Re: Membership criteria - was [ga] NC BS

[Gary Osbourne <gro@direct.ca>]

At 03:30 PM 17/05/02 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:

>Probably.  IP interests are remarkably organized and
>effective, and they wouldn't be that way if they were
>uninformed.

The Boy Scouts, the Teamsters Union, the Yakuza,
are all remarkably organized and effective, why
don't they have BoD seats? Any of those interests
would know as much about the technical security
and stability of the internet as IP lobbyists.

Is it because, as Jonathan Cohen said at Accra:
"We're in the White Paper. End of story."
IOW, we were here first so we get to vote...and
now you don't, because you're not informed enough.

>The existing rules for voting in a US federal election don't say that
>you have to be informed, either, but to vote in a US election you have
>to either 1) go through a very arduous and lengthy process to become a
>citizen, part of which includes being tested on you knowledge of US
>governmental structures; or 2) be born a citizen and wait 18 years, 12
>years of which usually involve instruction in US governmental structure.

I've been online over 18 years. How many IP lobbyists
can say that? But I can't vote even in the GA unless
I understand some (possibly deliberately) obscure rules?

Aren't you rather ethnocentric? How is it that democracy
works elsewhere in the world where there isn't such
instruction (Canada, for a nearby example)? How is it
that countries around the world first come to embrace
democracy without 12 years of prior instruction? How
is it that after all that the US does to ensure informed
voters, the election of the US leader comes down to
counting (or not) hanging chad? It was instructive for
the rest of the world to watch the US electorate become
informed about WaterGate, Iran-Contra, the Oral Office...

>One of the major justifications for a public education system is to have
>an informed electorate; the dangers of an uninformed electorate are
>well-known.

You're still using the terms informed and uninformed
without definition. Now you add unspecified well-known
dangers. The worries that the rabble is at the gates
waving ballots that would make John Zuccarini the next
BoD chair are far overblown. Dan Parisi didn't get
enough endorsements to run for election. The at large
electorate instead elected Karl, with Barbara the
first runner up. It would seem a supposedly uninformed
electorate is a danger only to bad actors and entrenched
vested interests, not democracy.

>There has been, in my experience, at least one obvious attempt in prior
>elections to "stuff the ballot", (or, as a friend put it "engage in an
>exceptionally vigorous grass roots registration campaign").  In that
>case the result wasn't affected by the attempt; the watchdogs decided it
>wasn't worth invalidating the election over.

You cannot imagine how chilling it is to learn
that you are in a position to decide whether my
vote constitutes the equivalent of hanging chad. -g

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