The Golden PathSven Gelbhaar
Democracy presupposes an informed and interested public. These days everyone
has one (or in more cases) two jobs. How informed and reasoning can an
overworked populace really be? This is why campaigning has devolved to the
battle of misleading slogans. Is outsourcing government nominations to vacuous
platitudes with more pandering than reasoning really how an informed, reasoning
populace should decide such important decisions such as foreign policy or the
death penalty? Surely there must be a better way.
A meritocracy, with a political caste, would do so much better. They could be
voted in by dignitaries of unbiased intellectuals, who would have to “show their
work” in how they came to their conclusions within the confines of humanistic,
utilitarian, or virtue-ethical reasoning.
This committee would be culled every so often, with guarantees of zero gain and
therefore bias. Bribery should result in something as drastic as ostracism:
forced deportation to a country of their choice (that agrees to take in
political refugees).
There will be strict rules of reasoning, with the only criteria being which
American (or whichever country decides to adopt this system) values are
paramount and which we don’t care for at the moment. An example of this would be
JFK making a plea to increase human achievement in the long-term survival of the
species via space exploration at the cost of myopic economic gain/maintenance
(increased taxes).
Furthermore, all non-ammendment legislation will have a reasonable expiration
date. This will allow for a re-evaluation of what we want our nation to be,
while cutting down on excess, frivolous laws.
This post — I can’t believe I feel the need for this disclaimer — is not my
blessings of the violent overthrow of any government. I only offer this as a
purely abstract political manifesto.
Maybe Plato’s Philosopher-Kings wasn’t such a bad idea after all.