Raise the Hammer

GetGoing makes a good point about the time left. I think the biggest possible contribution the Civic League could make is simply to identify and publish the voting record of each councilor. The survey thing is a massive job and attempting to prejudge what citizens should judge for themselves is a little patronizing. Going further, the help that this citizen needs is reading the voting record between the lines and detecting the hidden agendas that are surely operating.

The Civic League initiative, welcome as it is, is a one-off desperate measure that is based on a false premise: that changing the guard will change the ultimate outcome. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether you vote for Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Republican, Democrat, Whigs, Tory, Labour or just your local councilor, you are in fact voting for the Money Party, the elite. There is ooonnllyy ONE way to change this truism, and that is to do what democracy originally did. Athenian democracy was a direct democracy and its officials were often drawn at random (by lot) to serve a limited, once-in-a-lifetime term of office. The main requirement of an official was honesty. Woe betide the dishonest discovered. If an official happened to be brilliant, or even just competent, so much the better, but it was not required or even important. Competency resides in the bureaucracy not the political class.

Applied to Hamilton, this would require main meetings be held in a stadium (we have one) attended by all interested and extended as needed by internet voting. The mayor would (probably) be elected and the councilors would be chosen by lot.

I believe this system would work, would fix Hamilton in double quick time and would set an example that would have the world beating a path to our door.

The choice is ours.