. What would it mean for such a statement to be binding on the government? For example, how would the infamous law and order question posed in 1999 have translated into actual law if it had been binding? While there's a clear direction, there's no detail for implementation - in fact, it's so vague that the present government could argue that they've complied with the public's wishes.
• Amendment? The usual way of solving the above problem is for referenda to be votes on proposed legislation - in other words, they are an alternative way of passing a bill into law. But would a law passed by the public be treated just like a law passed by Parliament, able to be amended by simple majority, or would the proposed 75% supermajority required for a veto also apply to amendments? If the former, then it will be relatively easy for a government to gut any undesirable provision passed by the public; if a supermajority is required, then we have a Californian system, where contradictory referenda progressively bind the hands of government until it is incapable of functioning (now wouldn't the Business Roundtable like that?)
• Affordability: Winston's scheme would only allow a vote if "the referendum’s objective is capable of being met within the country’s fiscal constraints". But who decides? The government? Bring on the Mûmakil! But if not the government, then who?

Make no mistake - I think there's a place for citizen's initiated referenda in our parliamentary system, but I don't think Winston's proposal is up to it. Unfortunately, as Tim Bale points out, it is difficult to criticise binding referenda without coming across as "a sniffy liberal afraid of real democracy". So, sometime over the next few weeks, I'll try and put together a few posts on how I think it can be done properly...

Playing with society, part II

Republic of New Ithilien.

If Iraqis are so supportive of the occupation, why are they mutilating the bodies of dead American soldiers?

"Love the occupation, but hate the occupier", perhaps?

We cannot take this on faith

KiwiPundit says:

I'm not sure whether Zaoui's detention is unjust, because we don't know what classified information they have. It seems doubtful that one person would be singled out like this for no reason at all.

I'm sure the SIS has a reason, I'm just not sure that it's a good reason. And the problem with the current system is that we will never know. Without proper, independent oversight of the process, we effectively have to take it all on faith. And given the quality of their "evidence" so far, the bias displayed by the supposedly "independent" judge and by the Immigration Minister, that is simply not possible.

In the wider context, there are some things no government can be trusted with. Noone should be imprisoned solely on the say-so of a government official, no matter how good they think their reasons are - such contravenes some of the fundamentals of our constitution. If the government wants to lock someone up, they should prove it in a court, before a jury - or at worst, before a panel of judges in camera. But they should not be allowed to imprison people simply because they've convinced themselves that it is justified.

Mergers

The merger of United Future and the Outdoor Recreation party provides a perfect example of what is wrong with our current MMP system: the undemocratic 5% threshhold forces mergers between parties who have nothing in common, for the sole purpose of leveraging maximum advantage from a single safe electorate seat.

It would be better to ditch the threshhold entirely (or rather, reduce it to that required to win a single seat). That would remove a great deal of the game-playing, and allow parties like Outdoor Recreation to be represented without having to crawl into bed with a pack of fundies.