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Trump Falls Asleep Onstage at September 11 Ceremony
(newrepublic.com)
Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)
(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)
Millennia ago there was Athenian democracy. Randomly select citizens to fill roles in judiciary, executive council and assembly for a year. Pretty hard to corrupt. Worked well for centuries, they even returned to it after king making coups. Representative democracy was corrupt and serving the rich and powerful about day one. Sure, first past the post is awful, but there's higher things to aim for than Instant-runoff or whatever. Direct democracy is more viable than ever.
I am intrigued by the roman system of electing two of every position for one year terms. They wouldn't elect one proconsul (leading an army contingent or something of the like,) but two. Sometimes in a campaign it reached absurd levels as each would take turns leading the army every day.
But what we should do, and this is a moonshot that would take time, is a new constitutional amendment establishing a Tribunate, the tribune with the power to veto acts of government, provide asylum to the accused, whose own safety is invoilable.
The Roman peasants got the tribunes in 500 bc then 350 bc they expanded it in two general strikes, where they encamped to one of their great hills and refused to work until they got reforms, the tribunate being one. It was organized by tribe I think. They also forced a written set of laws in the first one iirc, the twelve tables, as the rich just made shit up as they went prior.