The Inhumanity of MMP

[Mike Kallies]

On 10/9/07, Evan Leibovitch <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Mike Kallies wrote:
> > It is in the party's best interest to appear to follow a democratic
> > process, else nobody will vote for them with that second vote.
> >
> Two parties are running.
>
> One has policies that reflect a vision of the country you agree with,
> but it's by coincidence because you had no say in policy development at
> that party.
>
> The other party uses Wikis to allow widespread comment and development
> on policies, but the end result of that process is a series of
> initiatives you believe would cause the country irrepairable harm.
>
> Who would you vote for? The one with the democratic process, or the one
> whose policies -- regardless of how they were made -- appeal to you more?

I would vote for the first, but if they became tyrants in the future
and had unreasonable representatives in the MMP seats, then they'd
lose my vote.

I'm not a fan of the new MMP idea because I'm generally opposed to the
idea of a "party".  It seems absurd to me that an elected
representative of a riding could be bound in to a "non-free" vote
where they're asked to vote along the party lines rather than for the
bennefit of their constituents.  The point you raise about the members
being answerable only to the "party" makes the hair stand on the back
of my neck.  It gives more power to the parties and less to the
people.

Hey, maybe we can create a meta-party.  The meta-party would appoint
the runner up candidates regardless of which party they belong to.  So
if you didn't want to vote for a party, you wouldn't have to spoil
that part of your ballot.  It might even get an independent into a MMP
seat :-)

I'll probably grudgingly vote in favour of MMP.  It seems to do more
good than harm.  It lowers the barrier for entry for new parties, at
the cost of entrenching some old cronies.  Some of these problems seem
to be fixable within the parties themselves... and anything which
encourages me to get involved in party politics is probably not a bad
thing.

My vote might go either way on this though.

-Mike
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