Should we have the power to draft the most talented, intelligent, and ethical people into becoming political representatives and leaders?

As long as the masses are allowed to vote, we'll keep having poor representation.

Would you explain to me why you think that is so?

No.  Why on earth would you want to inflict such a job on a talented, intelligent, ethical person?

Seems to me the better option would be to teach people that they actually need very little government, that whatever government they have should be local and responsive to those thus governed, and that governing should be hands-on involving everyone.  Call it a form of voluntary 'civic duty.' :-)

What she said! :-)

Yes

No.  Force is antithetical to a free society.  

Well, I agree it would be a horrendous thing to do to someone against their will.

But in times of war, men get drafted to be turned into cannon fodder (which i don't agree with.) Some countries have mandatory national service for all young adults.

Perhaps someone who does not want power might be more likely to do the job with less vulnerability to corruption.

It seems to me that our countries desperately need better and more appropriate candidates. Perhaps there is another way - compulsory training and education to qualify for potential election.

Normally I don't like compulsory anything. But our countries are gradually getting worse in so many ways it's countless, and the systems clearly have a lot to do with the reasons why. I wonder whether it's possible to think-tank better solutions.

Hmm. Yes, I think I would quite like your idea. Devolving from centralized power could have a lot of benefits - like not getting involved in other peoples' wars - or a wider diversity of lifestyles so you can vote with your feet - like being able to exclude big forestry, mining, and fracking companies from one's own patch. I can also imagine disadvantages - each community would need an effective means of self defence.

I agree that it is.

Under Solon, aristocratic Athenians so hated having to attend democratic assemblies that officials were sent out to gather them using a rope to mark them with red paint.

However, in a democracy, we get the government we deserve, so it behoves us to try to find some means of attracting candidates of a much higher calibre.

If I remember correctly, you are Australian, are you not, Hartfire? As I am ignorant of Australia's form of government and how it actually plays out in practice, I cannot speak of that. I can only reply as to ours here in the US. The term "democracy" is rather misleading. In the US, we do democratically elect most of our representatives, but our form of government is not a democracy, it is a republic.

The campaign season for presidential elections here is far longer than that preceding the election of leaders in most other countries, if I am not mistaken. And we actually hold two votes wherein the people cast ballots. It is not the popular vote that elects our president and vice-president, however, it is the electoral college, and while that usually results in the candidate that won the most popular votes being elected president, it is not a certainty. Our two-party system also hinders the democratic election of our leaders in several ways, as does our media.

Regarding the quality of the candidates we then have to choose from, I would agree that they leave much to be desired. Given the monstrosity that our federal government has morphed into over the past 240 years, and the fact that holding a political office is less about a temporary stint in fulfilling a civic duty, if you will, than about a career path paved by backroom deals, I fear that finding a truly upstanding presidential candidate of morals, ethics and with the goal of actually representing the people is highly unlikely.

Such people do exist in our political structure, but the higher the level of government, the less likely one is to be found. Even in our small, local governments we often find only career politicians running for office, but because they are more accessible to the people, they can be held more accountable.

Sorry, I am majoring in Massage Therapy and am studying about 10 different modes at present.  I do not have time to do a successful dissertation on how to change voting to make it more effective.

This sounds like a college term paper for godsake! LOL

I will say this for you.   I will say that we cannot change a thing in government which is OUTSIDE our scope until we have a proper education which is also, unfortunately, outside our scope.

Meaning, we NEED a decent government with the insight and fortitude to grant a proper education for all its citizens, but the rub lies in the fact that this cannot come to fruition unless and until we have a proper government on all levels from city to state to nation to provide our citizens with this very necessary tool.

We are having problems now worse than ever due to IGNORANCE.  How do we begin to undo this when the nation is overrun with ignorant people who cannot even think any longer?

Television has replaced text books, or ANY books for that matter.  And the Internet has replaced television.  There is no room for anything in school past how to run a computer to get a job these days, or a degree as a type of physician since no one is even versed enough any longer on how to care for their own health.

We are taught how to write the perfect resume'.   We are worried about quitting jobs because it doesn't look good on our resume'.  But we have zero life skills that deal with why integrity, common sense, discernment and non-violence are not just catch phrases for empty speeches that mean nothing.

There is no value placed on what made this Nation great.  There are no role models to follow.  We have gotten so lazy that our government has fallen into disrepair as an exact mirror-image of how we have fallen into squalor in front of our black&white TV's in the 50's.   Since THEN?  At least since then.

How do we undo what we have never learned in the first place?  How do we learn that there is more to life than getting ahead when we have nothing to aspire to?  We have broken families, we have police making sure we don't loose it and go postal, meanwhile allowing them to do mayhem upon us and much worse.  We just do NOT know how to fix what we never understood was wrong in the first place.

How can we choose a better candidate to represent us when there are so few of us that deserve to make that choice because the rest of us have no clue?  It is far easier to let a Donald Trump bray and posture and lie and tell us what he thinks we need, than to choose anyone of merit.

Do you even KNOW of a viable candidate?   How could this "hero" persona even survive in an office that is so rife with crime and graft that he/she can do nothing but drown in the process.

SO, we need to begin at an impossible beginning.  We need to LEARN how to choose a person of value, we need to re-examine our values as to why we want someone of integrity and high moral stature and we need to spend many many many hours researching every person that puts their name on any ballot.

Instead of reading the National Enquirer, we should be reading bios of people who are political contenders.  Instead of watching Honey Boo Boo, we need to watch Face the Nation.

Let's start at the root cause of it all.  WE THE PEOPLE are IGNORANT as HELL.

Thank you very much, Bozette. You've just revealed to me how appallingly ignorant I am about American politics. Which means I'll look it up in more depth later today.

Yes, I am Australian. The structure of our democracy and how it works is very different here - mostly a simple cut and paste of the English Westminster system. Despite the theoretically more egalitarian system of voting, there are still huge problems with attracting the best people, and when we do get some, their effectiveness is limited by having to compromise in order to win the cooperation of the rest. That works well when onerous legislation is proposed, but  also slows down major reforms.

I am a member of the Greens. My personal politics sit about 5-20% left of centre in the political spectrum. Yet once in a blue moon the right comes up with something I fully support, like the banning of semi-automatic weapons and strict control of who is allowed to own guns. What I would ideally vote for is that all legislation prioritize the health of the planet.

Thank you for taking the time to write such an extensive answer. :)

I think I'd love to sit with you in a cafe and share conversation for hours.

My husband was a masseur for around 25 years - so I'm fairly familiar with many of the modalities.

I wish you all success in your studies. Which year are you in? Are you already out there earning? How do you protect your own body from wear and tear?

Without wishing to denigrate the average American, whom I'm sure means well, I suspect you may be right.

I was just lucky to have an unusually good education and later became a part-time art teacher.

I watched the system deteriorate mostly as a result of cuts to funding -- and with it, teachers' morale all over the country. Australia still ranks seventh in the world in education, but that's a significant drop from where we were. And the results show dramatically in the younger generations. I totally agree with you that good, free education for everyone is vital to the long-term success of any nation. Consistently over scores of years, the most significant statistical difference in quality comes from lower class sizes so each student gets more attention.

In the 1950's, when America was frightened of Russia's success at putting the first man into space, suddenly a massive effort was made to improve education, and for a time your system created some brilliant results. Many of the children of that generation are now retiring. I suspect, somewhere along the line, someone had the power to pull money out of classrooms - and changed the system to focus on producing a conveyor belt of good, compliant workers (rather than thinkers and problem solvers.) I'm over-simplifying of course, and really I have little right to comment on something I can only see from too great a distance, with not nearly enough knowledge of the details. And I'm ignorant of how much I don't know.

As to who would Americans choose as candidates... Due to your vast population, your pyramid of merit rises much higher than that of many nations. You have people in law, medicine, teaching, social welfare, economics, journalism, ethics and many other areas who are exemplary in the world, let alone your country. There are more than enough of them to fill the whole of Congress without affecting the numbers of the others in their fields. So if all elected representatives were preselected on merit, that could go a long way towards wiping out corruption. Because the people can only vote for whatever candidates are put forward.

The biggest problem with that idea is who selects and drafts the candidates _ they would need to be fastidiously carefully to select fairly from the full spectrum of political opinions (within the limits of, say, the values set out by the United Nations on human rights and environment.) Personally I'd love to go further and include animal rights - but the world is far from ready to embrace somethig that radical.

I agree with you that education has a huge effect on how people vote. If they can observe objectively and reason logically, they are in a better position to recognise the policies that best align with their values and whether a candidate demonstrates sufficient maturity, intelligence and all the other necessary characteristics for a good representative.

Thanks again for your wonderful, thoughtful reply. :)