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