This entry is actually a few weeks old, from my other blog. I just didn’t bother posting in on brbcoffee until now. Nevermind that, here it is.
Lets talk about democracy. The word comes from two latin words. First up is Demos, which means people, and Kratos, which 
means power. So, democracy means power to the people! Which I’m all for. The problem is that the further along I get, the more obvious the flaw of todays “democracy” becomes. And this greatly saddens me. The kind of democracy thats most common today, pretty much the only one you find today, is that a representative democracy. This means that instead of public polls on issues, the public votes forth representatives to make decisions for them. This has flaws.
Obviously, most systems have some flaws. As it is today, the greatest flaw that i can detect is important cases not being represented at all by the representative politicians. In Norway there are two cases like this that im going to mention briefly here. The first one is about oil drilling in an area called Lofoten and Vesterålen. Basically, over 51% of the norwegian people feels that oil drilling shouldn’t be done here, because it is the birthing ground to one of the last big cod populations in the world. Also the area in question is 14 kilometres from land. Drilling here would cause major harm to lots of different businesses. Yet, in the norwegian parliament ca 10% is against it. Nice.
Also, the war in Afghanistan. I might blog about it at a later point, but for now ill suffice to say I’m 
strongly against it. So is over a third of the norwegian populous, yet there is not one single person in parliament against it. What the fuck!?! I am willing to apt for a complete democracy, where people make individual votes about cases! In Norway, to get a peoples vote it first needs to be suggested in parliament, then get approval from a major part of the representatives. Which never happens.
Representation through single cases is not the thing that worries me most tho. In Norway, a political party has to have over 4% to reach the treshhold for getting district-mandates. (there is no real english word for it. Basically, because people and power is centralized, communes away from the centre of power get additional mandates out above the population number, to make sure there is still people there that care about the districts.) Anyways, the problem with this is that this treshhold is so ridiculous. Norway just had its election, and one party ended up at 3.9%. They lost 2%, yet they lost 8 out of their 10 mandates because of it. They did not loose 80% of their votes!
Another problem with this system is the fact that it is almost impossible to get your first mandate. But from there it gets easier, then you hit the threshhold, and it gets even easier. And the bigger your party gets, the easier it gets to get an additional mandate. So a party that has 63 mandates needs far less actual votes to get an additional votes than you need for the first one.
Personally I think we should scrap the entire threshhold system and rather give mandates based on actual percentage of votes in relation to percentage of people. This has to be worked out, obviously, but it makes more sence than having some predetermined threshhold at which it suddenly gets easy-as-fuck to get in. Alternatively do as Germany did pre-hitler. Germany before hitler was the most democratic land the world has ever seen, in the sence that the threshold was 1%.
A high threshhold means 1 thing more than others: Tactical voting. People vote for the bigger parties, because parties below the threshhold has no real influence. Which is bullshit. Not the power part, but this phenomena. The bigger keep growing, and the small parties get squeezed out. As it is now, Norway is going towards a two-party system, something that is a mockery of the democratic idea. And if it ever comes to that I swear I can’t be held accountable for my actions.
Until next time friends,
Vegard
