This is a tricky one. There are two halves to 'representative
democracy.' One is direct responsibility which is the responsibility
that your representative owes to you, even if you voted for the other
guy. This is the responsibility to represent your views in
government, even if they disagree with them (and hell, they're really
going to put their best effort into that, hey?) Unless that works
somehow, then around half of the (voting) population are permanently
disenfranchised, which is unacceptable.
But the other is collective responsibility, the responsibility that
and elected member owes to the party or government of which they are
a member. This is more obvious in nations based on the UK system of
responsible government where the ministry is selected from elected
politicians unlike the US executive. The member is required to
demonstrate loyalty to the government or party regardless of personal
views or even planks in the platform that got them elected. if a
decision is made democratically within the party then the member must
support it, regardless of personal views.
This was the recent fate of Peter Garrett, one time frontman of
Midnight Oil, lawyer, green activist and now a member of the
Australian federal opposition. He personally opposes the presence of
US bases in Australia but the Labor Party has decided that party
policy is in favour and so he must support it. You can call him a
hypocrite and some have, but thems the rules and if he doesn't like
it, he can resign from the party. In fact the convention is that if
he does not support it from this point on, he MUST resign. of course,
he would soon lose his seat without party support.
And that's the point. I'm not sure but i suspect that political
parties are not mentioned in your constitution - they are not in
ours. But the system cannot work without them. Therefore these are
all necessary conventions. Often a politician has no choice but to go
against their own personal views and positions for the sake of good
governance. You need to look at the bigger picture. I've met and
known many politicians - almost to a person they were decent hard-
working people who were often deeply frustrated by the compromises
that they had to make to be successful and eventually effective.
Sounds like there is room for a decent 'people's movement' of some
sort dedicated to things like getting out the vote. But be careful -
these things and the kind of views that you are expressing tend to
end up in a 'politicians are lying bastards' populist swamp and
that's a place you really don't want to be. We had a small taste of
that recently here (Pauline, guys!) and we really don't want to go
back there.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 17/03/2007, at 5:43 AM, Scott Peden wrote:
> We each have a right to tell OUR REPRESENTATIVES what we want them
> to do,
> when they do something different or not in line with what they have
> been
> elected to do, they may hold the office, but they are no longer
> representative of the government, which is suppose to be We The
> People.
> Otherwise, that is not just a privilege, it is our responsibility.
> If they do the opposite of what they were elected to do, if they
> act in
> direct opposition to those documents which we hold as being what
> makes us a
> country, than that is treason, and again, why should anyone give
> loyalty to
> a traitor?
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|