[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Nuclear Waste, Science, & Politics



Susan Gawarecki wrote:



>  Our current president received fewer

> votes than the loser, yet won the election.  This is the will of the

> people?  Looks like "tyranny of the minority" to me.

>

> Those who love to quote our founding fathers (visionary as they were), seem to have

> lost sight of their actual intent: that only educated white male land owners should

> have a voice in the country's government.Thankfully, this paradigm has shifted

> substantially over the past century--isn't it about time we finished reforming the

> system?



Dear Susan, All,



        I think you are a bit too narrow in your outlook.  Let us look at energy

policy, Global Warming, and their risks on the one hand, and the distribution of

political power in our country, on the other.  On the state and on the national level,

we gerrymander districts for the lower houses,  but we are quite a bit less

"democratic" for the upper houses.  Thus a New Mexican has a larger say about the

makeup of the U.S. Senate than a Texan or Californian.

        This is the way our representative democracy (actually that kind of

representation makes it a republic!), is set up.  There is a formula that determines

representation.  The last remnants of direct democracy went out in Switzerland a few

decades ago; and I don't know if any town hall meetings are still in effect in some

old eastern communities of this country. So we all are represented by someone who

speaks for a lot of citizens at different levels of government, even the president is

elected by such a rule to represent us all.

        Is that wrong?  Both in Switzerland and in this country, you often hear that

"It does not matter how we vote, the big cities and big states get their way, never

mind how!"  This is a very dangerous argument for a democracy, all you have to do is

look at the history of some recent new democracies without tradition and safeguards

(e.g. look at broken up Czechoslovakia, an outcome almost nobody really wanted!).

        Are we sure that we want a strict "one man, one vote" regime when we decide

issues such as energy policy or Global Warming and their risks!?!  I can just hear the

secessionist talk in some western States such as New Mexico, Arizona and maybe even

California.

        We are treading on very treacherous ground when we talk about abandoning the

two chamber system with its different approach to voter representation.  And that has

nothing to do with keeping some minorities from voting (although that may have been

part of the idea earlier); now it has everything to do with minorities getting a

chance to be heard.  The history of Europe in the 20th century shows the importance of

that aspect very clearly. It is also the main problem of  Switzerland's negative

attitude to join Europe at the present time  ("We will drop out of sight, nobody will

care about us, and we will become financially and politically inconsequential!")

        When I read about 'Risk Analysis and Democracy' in our literature, it seems

that a straight majority rule seems to underlie all discussions. I really hope that I

am wrong, but that aspect worries me

        Science is fortunately not democratic, well now, should risk management be

"democratic" or not?.



Food for thought over the weekend, have fun,



Fritz



--



 " The American Republic will endure until the day Congress

 discovers that it can bribe the Public with the Public's money."

                                       Alexis de Tocqueville

                                       Democracy in America



***************************



Fritz A. Seiler, Ph.D.

Sigma Five Consulting

P.O. Box 1709

Los Lunas, NM 87031, USA

Tel.    505-866-5193

Fax.    505-866-5197

e-mail: faseiler@nmia.com



***************************





************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.