Saving Democracy With Web 2.0 190
Wired is running a piece about how "Web 2.0" (still hate that buzz word) can save democracy this upcoming election date. Web 2.0 hyperbole aside, the piece itself covers the extent of the different mapping tools, get out the vote, finding who funds a candidate and other election candies. Good round-up story.
I've heard this bedtime story before (Score:3, Insightful)
More tools are great, and making information easily accessible is a Good Thing. Calling politicians on their sources of funding is always positive, and holding politicians accountable for the things they say and the promises they make is fantastic.
But no matter how available you make the information, it only matters if people care enough to find out. That's the advantage the traditional media have: given US culture, it's a push medium. It brings information to people, rather than wating for people retrieve the information. The implication of an article like this is that the threat to democracy is unavailability of information, which isn't true - or at least, is far from the whole story.
The real threat to democracy is people who don't really care about what's going on in government. People who have voted straight ticket in every election since they were 18 (and are proud of the fact!) are the problem. People who consider themselves members of a Team Republican or Team Democrat are the problem. People who don't know who's on the ballot until they show up to vote are the problem. It's a combination of apathy, cynicism, and misguided loyalty that is the problem.
This "web 2.0" phenomenon that the article discusses is, in a sense, the same as the "get out the vote" initiatives that come out every election cycle. When you come right down to it, if someone's only going to vote because MTV told them to, it's probably someone that shouldn't be voting*. If someone doesn't care enough about the process to know who stands for what and to take the time to go vote without being harangued by some celebrity, then that person should have just stayed home; we might as well roll dice to determine who gets elected.
All the tools that are now available for information disclosure are great tools, and they make the job of a responsible voter easier. But they won't make someone who doesn't care in the first place suddenly care unless the information is forced in front of him - which is exactly the information model that the web doesn't match up to. Helping informed voters become better informed is a great thing, but it's not going to save democracy.
*No, this doesn't mean I would ever advocate any kind of system to "validate" voters. Every citizen gets to vote if he wants to, and anything that begins to change that is abhorrent to the very idea of democracy. Nor would I restrict the right of any person or group to encourage people to vote. But that doesn't change the fact that the people who only vote because the TV told them to are very likely to cast unconsidered votes, which is not an ideal situation. Then, of course, there's the problem that any group pushing people to go vote is, almost certainly, pushing people to go vote the way that group wants them to - and the people being convinced don't even know that they're being pushed to a specific political position, rather than just being encouraged to exercise their franchise.
No laws against missleading web pages... (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, there's nothing stopping me from saying things like Mesure A (a public transit initiative where I am) will kill babies, and all who support it will feast on the baby meat!
Realize this: Democracy is wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found
incompatible with personal security or the rights of property:
and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent
in their deaths.
-James Madison
That is why our country was founded as a Constitutional Republic where FREEDOM, not democracy, was the ideal. Unfortunately, we are drifting away from freedom towards democracy, which has given us a bigger, more instrusive, and more corrupt federal government.
Why save democracy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've heard this bedtime story before (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, providing a menu of all the offices to be filled on one side, and a menu of all the candidates on the other side (with no reference to the office for which each is running, of course)...then we'd be on to something.
Re:I've heard this bedtime story before (Score:2, Insightful)
I find it funny, and more than a little sad, that the new voting machines have taken so much flak, but a suggestion like this gets aired openly. The saddest part is that I know a lot of people who would seriously consider asking people if they agree with GWB and the War (etc) before they are permitted to vote. (And to be fair, I know at least as many people who would say the same thing if you agreed with pulling out of Iraq, stopping NSA wiretaps, etc...) Funny how the more you point fingers at someone, the more you start to become what you claim they are.