This is an asymmetric conflict. The factions who want this to pass have more resources, time and background influence and can keep pushing this until they get lucky.
And once in place repealing it will be tremendously difficult.
How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process? It is a dynamic that is repeated in many areas.
Governments don't change constitutions pretty much anywhere. More also constitution changes are notoriously hard from requiring 75% of parliament votes, to 66% in two consecutive parliament assemblies (need to pass an election), and all versions in-between (or not having a codified constitution).
> Governments don't change constitutions pretty much anywhere.
They do sometimes manage to just ignore parts that they don't like sometimes, at least temporarily, as the recent and continuing mess in the DPR-US illustrates.
> How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process?
You need a means for citizens to hold the powers that be accountable. Unfortunately, the EU is largely designed without such a mechanism, as its initial scope and ambition was much smaller than the superstate it is growing into it wasn't deemed necessary.
Every branch except for the European Parliament risks consequences only if they fuck up so badly that the majority of EU citizens in their home countries (or in some cases, the majority of member states) deem their actions so reprehensible that they consider punishing the EU more important than electing their own national government, since it's effectively the same vote.
This is technically still a means of accountability, but it's not really a threat in practice.
This seems to be more about political power and government overreach than money. The narrative seems to be focused solely on concentration of the later, lately.
I expect economical and political power to get along well. You normally acquire both organically; except in some cases, suddently acquiring much of one will buy some of the other.
It's too bad we can't withdraw our votes for a politician continuously, with the politician having to leave office if the vote changes enough.
I'm not sure it can be solved without everybody writing down their vote, but this would be one way that would make pushing through unpopular policies, whether because of changing opinions, mismatches where politicians misrepresent their plans or corruption, much more difficult.
I have had this idea for a long time: An online realtime voting platform, where you can change your mind about policies at any time, and what the people want needs to be implemented. And of course all issues and policies must be put on the platform for people to vote on.
Of course initially we would have to learn, that changing our minds too often will lead to things not getting done at all. And it is doubtful, that a lot of people are even capable of becoming informed and reflecting beings, not to be swayed by a hip populist radical, and thus causing shit to happen. Also the sheer number of issues and policies would be so many, that most people couldn't make up their mind on everything. But that's OK, since people can raise awareness and simply vote later, when they became aware. Another issue would be what the choices are that people have on the platform. How to give all relevant opinions as choices? How to know what is relevant? Or can voters apply for adding a new opinion? But then who grants the right to add a choice? How to prevent spam?
So there certainly are huge issues with the idea. But maybe, over time, we would develop into politically reasonable societies and politicians would have to fear the opinion of the people, because one scandal uncovered, and they could end up kicked out tomorrow. Maybe it could also better designed, so that there is some minimum time between being able to change ones stance about something. Or some maximum of policies one can have an opinion about per day.
Even initially to have such a platform without real political consequences of voting, would be super interesting, because you could lookup what the current opinions of the people are.
> It's too bad we can't withdraw our votes for a politician continuously, with the politician having to leave office if the vote changes enough.
I think that would empower ill-conceived (and/or ill-willed) populist & short term movements, with everyone in constant fear of being "un-vote bombed" by armies of easily led, and likely make the lobbying problem worse.
If not continuously, there needs to be mechanisms to recall a politician (or an entire government), and re-hold elections for both failing to govern and failing to represent the interests of the people over the interest of billionaires.
To use the recent US shutdown as an example. Passing a budget is like one of the basic requirements of governing. If the current government cannot accomplish that, it should immediately dissolve and elections be held. Every single position in power at the time, gone, the whole thing gets re-elected because they have proven that the current group cannot adequately govern.
The ability to recall needs to work similarly. Vote should be able to be initiated by the people at anytime, and a successful vote means the government dissolves and new elections are held.
We could also have a "cooling off" period after a piece of legislation (like chat control) fails. It failed the first time, it should not be able to be immediately reintroduced whether in the same or a different form. There should be some sort of cooling off period where that piece of legislation (or its goals) cannot be reintroduced for x number of years.
These are good ideas, but they do have some pretty big sticking points. The ability to trigger a re-election has the same problems we're trying to avoid in the larger thread: If a bad actor (say a business) wants a politician out, they can just continually issue recall votes until they wear out the population and get lucky. Unfortunately, I think the only solution here is exactly what we have: Politicians have to be re-elected every couple of years.
The cooling off period also has problems, because sometimes a piece of legislation is a good idea, but has a major flaw that causes people to vote against it. What happens when people want a law passed, but not in the form it's presented in?
Re-election every couple of years does not solve the issues, as demonstrated by most elected governments around the world. People are too lazy, uninformed, stupid, to vote for their own good, and will be made to vote against their own interest, time and time again. As societies we are mostly not ready mentally to vote properly. This is in the interest of the people in power. Have stupid and confused subjects, so that you can rally them for whatever cause you need them to rally for.
> Passing a budget is like one of the basic requirements of governing. If the current government cannot accomplish that, it should immediately dissolve and elections be held.
It's important to note that this is a basic principle, almost the basic principle, of English-style parliamentary democracy. You have a monarch who makes decisions (through their chosen government, ever since the English cut off a few heads), and the rest of the Parliament (a bunch of nobles, clergy, and eventually representatives of commoners) is there to withdraw financing from that government when they disapprove.
> We could also have a "cooling off" period after a piece of legislation (like chat control) fails.
We usually do, it is called a "session." The problem is the inability to pass negative legislation (which also has a pretty long history) i.e. we will not do a thing. Deliberative assemblies explicitly frown on negative legislation, and instead say that purpose is served simply by not doing the thing.
The problem is that individual rights are provided by negative legislation against the government: think the US Bill of Rights. Instead, we have systems where exclusively positive legislation is passed by majorities, and repealing that legislation takes supermajorities. The only pragmatic way to create new rights becomes to challenge legislation in courts, and get a decision by opinionated, appointed judges that X piece of legislation is superseded by Y piece of legislation for unconvincing reason Z, and this new "right" is about as stable as the current lineup of the sitting justices.
What we need is to pretend like "democracy" is a meaningful word rather than an empty chant, or more often simply a euphemism for the US, Anglosphere, Western and Central Europe, and whoever they currently approve of. Democracy is rule by the ruled, and the exact processes by which the decisions are made define the degree of democracy. Somehow, elites have decided that process is the least important part of democracy, and the most important part is that elites get their preferred outcomes. Anything else is "populism."*
Decisionmaking processes in "democracies" need to be examined, justified, and codified. The EU needs either to cede a lot more leverage to its individual members (and make that stupid currency a European bancor, rather than a German weapon) OR become more directly responsive to European individuals. If you're not serving the individual states, and you're not serving the individual citizens, you're exclusively serving elites.
But they have ways to evade the law.
And my dystopian inner oracle tells me, that when the pervasive online identification will soon be reality, certain people's IDs will have a special "all access, no logs" status that will allow them stay under the radar.
What happens when you get what you want, and rather than magically solving every problem confronting society, it doesn't solve anything at all, and in fact creates several more problems, as generally happens when such ideas are put into practice?
What's plan B? Lower the threshold to a million dollars?
> as generally happens when such ideas are put into practice
Is this true? Lots of countries with high living standards have high taxes. It doesn't need to solve every problem but it does help solve the problem of one unelected person holding too much power and influence.
> What's plan B? Lower the threshold to a million dollars?
1B = 1000M. I think thats high enough. Don't see why you need to make it 1000x smaller to try and make a point.
It doesn't need to solve every problem but it does help solve the problem of one unelected person holding too much power and influence.
It does? Really?
What are they teaching kids in school these days? According to the books I studied, nominally-egalitarian leaders racked up an eight-digit body count in the 20th century alone.
Not if it gets us a Trump, twice. What has democracy done for us lately?
It appears that democracy just devolves into mindless yet profitable populism, given enough time and technology. Stupid voters are easier for ill-intentioned people to herd, using the modern tools we've built to do just that. Social media has made it possible for the first time to exploit a fatal bug in democracy that we always knew was there. AI will slam the coffin lid shut.
I don't see a way back, personally, but confiscatory taxation of everybody that you think has too much money isn't a way forward. The people being taxed will demand a return on their investment, and now they know how to get it.
The problem isn't the money, the problem is the power.
Taxes are ~irrelevant to billionaires. When you say "you can't be a billionaire" what you're saying is "you cannot own any significant amount of a large business" because billionaires aren't liquid, their status is based on their assets and primarily their shares in large businesses.
I agree that wealth inequality is horrible and taxes on the wealthy should be much higher. But if someone owns 10% of a trillion dollar company, that's $100B in shares. They can sell off 900M$ worth of shares and "not be a billionaire" in terms of income and money (and thus taxation). So what do you do?
- Seize control of their shares and thus their control over private industry
- Or, accept that billionaires exist
This is basically the core fight between capitalism (private ownership of the means of production) and communism (government control of the means of production).
Most people hate the idea of billionaires, but people generally also hate a centrally planned government where the government owns a controlling stake in all businesses preventing any insider from having any real control.
We should be discussing strategies to tackle this. Not just go "oh lets just accept it".
Just how many people have 100B+? Do you see them trying to interfere in governance and elections? Maybe we can have annual wealth taxes. Just like property taxes. There are many ways to tackle this. That's what we should be discussing. Not just giving up. Absurd wealth inequality will cause societal collapse.
> This is basically the core fight between capitalism (private ownership of the means of production) and communism (government control of the means of production).
No it isn't. It's taxation. Does the presence of property taxes and inheritance taxes make the west a communist region? Communism is the govt "owning" a company. Some rich guy selling his shares on the stock market to pay his taxes doesn't mean the govt owns the company.
So, the government steals a percent of private businesses every year? What does the government do with this? Are you suggesting that the government forces business owners to liquidate their own shares to give to the government? So on a long enough time line, no one is allowed to own a business.
> No it isn't. It's taxation. Does the presence of property taxes and inheritance taxes make the west a communist region? Communism is the govt "owning" a company. Some rich guy selling his shares on the stock market to pay his taxes doesn't mean the govt owns the company.
The business is already paying taxes (i.e. property taxes). You're proposing a new tax on top of the existing taxation scheme, an ownership tax that likely requires the owner to reduce their ownership. Imagine if you had to sell 1% of your house every year because "home ownership is unfair". Most middle class folks would never end up owning their home.
Communism is when you're not allowed to own private businesses, and the wealth that is problematic is the ownership of private businesses. Skin this cat however you want, but if you want a skinned cat, the skin has to come off.
Again, I agree that billionaires are bad. I don't think taxation or incentive structures will fix it. I do think that revolution/wars that destroy the oligarchy and reset wealth are the only times in history that the middle and working class truly prosper. It is what it is. In an ideal world, business ownership is broadly spread across employees and wealth and power are shared broadly. But that's not an outcome that is ever achieved without significant force.
> So, the government steals a percent of private businesses every year? What does the government do with this? Are you suggesting that the government forces business owners to liquidate their own shares to give to the government? So on a long enough time line, no one is allowed to own a business.
All tax is theft by that argument. Whether they liquidate or not is up to them. They just need to pay x tax. They aren't selling their stake to the government. They are free to pay the tax from their general annual income or by selling their stocks in the market like they do today every year.
> Imagine if you had to sell 1% of your house every year because "home ownership is unfair". Most middle class folks would never end up owning their home.
How are folks paying property taxes today? They are paying x% of the properties annual value yearly.
> Communism is when you're not allowed to own private businesses, and the wealth that is problematic is the ownership of private businesses. Skin this cat however you want, but if you want a skinned cat, the skin has to come off.
If stock is being sold to pay tax its being sold to someone else in the market not the govt. The govt is not owning the business.
> I do think that revolution/wars that destroy the oligarchy and reset wealth are the only times in history that the middle and working class truly prosper. It is what it is. In an ideal world, business ownership is broadly spread across employees and wealth and power are shared broadly. But that's not an outcome that is ever achieved without significant force.
I agree. But I don't share the sentiment that nothing can be done. None of what I said is radical. Its reality in many european countries. And wealth equality is far less. eg. an annual 1% wealth tax. 1% of 1B is 10M. That's peanuts to them. Heck their stocks appreciate far greater than that yearly.
>Its reality in many european countries. And wealth equality is far less. eg. an annual 1% wealth tax. 1% of 1B is 10M. That's peanuts to them. Heck their stocks appreciate far greater than that yearly.
Ah yes Europe, where businesses are largely uncompetitive globally and the countries are more than ever completely at the mercy of global superpowers. I'll also point out that the most competitive and richest european countries also have the largest wealth inequality, and the european countries pulling down the average are the poorest ones and most irrelevant globally. Their stock market is also considered mediocre and many European prefer to invest in US markets instead.
Just pointing out that "more taxes" isn't some panacea and there's a real cost to competitiveness going this route. If the US went this way, the BRICS nations especially China would eclipse the western world within a generation on the back of more absuive practices, and become the global superpowers easily pushing the west around.
I suppose that's nicer for this generation of citizens, although potentially catastrophic for the generation afterwards. And I don't necessarily envy the geopolitical reality of Europe right now, even if I do envy many of their healthcare systems.
European businesses are uncompetitive because of excess regulation. Not the ultra wealthy having to pay more tax. I'm pointing out they have wealth tax and haven't turned into a communist hellhole. None of the things you complain about whether its Europe refusing to build up their military or its business competitiveness is because of wealth tax. The USA has an annual property tax based on the properties value and isn't a communist nation.
> I'll also point out that the most competitive and richest european countries also have the largest wealth inequality, and the european countries pulling down the average are the poorest ones and most irrelevant globally.
This isn't even true. The US has the same inequality as Russia. Every top EU country is far far lower. Maybe we are communist after all.
Your entire argument is that 900 people out of 350,000,000 people in the US having to pay more tax is going to drive the US into the ground.
>Your entire argument is that 900 people out of 350,000,000 people in the US having to pay more tax is going to drive the US into the ground.
Talk about a low-faith strawman! Let me eviscerate this garbage argument.
The 900 billionaires in America control around $7.8 trillion USD in assets (US yearly GDP is over $30 trillion, for reference)
Let's tax 1% of that yearly, meaning we just gained $78 billion dollars per year! Congrats, with a $7 trillion yearly federal budget, your +$78 billion covers about 1% of federal spending.
Pack it up boys, we completely solved wealth inequality and will be a glorious european nation with our $78 billion dollars! If we applied that to nationalized healthcare (estimated cost $3 trillion per year) we just paid for 2% of the healthcare system!
Or maybe we just redistribute that $78 billion. That's $588 dollars per US household per year. Problem = solved.
> Let's tax 1% of that yearly, meaning we just gained $78 billion dollars per year! Congrats, with a $7 trillion yearly federal budget, your +$78 billion covers about 1% of federal spending.
Excellent point. I'm glad you see how much of a pittance 1% annually is. Though I've made the same point before(remember I said 1% of 1B is just 10M, thats a joke for billionaires). Increase the % as you wish. 1% does nothing for inequality given stock gains are far higher yearly.
My whole point is that its a problem that needs to be solved. How we can solve it is a great thing to discuss. Your entire argument so far is that it can't be solved. Which I don't agree with.
And for some reason you just ignore some points. eg. property taxes: "in 2023, approximately $363 billion in property taxes was collected on single-family homes across the United States. Property taxes generally account for about 10-11% of total U.S. tax revenue.". You said "Most middle class folks would never end up owning their home.". Turns out thats not true.
Tax the billionaires. You seem to think the current trend is bad as well. You just happen to think my suggestions to fix it is bad. That's fine. But I think its a better constructive use of your time trying to think of better ideas than give up.
1% is your number. Feel free to tell me the magical wealth tax % that fixes all income inequality and maintains strong ability to own private businesses. This is your argument and it's lazy to tell me to do your work for you.
>My whole point is that its a problem that needs to be solved. How we can solve it is a great thing to discuss. Your entire argument so far is that it can't be solved. Which I don't agree with.
Yes, I think that your wealth tax cannot solve the problem unless it tips away from capitalism towards socialism, e.g. destroy billionaires ability to have control over private industry and broaden the base of ownership or make it public. Maybe you have a magical % wealth tax that fixes everything, I'll wait for your thesis.
>And for some reason you just ignore some points. eg. property taxes: "in 2023, approximately $363 billion in property taxes was collected on single-family homes across the United States. Property taxes generally account for about 10-11% of total U.S. tax revenue.". You said "Most middle class folks would never end up owning their home.". Turns out thats not true.
This is not a place to have expansive multi-point debates. I'm not ignoring anything, I'm having targeted discussions on major points. Again, property taxes are NOT universal in the US and are largely balanced by income taxes. States with high property taxes generally have low/no income taxes and vice versa. And yes, property taxes have had a strong effect in lowering home ownership. In China, over 70% of millenials own a home (no property taxes). In America, less than half of millenials own homes (high property taxes).
Another point I neglected to reply to because these replies get way too long: European regulation is bad on businesses because corrupt billionaires aren't in place to stop it. Can't you see that regulation and private power go hand in hand? A government strong enough to force billionaires to not get richer and instead spread the wealth is a government strong enough to regulate the heck out of businesses. Given power, it will be used.
>Tax the billionaires. You seem to think the current trend is bad as well. You just happen to think my suggestions to fix it is bad. That's fine. But I think its a better constructive use of your time trying to think of better ideas than give up.
We do tax billionaires and the wealthy! The top 1% of Americans pay 25% of all revenue. The bottom 50% pay roughly 3% of all revenue.
Please forward your taxation thesis that 1) solves wealth inequality 2) preserves the ability to own large businesses. And no, forcing a business owner to sell their shares to retail investors and hedge funds does not preserve business ownership, it guarantees that citizens will eventually be forced out of their own businesses that they start.
My thesis is simple: Skin the cat. Blow up their ownership. Prevent them from owning large businesses. Use the power of government to jail them and disappear them until they bow before a government of the people. Or accept the system for what it is. But half measures? Fiddling with minor taxation numbers? Get real, that's controlled opposition that prolongs their reign.
Also how do you avoid billionaires worldwide? Not everyone lives under your government. Even if you could, how do you know for a fact that some people don't secretly control hidden assets? Is Xi openly a billionaire? China is a "communist" country on paper. How does he hold so much power?
The sad reality is that the world has a nonzero percentage of power-hungry narcissists. We need governments that are more democratic and robust. We all know that the current government processes are broken and corrupted.
On paper the UK house of commons can pass a bill. In reality bills are driven by the executive. The same executive that (until brexit) drove the bills via appointing the EU commissioner and being the EU council.
The reason that EU Parliament can't pass bills is because constituent governments don't want to lose power to parliament.
>EU parliament is the only legislature in the world that needs permission to legislate
It makes sense, because EU law is mostly technical stuff that commission has to draft and all the national governments have to agree to.
With the commission being elected by the parliament itself and vote of no confidence being a thing, it's not like the parliament doesn't have power -- the power is intentionally nerfed to not overreach where national governments don't want it to.
People are not able to be experts in everything they are asked to vote on, thats why we delegate it, just like people delegate their healthcare, plumbing, flying to a holiday destination, growing food, etc.
People en-mass are just as easy to manipulate as elected members, if not easier.
Can you point to examples of bad outcomes in Switzerland’s referendums? I mean unequivocal examples, of the sort that would convince everyone here that that model is undesirable as a whole.
How about that time in 2020 the Swiss voted in favor of an immigration restriction proposal that was so fundamentally incompatible with existing EU treaties, the government was forced to bullshit their way out of implementing entirely because doing so would have basically ended Switzerland as a nation? This is the kinda thing that really cannot happen in a working system. The only reason the government is not sued into following through is because the courts have conspired with other branches to shut down any attempt at doing so. Real democratic.
Generally speaking, people are stupid. Really REALLY f-cking stupid. Giving the average Joe this kind of unmoderated power in a modern world that almost entirely eludes his understanding is no different from handing him a loaded gun; eventually, someone will get hurt real bad. As someone living in Switzerland, the main reason things are as stable as they are is because:
* Changing anything significant requires a referendum, which is a huge pain in the ass. So politicians just kinda avoid important changes that require referenda, finding other ways to enrich themselves and leaving society stagnating. This means that actually important changes come about very slowly or not at all. Read up on how long it took for women's suffrage to become universal – and the outright threats of internal military action the federal government resorted to...
* Whether the Swiss like it or not, Switzerland is mostly a loud, spoilt economic annex of the EU. It will remain stable for as long as the EU is, and well off for as long as the EU wants to be seen as a peaceful and magnanimous partner in international relations. After all, "bullying" tiny and surrounded Switzerland into agreeing to anything – which the Swiss will cry about at any opportunity you give them – is a bad look.
So yeah, Swiss direct democracy is not all it's made out to be, and really not all that great up close. Admirers remind me a lot of Weaboos, strangely shortsighted in their admiration of a system they know little about.
"Our" politicians? What makes you think I am American? Of course Switzerland is less dysfunctional than the US, that wasn't the point of discussion at all (and an extremely low bar to begin with). It was to show that direct democracy has lead to undesirable outcomes.
> Calling people too dumb to handle democracy sounds a tad facist.
Well, it's good thing I did not do that. I said the average person cannot begin to comprehend every facet of the modern world they live in. Your limited reading comprehension is not making a very compelling counterpoint here.
In my many years of living here, I have never seen a Swiss person treat their own illnesses, design their own trains, hunt their own meat, and do their own plumbing all at once – they delegate tasks they understand themselves to be incompetent in to specialists. Yet somehow, at the ballot box, their otherwise healthy and productive understanding of their own limited competence makes way for a strange form of celebratory group hubris, landing them in a constitutional crisis like a drunk driver in a ditch.
Maybe instead of trying make decisions they have no hope of truly understanding in an incredibly slow and inefficient process, they can just elect people they trust to be specialists in narrow fields to make these decisions for them for a fixed time span? Wow, exciting, we just fixed a flaw in democracy the Greeks knew about 3000 years ago by resorting to the same god damn system everyone else already uses: representative democracy. Which also sucks in its own, different ways, but at least it is much less likely to set the entire f-cking country on fire over night. That's kinda neat.
I’ve seen this strategy many times in the US. For example, in blue states they will repeatedly propose the same gun control laws that restrict the rights of law abiding citizens and violate the constitution, which guarantees a right to own firearms. Each time such a law is proposed, people have to show up to hearings, submit comments, pressure legislators, protest, and all of that. Those laws may then be pulled back, but the same laws will get brought up every single legislative season, and citizens who have other responsibilities in life have to give up time and money repeatedly to fight for their constitutional rights.
I’m sure there are other examples of such legal abuse of different political biases - I’m just using this as an example because there is such a long history of it. Eventually, legislators will pass whatever they want anyways. And then your recourse to regain rights is to go through an expensive years-long legal battle that ultimately requires the Supreme Court to take the case. This type of “attack” is a serious flaw in many modern democracies.
I think the fix is to have personal consequences for legislators, judges, etc that make bad decisions that violate the constitutional rights or fundamental rights of citizens. The idea that people are immune from consequence just because they’re serving in an official capacity is insane. This shouldn’t be the case for anyone serving in political office or other public roles - as in, you shouldn’t get immunity whether you are a lawmaker or policeman or teacher or whatever else.
That doesn't mean anything, because they're not necessarily educated on the topic, and yet are making decisions that affect everyone.
When it's so cheap to enact mass propaganda, selective omission and manufactured intent, it becomes impossible to just say, "well, the people want it." Their decision making process is compromised by the same people pushing these policies through.
Democracy is indeed broken, and we have to take that seriously if we're going to fix it.
Please quantify "a lot". What percentage of the population wants all private communication between adults to be monitored and censored by a government agency? Can we put it to a vote - right after publicly discussing (debunking) all of the false beliefs that its proponents have?
The question that is at the core is “police can wire tap calls but they cannot wire tap chats. Should this change?” The details are not all that important to people.
Legal interception requires a court order, Chat control is mass surveillance.
Trying to build support for mass surveillance by misrepresenting it as targeted tool with checks and balances is exactly the kind of bad faith discourse I'm talking about.
That was more than a decade ago. Think how many normies have come online since then that have only ever used a smartphone. Sadly the average computer literacy of those times are gone.
> Think how many normies have come online since then that have only ever used a smartphone. Sadly the average computer literacy of those times are gone.
I remember a few years ago, being shocked to see that over 50% of applicants for a software engineering role applied directly from their smartphones. So it's not even just normies who see their phone as "the computer".
The States are learning the hard way that the disproportionate accumulation of wealth is an irresistible force which will eventually erode all checks and balances, corrupt all systems, and ultimately capture the entire government. We we were doing mostly okay with "constrained capitalism" but as soon as we let our guard down, money flooded into politics and that was the end of restraint.
Chat Control isn't something being pushed in the States though, so your criticism just seems like you're taking a random shot at the USA rather than accepting the uncomfortable truth that the EU is becoming increasingly authoritarian.
> How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process? It is a dynamic that is repeated in many areas.
Relating our experience in the US, we planned for exactly this, it went okay for a while, until it didn't. The answer to parent is "do this but a little better" :-)
> How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process?
By choosing "people-vs-individual-politician" fight over "people-vs-government-system". Like, literally, make politicians personally responsible for this bs.
> How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process?
Other than hoping for a large meteorite or the second coming to end this misery, or stirring up the bloodbath a la Nepal - then, by recognizing the power of large numbers of people doing little things, like sabotaging the system at the personal level. But that implies unity, and unity and mutual support have been deliberately annihilated in this society for too long. Thus, this outcome is even less probable than the first two.
I'm downvoting you because complaining against downvotes like this is against site guidelines. Your comment would have a better foundation if that part was omitted.
And once in place repealing it will be tremendously difficult.
How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process? It is a dynamic that is repeated in many areas.