Fred-Rick
I would say that that most Americans and Canadians are really not all that smart about their electoral systems and legislative processes. I could give you all sorts of anecdotes about the poor understanding of civics in North American — and lack of desire to learn more.
Europeans might be a little better, but I would say that we should emphasize the “little” in that description. Western democracy is actually a very complex social engineering tool that cannot be adequately explained in a few paragraphs. But it is an interesting societal relationship between the people and their government and it’s often amazing at how it works.
The TDG is also complicated. I condensed a 56,000 word book into a 4,500 word essay. That essay is just too short to describe all the relationships between the various parts of the TDG. At times, I feel that is all that you have read about my idea.
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The comparison between the TDG and the Catholic Church is totally off base. The church is a top-down organization with appointments of lower levels made by higher levels. This structure was quite similar to how the Roman Empire was structured in 325 AD. And the Church has been using it ever since. The average Catholic has very little say in its leaders or their decisions.
In contrast, the highest TDG tier gets its authority from the tier below it. If a member of a higher tier is not doing a good job, the annual elections won’t keep that person in a high place for very long.
Two totally different systems!
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If Canada ever decides to changes its Westminster system to PR, that will be a fairly seamless transition. I’m pretty sure most Canadians will find it easy to pick their favorite party and cast a vote for it. One election cycle will clear up most misunderstandings. And I predict that the current parties will split into two wings each. I think voters can handle selecting one out of six or eight.
But moving from western democracy to a TDG will be an immense step. So immense that if Canada adopted a TDG tomorrow, the TDG would fall apart fairly quickly. I have never tried to whitewash the TDG: if we don’t first learn a different way of governing, the TDG cannot work.
And this is why it will take a 10 to 20-year process to learn this way of governing. The early builders either have to have these skills in place or be willing to learn them. One of those skills is to cast aside the attitude that “I’m much smarter than those people who disagree with me.” This is an immense social disease we have in much of the world.
Another is consultation. Consultation is combing the knowledge, experience, and wisdom into one decisive and unified voice.
PR is great at compromising, finding some midpoint between two position. But the motivation is all wrong. This compromise is happening mostly to share power. And the compromising players still have to sell their compromises to their electoral base. This sell job limits how much they truly can compromise. But compromising is not consultation.
And if PR citizens are voting “with their wallet” and not the betterment of society, that is also something wrong.
The early TDG builders will work on building their consultative skills. If they don’t — and the TDG just becomes another internal struggle for who controls this “new way”, the TDG will fall flat on its face. It will never need an outside opposition to cause it to fail.
The few people who have inspected the TDG have stated that it’s not in human nature for humans to organize in this way. Well, it’s also not in human nature to be organized in a western democratic way either. We had to learn those skills, starting with the English in 1688. Otherwise most of us would still be taking orders from aristocrats. Oligarchy is the natural way for humans to be governed.
So we will learn new skills for the TDG. I’ve never said it would be easy or quick. I’ve always said this movement will start with 1% of the population — and will later earn the trust and respect of a substantial majority before it assumes responsibility and authority of governance.
