Chinese Legislature Conducts Large Online Vote 152
hackingbear writes "In a bid to reform the tax law and raise person tax exemption to 3000 Yuan per month (or about US$5000 per year,) from 2000 Yuan per month, the Chinese legislature has conducted a massive online vote on the pending legislation. The [National People's Congress] Standing Committee, China's top legislature, on Wednesday publicized suggestions and opinions on amending the Law on Individual Income Tax that were submitted online from April 25 to May 31. Among all 82,707 citizens who commented on the proposal, [only] 15 percent of them favored raising the exemption to 3,000 yuan. However, 48 percent suggested to further raise the exemption to 5,000 yuan per month. While the online votes are not binding, the outcome likely shape the final bill. We'd hope the US Congress would dare to collect real citizen input on its legislation, rather than just doing lip service or useless political arguments."
Re:What a concept! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well it's certainly implied. If citizen's vote on every single piece of legislation, then it's majority rules. Having lived in many places and now residing in California, where 'the people' are given a chance to vote directly for all kinds of weird legislative proposals, I can tell you that the majority here make plenty of bad decisions.
Yup, which is why a parliamentary democracy (which the US sort of has) is based around the idea that the people vote for a responsible government, who then governs as they think best. Accountability comes in the form of tossing out bad governments, not by the public having a right of veto over every piece of legislation. A central idea is that the government is able to make short term decisions which are unpopular but in the medium or long term best interests of the nation.
The type of "democracy" which would result from the masses voting on every piece of legislation would be horrendous. With non-compulsory voting you'd get enraged special interest groups making laws left right and centre to suit their agendas. No-one would pay taxes. Difficult problems would be ignored, and anything which could be subjected to FUD tactics would be defeated instantly. Most significantly, minorities and fringe groups would be brutally repressed.
As for the suggestion that China is democratically superior to the US, or any country outside of North Korea - don't make me laugh. Yes, 'the West' has problems. But China is about as close as we've got to Orwell's nightmare state in the modern world.