Im not sure, power over others is too dangerous, us mere mortals cannot resist its power.
The French revolution was about these ideals in a roundabout sort of way and they ended up with Napoleon, The russians ended up with Stalin and the Germans had Hitler, A pre feudal system of independant, trading city states may be the only way to diffuse power to the people without losing central control
Just some thoughts

I wonder! I think people enter politics often with a sense of idealism and a desire to do something for their communities. To get elected in the first place often requires some dilution of those ideals and things don't get any better when you need people on side to progress your case - more compromise and dilution. I reckon most politicians have lost their ideals by the time they reach any true state of power - there are exceptions, I am sure, and I was a great fan of Tony Benn. When Mugabe threw out the British from Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, he made a lot of sense and you believed in a new hope for the people there. Now look at the lunatic and his cronies and what they have managed to do to their 'beloved' Zimbabwe. I used to think Arafat was a good guy (if a bit weak) until I learned of the millions he had stashed away when his people were starving.
People say we need strong leadership but that is only a short step away from dictatorship.

I think alot of the problem in modern governing systems is although the politicians and parties may change power the a-political civil servants dont, at least thats the problem i see with British politics and sometimes I also think all people in power are just compensators, they re-adjust small things so much between themselves we dont seem to make progress in the important areas unless its a knee jerk reaction. Sometimes society doesnt allow an expression of ideals

Yes, I know about our British system. When I was a peace activist, learned about the Oxford Research Group (great objectives btw) and their work to expose the REAL decision makers. The United Nations has never been given a real chance when countries like Britain and America use their veto any time things don't suit them.
However, I think I am trying to work out how genuinely idealistic people can turn into power crazy monsters. Something in our human psyche?
An expression of ideals? I used to do that all the time and was labelled an anarchist. Ah well................!

I think its a breakdown of the things we realise we can change. As a young human a politician had ideals and the drive to see them fulfilled as they grow within politics they see the amount of walls being raised in front of them and decide to fall in line. A radical who wishes Ideals realised would never be allowed in anyway.
Down with parliament! lol

ouch - can i have an easier question, maybe the formulas for the grand unification theory?...lol...jk

ok, i'll make it a quick response for now, this'll be fun to discuss:

i think the most important problems with the amount of power decision makers have is the lack of transparency, money and the democratic process.

transparency - most governments would claim to already have this but how much do we really know about the connections those in power have? i mean when they make a decision, how do we know that their decision isn't made because its in the best interest of a company owned by their cousins wife which will in turn use those interests to help them politically or financially later on? i think we need an independent branch of the civil service just for keeping an eye on these things...hmm, then who's going be keeping an eye on them? tricky but i'm sure technology could be used to keep track of all these connections.....somehow...

money - needs to be taken out of the selection process all together...any selection process should be funded purely by the public with equal access to all candidates.. otherwise we end up with only the well funded groups/people having a chance and as those people acquire their funding from others, they end up looking after the best interests of the wallet owners :/ ...and if we were to have such a system, we'd also have a larger and more diverse group of people involved in the decision making process which will also prevent a few having all the power......we are very careful to avoid monopolies in the economic system, it should be taken just as seriously in the political me finks.

democracy - this is by far the most difficult problem to solve...i mean, we don't want a system where only the elite make the decisions on who should be the decision makers (bit of a paradox?) but at the same time a true democracy is not really a good way either - firstly, you end up with the majority deciding things which causes the minorities to be ignored and even worse, people becoming sheep so they can be part of the majority so they're not disadvantaged. secondly, most of the voters wouldn't actually have a clue about economics, social needs of different groups, or even different cultures in a multi-cultural society. a good example there would be the public health system, why would someone who doesn't have any health problems and has enough money for times when he might, vote for a government who'll make him pay more tax to look after others? yes, there are good reasons why he should but would he be thinking about them when he's voting?....very tricky situation indeed.....will think more on this.

Why did I start this????

Garnish, I think you are right about most of those idealistic newcomers to politics falling into line. If they didn't they would soon become outcasts and thus rendered powerless. So, they 'work together' and compromise (and with that the dilution of the original objective/ideal)

cagedDreams, I need to know more about your thoughts on how transparency would work because I know that you are not entirely convinced yourself!

The money question is not so simple because I suspect it depends on how political parties (parties?) developed in the first place. I can only talk about the British political system and traditionally the right got their money from business (easy pickings but what is the pay back?) and the left was funded by the trade unions (who also expected something in return for their backing) and I am not sure who funded our woolly liberals (that I have a soft spot for) - I suspect their supporters worked hard with coffee mornings and other benign fundraisers. These contributors are more blurred these days. But the idea of state funding these parties? I wonder. When would a party be considered eligible for state funding? We have a lot of minor parties in Britain. How and who would determine who got what? I know state funding of political parties has been mooted but those striving for power will always look for personal advantage!

And you are right! What constitutes a true democracy? I believe it is compulsory to vote in Australia? After the struggle here for a vote for all (men and women), I have some sympathy with that. My father-in-law, on the other hand, was an argumentative old soul and he suggested that people should sit an intelligence test before being allowed to vote! Ha, ha! Wonder what he had in mind??? The truth of the matter is that the elderly in Britain do go out and vote but there are so many people who do not even bother. We might ask - what can I do in the interests of humanity? But greed and self-interest will always prevail - survival of the fittest and all that. Can we change that mindset?

Why did I start this????

Garnish, I think you are right about most of those idealistic newcomers to politics falling into line. If they didn't they would soon become outcasts and thus rendered powerless. So, they 'work together' and compromise (and with that the dilution of the original objective/ideal)

cagedDreams, I need to know more about your thoughts on how transparency would work because I know that you are not entirely convinced yourself!

The money question is not so simple because I suspect it depends on how political parties (parties?) developed in the first place. I can only talk about the British political system and traditionally the right got their money from business (easy pickings but what is the pay back?) and the left was funded by the trade unions (who also expected something in return for their backing) and I am not sure who funded our woolly liberals (that I have a soft spot for) - I suspect their supporters worked hard with coffee mornings and other benign fundraisers. These contributors are more blurred these days. But the idea of state funding these parties? I wonder. When would a party be considered eligible for state funding? We have a lot of minor parties in Britain. How and who would determine who got what? I know state funding of political parties has been mooted but those striving for power will always look for personal advantage!

And you are right! What constitutes a true democracy? I believe it is compulsory to vote in Australia? After the struggle here for a vote for all (men and women), I have some sympathy with that. My father-in-law, on the other hand, was an argumentative old soul and he suggested that people should sit an intelligence test before being allowed to vote! Ha, ha! Wonder what he had in mind??? The truth of the matter is that the elderly in Britain do go out and vote but there are so many people who do not even bother. We might ask - what can I do in the interests of humanity? But greed and self-interest will always prevail - survival of the fittest and all that. Can we change that mindset?

Woops, how come my response came up twice???

A funding cap needs to be in place to keep all parties on a more even keel, parties like the liberals have no chance competing with the money vaccums of labour and conservative parties with the system thats in place.
Im 28 and have never voted, mainly because Ive grown up watching nothing change for those that do vote, under thatcher my parents were skint and under blair i cound afford to attend uni so each ruin something in the transfer of power and britains model of democracy is a failed system that grew out of the old boys network of victorian england so i dont think it works as well as it used to.
How many people protested against involovment in Iraq? They went ahead anyway proving the voice of the people can and will be ignored until a month before the next election when we're suddenly bombarded asking for our input, what about the 4 years in between?
No matter who you vote for the government always gets in

y, don't think fixing the existing system is going to work, the ones in charge don't want the system changed as its working for them. we need a change of systems. and my preferance would be for a global one.

transparency - actually sure we can find a way, after all, we send robots and analyse rocks on mars, not much we couldn't do if we had the will...what i'm not sure about is the actual way to do it. however, like the mars thing, i think a technological solution might be the answer and most of that solution already exists. an example would be the tax office which seems to have no trouble finding every detail they need about a person they target. now, if we had all that information available to everyone and had the non-monopolised government i was talking about, it would be pretty hard for them to get away with much..

money - think garnish is on a good start there with the funding cap. i would probably go even further and have pre-defined activities. i mean, we don't really need those political ads that try to push an image rather than policies, don't need the tours, photo-ops and all the other popularity contest type activities...simply have a website with details of all candidates, their policies and why those are important, how they plan to achieve their objectives if elected etc. on top of that we can have the televised debates which won't cost anything if you let the stations put in some non-political ads and can also be available online.....we end up with a total campaign cost for all up for election lower than the cost of the voting process :)

voting/democracy - still no good answer for this one and wouldn't say our system is any good, the election before last i was working as a casual labourer and the topic came up. to my horror, more than half the people there didn't know what party they voted for! they just voted for the 'guy on tv that seemed alright' or the one 'that looked more australian' :/ !!!.....hey, just went for a smoke and an idea came, lets say we had the campaign process i mentioned above, all information on issues and different candidates' standings on them are there available for everyone. how about, having to sit a test showing your understanding of that information before you are eligable to vote? to clarify, not your views/choice but an understanding of what the issues are about, pro/cons expressed by the candidates etc..?? you guys think that can work??

btw, everyone has access to technology in this model, something i'm helping work on and hope to keep doing if they'll start paying me even minimum wages by end of year!...even the activists gotta eat...lol

OK, I am with you but I am a bit wary of sitting tests to show our understanding of issues before we are eligible to vote. Not sure how practical it is and could be open to abuse?
I am starting to think a bit more about this new world order and how it might operate. Garnish, you mentioned independent trading city states earlier - I did not like the wording because I was unsure what a city state might be (being a country wench myself!). However, I think you could be on to something. The Soviet Union is breaking up; there are separatist movements in many parts of Europe and, although these movements wish to separate from the 'parent' country, they seem content to be part of a looser European Union. Now didn't some of you debate some such scenario on Zeitgeist?!!! lol

I was thinking about the city-states in pre-renaissance Italy, they governed themselves much better than Kings of the time, Banking started and naturalistic art all because everyone was invloved in making decisions through the popolo, if we can get rid of political borders and rely on cultural similarities then we shouldnt have so much in the way of devisive politics.
Cor my mind needs a rest...

re voting, can't really see problems with practicality, would be fairly easy to build on-line testing and voting systems but the abuse and fairness angles warrant investigation. i'll think more on it and be good to hear specific concerns you guys can come up with.

as for the global government thing, my objection to the zeitgeist example was the elite controlling such a government, not the unification itself. i think you've given a good example with the USSR thing, the people don't have a problem with being part of a combined entity, they just don't want that entity to be a dictatorship....another good example would be the groups fighting against WTO's idea of globalisation which is basically about open borders for companies but closed borders for workers - not too fair - but most of those groups (anti-WTO) are centered around socialist ideals which are also about globalisation but in a more accurate sense....and if you take globalisation out of socialism and put in nationalism, we end up with fascism - not nice - or add elitism to it and end up with a communist model which is oppressive...

i guess what i'm trying to say is that having a global system or not is not the actual issue but how its done..and that is a fine balancing act.

oops, running late but had to come back n clarify something; not suggesting that pure socialism is the way to go, that's been proven to be unworkable - the new ideals people seem to be coming up with independent of each other is socialism combined with spiritualism and the non-monopoly concepts of the capitalist system without its unfairness...really needs a name...lol

i think pre-mcdonalds bhutan was a good example of how good things can be...was actually planning to migrate there before the economic monster ate it up :/