A Better Way

The way we choose the government and the way that government operates should be separated. Whether an elected government or some other type, how the governing jobs are shared out is one thing. What the government does to improve that society or not is partly in the peoples hands. Witness how even despotic governments can change due to public pressure (e.g. Hong Kong and the extradition law).

Thus, in a democratic form of government the governors get elected. Then they go and do whatever they want, sometimes what they said, sometimes not. They have taken the power to decide what kind of country they govern into their own hands. The history of modern government has been one of slowly limiting what a government can do and what it can't, without first changing other laws (e.g constitutional laws in the USA's Bills of Rights and in other countries).

What I propose is the institution of Aspirational Democratic government. We would still elect our government, but what that government did would be based on a set of aspirations for where the people of the country want their country to go. Thus election campaigns would be based on how the individual parties planned to deliver those aspirations.

How those aspirations were established could happen in a variety of ways; perhaps a series of referenda to establish them or even a questionnaire that was permanently open, so if you had a change of heart you could alter your responses to the questions asked. Questions could be added by individual citizens. Answering every question wouldn't be compulsory. In fact, answering any question wouldn't be compulsory.

There would probably need to be the odd urgent question needing an answer. That could be solved by using the aspiration document as a referendum, or even by establishing a citizen's parliament like Ireland recently did for their abortion law debate.

If not these processes, then others will exist. The bottom line is, for too long governments have been abrogating the power of decision over a vital and increasingly important part of our society and country. By doing it this way, those who wish to have input into the decisions of government will need to lobby the people first. As usual in all human endeavours, rules will need to be ironed out to ensure a level playing field for all but that is always the case.

The definition of aspiration I'm making here is one of detail where necessary, not the usual flashy-worded political statement by some politician (e.g. questions of process. Often the process of a public body will act in ways that seem intended to restrict or discourage participation. The lawyers would scream that process is how a state reaches fair decisions, but that is not always the case as we all know. Where a special language is used to define and operate the laws which we all operate under, then to that extent the public is excluded from equal participation. Yes, there must be ways to ensure that fairness and proper definition exist. Not at the cost of creating an aristocracy where only the educated can be heard.

Of course there will be areas within the aspirational document that directly contradict other areas. E,g, various rights, both religious and gender-based, might conflict. This can be dealt with by using a hierarchical structure within the aspiration document. The very top might be some general terms. I personally would choose the phrase “All actions or laws should be designed to be as kindly and fairly as possible." I would would make kindness primary over even fairness. Witness the NZ gun law debate: Subsequent to the Christchurch shootings, NZ changed their gun laws, outlawing some semi-automatic type weapons. Assessed in one way, this was an unfair decision in its impact on many perfectly law abiding gun owners. But kindness says that we must do this to increase the difficulty to anyone planning similar actions and to generally increase public safety.

Government is too important to leave in the hands of the government.