[H-GEN] Re: [H-ANNOUNCE] Constitutional amendments

[Martin Pool]

On Mon, Jun 29, 1998 at 10:49:33PM +1000, Robert Brockway wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Martin Pool wrote:
> 
> > > Right now it is allowed yes (by common practice at least).  But I do not
> > > like it.  It looks like I might be the only one who opposes this
> > > practice apparently.  
> > 
> > Why do you oppose it?  I'm just curious.
> 
> Essentially it comes down to what I see as 'vote weighting' which I regard
> as pretty undemocratic.  Remember, I am refering only to a 'carte blanche'
> proxy rather than the explicitly declared proxy (I will vote for Mr Smith)
> which I really have no problem with.

I was thinking about this a bit more later on: essentially, 'carte
blanche' proxies turn the process from participative democracy into
representative democracy.  Power is concentrated and to that extent
distorted, but on the other hand it is practical to have more people
involved.  

(What is a vote for party X in the state election but a 'carte
blanche' proxy for them to use my money for the next three years?  And
I don't even have the option of continuing to be involved.)

It might be good to run some discussion of the issues on the lists
before the meeting.  I know there was some recently about changing
rooms: is there anything else the committee has to decide?

Secondly, why not post minutes and reports to the mailing list?  Make
people aware, get open-source type votation, show people the point of
the committee.

--
Martin