[[How has been]]

Sunday, December 22, 2013

[[]]

Hi all,

I have been really busy. the syip internship and uni apps and holidays. really fun and fulfilling period of life...

Im flying off again, wont be back till year end. hahaha. bye. Till then.

I have a syip blogpost though. probably will be up someday.

[[I wrote this at]]*|10:16 PM|

Saturday, December 7, 2013

[[]]

Dear God,
There are too many things I ask of you.

Ideal political system. Philosophical groundings aside...
I believe that a democratic way of governance is the best. The accountability that democracy offers to the masses that constitute the society should, at the very least, prevent violent revolutions. This is purely practical, for power is always with the people, power in the form of human free will. Any system that does not ensure political power to the people through 'official means' will surely meet a bloody revolution when the masses are in direct disagreement with the authority. (This assumes a period of time whereby disagreement slowly forms, I believe it is empirically supported through history?) And I believe that bloody revolution is very much undesirable. (You can always point to like democratic govts facing upheavals and protests such as in Egypt and Thailand? But at the very least such will be limited to a minority of the population and unlikely to escalate much further because, rebels usually need a huge numerical advantage and some serious burning desire to move the status quo or maybe just lots of money?)
Yet a democratic government, once elected, should not have striving to stay in power as its main aim. I think a democratic government should have the liberty to make its decisions based on its own judgement, and not the people's judgement. This is as the government is able to consider long term goals and prospects with a wider scope. As such, they are able to make 'better' more calculated decisions and, if the populace is unhappy, educate them on the rationale. And if the populace is not convinced, then offer concessions, and placate the population, compromise insofar as the people push it but ramp up the education. So i believe it will come to a point where the education increases support and concessions decrease opposition until it forms an equilibrium or is in favor of the government's decision.
How then, does the government of the day not have holding onto power as a main aim? Perhaps politicians should be single-term only, with a healthy pension thereafter to thank them for service to the country. If this was instituted into the constitution then politicians would have the liberty to serve for the better good according to them without running the risk of being populist, and hence compromising their decisions, for the sake of retaining power. Additionally, and more importantly, this takes away the 'I' perspective from the politicians, they can be rational in their full capacity as the leaders of the country, so they can lead best for the country and not for themselves.
Politicians can campaign and run on party lines but once the government is formed, then they should no longer draw such party lines and instead focus on being a single unit as the government. This is w.r.t to the legislative and executive branches of the government. Parties can hence be 'breeding grounds' for politicians or aspiring politicians, and after serving their term, perhaps veteran politicians can come back and advice .etc .etc.
Transparency should also be mandatory, the steps and debates and all should, as and when possible, be available to the public. This should not be as large a problem as it is now, because there would be no incentive to stay in power. What is done can be presented as what is done so that people outside can draw their own opinions from it.
The transfer of power should also be done as smoothly as possible, because of the fact that the people do not carry on from term to term, policies still require prolonged leadership. As such, maybe for a term of 5 years, there could be elections held in a 4 years and the government-in-waiting can use the last year to do a proper hand-take over and be some sort of shadow government. So in actual service it is actually 6 years.
Through this I hope to merge the accountability of democracy without the ailments that plague it, mainly populism. Such a system would be very honor based, and would require dedicated and morally upright people to run. There is always the possibility of impeachment .etc, still, but they should be used as a last resort.
Waste of talent? I believe that a country of a couple million of people should be able to eke out 50 talented people every 5 years. Additionally, if people were to just serve a term, they could, actually be holding onto other positions outside, which they would suspend for their 'service to the country'. So... Im hoping the transparency would somehow deny a conflict of interest. Very talented people can always be somehow still playing their part
Lack of incentive? Duty to nation can be promulgated, it should not be that difficult in a nation with conscription... Or maybe a nomination system.
Why then, would the people elect such a government?
Because lets hope that people are future-sighted too! and rational and all.

[[I wrote this at]]*|11:40 PM|