Normal people are stupid. Stop Democratic Reforms before it's too late! Lessons from the Irish Citizens' Assembly on Climate
George Carlin once said, “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that”. And it’s true. You, yes our lovely reader, are another random average person of the world, too stupid to think for themselves and too stupid to govern themselves.
Is this actually true?
In 2019, Ireland assembled a group of normal people selected randomly from the population to discuss climate change. 99 citizens were chosen at random, proportionately representative of age, gender, social class, and region. As expected from a group of random, average, ignorant idiots, the Irish Citizens Assembly voted in favor of 13 climate change proposals, among which are:
97% of members recommended a new independent body be given broad powers to address climate change.
100% of members recommended that the State should take a leadership role through measures including retrofitting public buildings, low carbon public vehicles, renewable generation on public buildings, and increasing resilience of public land and infrastructure
80% of members recommended higher taxes on carbon intensive activities.
99% of members recommended that the State should enable the selling back of renewable energy into the grid from micro-generation by private citizens.
97% of members recommended and end to all subsidies for peat extraction and use the money instead for peat bog restoration.
93% of members recommended expansion of bus lanes, cycling lanes, and park and ride facilities.
89% recommended a tax on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
96% recommended development of electric vehicle infrastructure including a network of charging points, electric vehicle ownership incentives, and taxes on petrol, diesel and motor taxes.
Despite carbon taxes recommended as one of the best policy measures to fight climate change by economists around the world, this Citizens’ Assembly, well, I guess they decided to vote in favor of carbon taxes too.
Well, I’m sure this assembly was just a fluke. The Citizens’ Assemblies in the UK and France, which also passed aggressive climate mitigation measures - those must have been flukes too! Normal people are stupid and selfish, and they would never favor any policy that demands sacrifice like carbon taxes.
What did the wise elected leaders of Ireland do with this information? Well, nothing. As of July 2021, the Irish Parliament has passed no concrete climate change mitigation policy. They did manage to pass climate change goals though! Unlike foolish citizens, elected leaders understand that lofty goals are more important than concrete policy.
The Status Quo ensures that normal people are not in control
Thank God for the American Republic, which ensures that normal, stupid people will have little to no influence on politics. According to Pew Research, 65% of foolish Americans believe that the federal government is doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change. A Yale 2020 survey also showed that 68% of ignorant Americans favored a revenue-neutral plan to “require fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax”.
Thankfully, our elected representatives keep the impassioned grumblings of stupid Americans from affecting policy. Smart and astute Congressmen continue to refuse to pass climate change and carbon taxation legislation. I’m sure these Congressmen have great reasons to delay and delay, because well, Congressmen are simply better than the rest of us. I patiently and enthusiastically wait for the great things Congress will pass, eventually!
Beware of Democratic Reformists and their Disgusting Citizens’ Assemblies
A particularly stupid reform the common rabble has been going off on is an ancient idea called sortition. In this ridiculous scheme, random people - yes, stupid, random, people - are added to Congress. These assemblies would be constructed very similarly to how the Irish Citizens’ Assembly on climate change. There are some options. It could be a bicameral legislature where one chamber is lottery selected. Or it could be supplemental, where lottery selected members are added to existing legislatures.
And just as how the Irish Citizens’ Assembly utterly failed to deliver good policy recommendations endorsed by economists around the world, I am certain that random, normal people will be utterly incapable of understanding complex topics and making good judgments. In advisory-only Citizens’ Assemblies, politicians can safely ignore the recommendations of normal people. However, sortition would give these new Citizen bodies real power to enact policy! Despite all this “empirical” evidence to the contrary, we must remember the common sense wisdom that common people cannot be trusted. Congress for example has had more than 20 years to think about climate change. Let’s give them time to think a bit more.
Trust In Elections!
Trust our representatives. Just keep voting like you did before. I’m sure things will work out in the end, as long as we never try anything innovative and keep doing what we’ve always done.
Enemies of Law and Order
https://www.democracywithoutelections.org/ -- An American pro-sortition community.
https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/ -- A European based organization