Touche, Dave.
My review of your political system stranded when I realized it was based on the good will of the people involved and not on a political clash. As such, I recognize it as a similar idea to sociocracy.
When something is not as important (but important for those involved), such as running a school or even something as large as running a town, then sociocracy can work. It is then based on the willingness of those involved to come to a good outcome about their specific setting. Same with TDG. When all involved want well, then all ends well.
And you are right, I am set in my ways. My brain cannot go to systems in which the clash is not included. I demand of myself to consider systems that are grounded in reality, and as soon as we move from the smaller, village-like setting to a national and international level, then that what is human at those levels must be included in such a system. TDG does not do that. Reality will cut TDG down because it doesn't work in the larger political setting.
In my language there is a saying: bicycling in the air.
The bicycle is exactly as it should be; all details are worked out. Nothing about the bicycle tells us there is something wrong; everything functions exactly as it should function. But… it won't fly.
You have not included political gravitas in TDG, Dave. The battle is not the essence in TDG. It will therefore work when all are willing. And all-willing is not standard behavior in politics.
That is my complaint about TDG and sociocracy. Folks recognize something isn't going well and their solutions do not address the essence of what makes humans tick in all these different (larger) settings. It is a phantom system, and like the bicycle all parts should indeed work just fine. But it won't fly for long.
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Yes, the Anglo in you is not in your lineage, but in your thinking. I see case law thinking in your words where each battle and clash is self-based and not set within a larger setting. I am sure you know that there is no truth unless its context is mentioned at the same time. Blue means something else in a paint story than on the couch with a shrink. Case law starts, however, with talking about blue as if blue is the truth. It forgets about the setting and only at the end of the story is the setting pronounced as the reason the blue is blue. Case law is not my favorite law because it is medieval, not enlightened, not direct enough.
I am happy you are Canadian, because I doubt I could mention it to many Statelings, Dave, about case law. Canadians have a benefit that one part of Canada is ruled with Napoleonic law in mind. The Canadian power clash is therefore already special in that about a quarter of the nation listens to a different drummer.
Again, this is part of the power clash. Had French Canadians lived among the entire population evenly, then (with winner-take-all) they would have been an oppressed part of society, and English would have become the dominant language for the entire society in which case law would be the only standard today. Count yourself lucky because of that clash, Dave. I mean it. The results are better when folks have to talk it out longer. And naturally, the French nor the English speaking parts of Canada are all adhering to one and the same thing; there are political clashes within as well. So, an overall outcome was produced in Canada that is good for a larger segment of society than when all fit in the same mold and two political sides duke it out.
Lastly, it helps that there is a paper queen in Canada and not an empowered president on top that also wants to have his say (not sure if Canada would have a female president). That prevents the natural inclination to follow power where it goes. A president can lead (toward good or toward misery), while a prime-minister must manage. A very important political distinction.
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Words are very important, and when I arrived in the United States I realized that words are not as attached to their core meaning here as I was used to. There is a disconnect between words and reality, and while that is always the case (words are just words), tying words to their truths happens quite a bit willy-nilly here.
Let me keep this simple and say that I do not see the United States as a democracy. It is a two-party system. Democracy means that the voters are represented by others. In winner-take-all, the voters compete with voters before a representative is picked. That means that one of the clashes is already in the voting booth. That is bad. That is then not a democracy. Meanwhile, folks in the US call themselves the greatest democracy there ever was. I hope you see how that is a very sad thing, when people use words that are not their true meaning partly because they are not aware of the true meaning.
Proportional voting means that the voters receive equal representation based on their votes. As soon as the word district is used, we do not have equal representation anymore. Multi-seat district voting is called proportional, but it is proportional ONLY in that specific district. At the national level, the districts prevent the outcomes to deliver equal representation. It influences the outcome in that a centrist party can win more seats because the nation was cut up in districts, and the left, right, front or back parties are disadvantaged getting their fair share; the centrist party has the benefit.
I must create a simple example here:
If a nation with 100 seats is proportional, then Party X was able to obtain six seats because 6 percent of the voters did indeed pick Party X. One seats equals one percent of the votes. Six representatives can help steer a political conversation among 100 representatives.
If a nation with 100 seats is divided in ten multi-seat districts, then Party X will not have any seats, because 10 seats per district means that 1 seat equals the value of ten percent of the votes.
You know me by now that I do not prefer to have too many parties when a nation is large. Large nations function like anchors for all other nations. But the Czech or Slovak republics aren't large nations. Spain, too, works with multi-seat 'proportional' elections. This is already a much larger nation. But what I would have done is placing a threshold at the national level (like the Germans did), so the national vote still counts fully to the national body of representatives (after which the 5 percent applies like they have in Germany).
Germany placed its proportional approach at the national level; the highest level. Whatever mistake the district elections would bring, they fix it up at the highest level. That's why they are such a good democracy; it is fixed up at the highest level. Right where the national clash occurs, all representatives are gathered in their correct numbers according to all voters (minus the parties not making it to the five-percent threshold).
I hope you see that there is an important difference between having proportional voting within districts and voting in districts that are then fixed up at the overall level to be proportional? In multi-seat districts a party can have 8 percent of the votes and never receive a seat. In district voting fixed up the proportional way, the 8 percent party ends up getting 8 percent of the seats.
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Lastly, I fully embrace having parties. Parties embody human behavior at the national level where the political clash needs to take place. At the national level, the clash is best conducted by those that have an internal clash themselves as well. That way, the folks engaged in the clash have some clash under their bellies already and they will know how to behave better.
Yet I abhor nations where the parties are limited due to their system, or warped due to their system.
Canada, too, has a limited and warped system. I just think the Canadians are very lucky to have a cultural-geographical reality that establishes a multiparty system in which a minority is always included in the majority decisions.
Not so in the US. Minorities are not always part of the majority decisions. Far from.
https://medium.com/carre4/why-minorities-embrace-winner-take-all-f81b22b7f72
We can blame the system (winner-take-all plus three bodies of power, presidency, senate, house) in the US. Where in Canada the political theater is more fluid, the United States really has a straight-jacket on its hands.
As always, Dave, a pleasure.
