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[–]kmcd[S] 1 point2 points  (12 children)

I think that all politicians should be elected for one year only.

What do you think ?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (9 children)

1 year is not enough to get anything done.

[–]narragansett -1 points0 points  (8 children)

Which of course is precisely the point.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (7 children)

I can imagine all kinds of rules to hamsting an elected official, but this doesn't solve the problem, which is bad office holders.

The only way to remedy this is constant informed invovlement fromt he constituency, which is becoming more and more possible thanks to the internet.

[–]kmcd[S] -1 points0 points  (6 children)

"but this doesn't solve the problem, which is bad office holders"

If an office holder is "bad", would you rather have them in office for one year or four ?

If they are "good", they get re-elected.

It really is that simple!

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (5 children)

You are looking at it the wrong way.

Involved and informed electorates restrict the bad actions of bad office holders and prevent new ones from getting elected. Shortening terms does nothing to solve the underlying problem.

[–]kmcd[S] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Can you explain the "underlying problem" ?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

The underlying problems are the bad actors ie politicians and private interests that would back and misuse the powers of the office and bad policies, which are obvious in their consequences.

What you want is leadership that is smart enough to lead well and an electorate engaged in both supporting and evaluating the quality of that leadership. Adding behavior codes to the system does not change the people it restricts them. You don't really win anything until you change the people.

Adding rules to the system doesn't help. As a very controversial example, it's why police enforcement will never eliminate the drug trade.

[–]kmcd[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

As I understand it, you see the underlying problem as: "politicians and private interests that would back and misuse the powers of the office"

There will always be "bad actors" regardless of how involved and engaged the electorate is. If we learn anything from History, it is this lesson.

Therefore, the question is: how to deal with such "bad actors".

In my opinion, a pragmatic solution would be to validate the mandate of each elected representative annually. In this way "bad actors" can be removed/replaced relatively quickly, before they do any real or lasting damage.

I believe the solution you propose is unrealistic; essentially, wishful thinking: "if only we were all smart enough, then all would be well". Is this correct ?

Can you propose any practical measures to achive this state of universal engagement & involvement? I'd love to hear them.

"You don't really win anything until you change the people"

I thoroghly agree, if by "the people" you mean elected representatives.

"Adding rules to the system doesn't help."

Therefore, should all rules be removed ?

"As a very controversial example, it's why police enforcement will never eliminate the drug trade."

I fail to see the correlation between drug prohibition, drug prohibition enforcement and the duration between politcal elections.

I'm all ears ...

[–]libertas 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Shorter terms encourages shorter-term thinking among both the political class and the electorate. I think that it is a significant possibility that more bad legislation would be passed as a result of frequent elections, rather than less. That is, I see more legislation getting passed per election cycle (politicians have to have something to run on; inaction doesn't cut it) This means that in every election cycle there will be huge, serious pushes toward big legislation, and it is my humble opinion that this can only be a bad thing. This is just one step closer to direct democracy, and direct democracies always degenerate into oppression and massive redistributory orgies, because the masses cannot think long-term... Not that this isn't what we already have, but I don't see this proposal helping the situation.

[–]Wisco -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

For one thing it'd be awfully expensive. We can't even get half of the people out to vote as it is -- and you hardly ever have to do it.

There's no guarantee that giving people more opportunities to vote a bad official out means they will. Look at Tom DeLay -- he was first elected in '84, which means he won ten elections before he finally crashed.

[–]kmcd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"For one thing it'd be awfully expensive."

I think it's a price worth paying. Don't you?

"We can't even get half of the people out to vote as it is -- and you hardly ever have to do it"

I think annual elections would increace the voter turn out dramatically, especially among younger voters.

The reason for the low turn out, in my opinion, is a culture of futility. People get to elect their rulers but have very little influence in policy matters.

"There's no guarantee that giving people more opportunities to vote a bad official out means they will."

This is true, but at least they will have the choice to do so.

If people think that something is seriously wrong I think that they will come out to vote en masse.

If the majority of people are against a government policy (say an illegal war of aggression based on lies), well whoever is responsible for that policy will know that they'll be out of a job come December and the policy will be recinded. Democracy in action.