Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Dagger 9 & 10

Instant direct democracy would separate citizens more; it would seem to fit more on the liberal side of the argument. And ultimately Dagger does say that it would not be compatible with Republican-liberalism. Compulsory voting also seems to lose the sense of obligation or duty republican-liberalism is trying to impose amongst citizens. The two options I think would be most appealing would either be automatic voter registration or compulsory voter registration. Automatic voter registration might be handy and get people to the polls especially if people tend to move around a lot, make the automatic registration a nationwide registration and not just a state registration somehow. I like compulsory voter registration, because it would be much like registering for selective service. It gets young adults to go out and do something that is a duty to do, but then they choose if they want to vote or not. I think it would be a very good idea to coincide the two registrations with one another, selective service and voter registration.

The sketch of his “ideal” city seems a bit on the fantasy side. I would agree however, about the better cities citizen wise is between 10,000-250,000 range, I think this may be a bit broad though. I grew up in a town of about 25,000 and knew quite a few people; it had that sense of a community. Almost anywhere I went I knew someone I knew. I then moved to a town of about 150,000 and lived there for about a year and a half, there I did not know as many people, but being that I did not grow up there could be one reason why. Another might be that i pretty much only went to school, work and church. But even at that I only got to know the people I would see at those places and very rarely would see those people around town. Thus far, living in Des Moines, it has that bigger city feeling to it. It definitely feels bigger than the previous cities, just from the aspect of knowing people. The smaller the city from my experience, there is a better sense of a community.

Perhaps I missed it, but does he talk about how to stop people from moving around? Because one of his points is civic memory and this would be absent if one has no memory or no sense of belonging within a city.

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