Re: uservoice ... the liberals
Posted by
Tracey P. Lauriault on
Apr 21, 2009; 3:27pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/uservoice-the-liberals-tp1624p1628.html
Thanks for bringing that up Hugh!
I agree with you and also worry about the trend toward technologically mediated direct democracy. I find it a worrisome trend, that promotes exclusivity and narrowness - very culturally libertarian and naive. It is like putting a fundamental human rights issue on a ballot as was done in the US and as we saw with Proposition 8. A majority is not always right.
Have you read any of the comments to globe articles lately? I try to pick an article a day and read the comments - the degree of shallowness is astounding. I does give one a pulse on who is online and who responds and what people actually think. If it is the same crowd that votes on these direct democracy tools we are in more democratic trouble than ever! It is a small subset of the population and it would be really interesting to see the demographics.
For instance we have seen technology related campaigns online be very successful - what is their demographic? Whose interests and values do they represent? We have not seen the same success and uptake on social policy campaigns - what is their demographic? Who cares about those interests and values? Who will represent the latter group's interests online?
How do we create dialogue?
I am really perplexed - on the one side these tools do nibble at some of what we want, and concurrently if we solely go in that direction - well! Doing work on the hill is painfully slow and requires some very special skills and lots resources. What is the happy medium? How do we create a rapprochement?
I would really love to see how we can technological mediate meaningful dialogue that leads to social and political transformation, and not just the fulfillment of superficial desires on narrow issues.
Sorry for going on, but this has been on my mind lately and I am really glad you brought it up!
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Hugh McGuire
<[hidden email]> wrote:
looks like it is from the liberals, yes.
(as an aside, these initiatives always demonstrate to me how incompatible direct democracy is to good policy making ...maybe I'm just saying that because just about the *only* policy decision the tories have made that i support 100% was plugging the income trust tax loophole).
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Tracey P. Lauriault
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https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault