In my opinion, one only has to look at a mess meeting to get a glimpse at how Direct Democracy would end up working. My experience since I joined has been that getting the membership to engage and become interested in exercising their franchise in support of the Mess is an exercise in futility in many cases. Ie. I’m sure many army.ca members are aware of bases where people have to be ordered to attend Mess Meetings and attendance is taken to ensure participation. Consider:
Even though all CF members pay a tax (compulsorily mess dues) most can’t be bothered to attend mess meetings to exercise their franchise.
When they do attend (usually after being ordered to do so) most can’t be bothered to educate and prepare themselves for the meeting by reading the agenda and supporting documentation sent out by the committee and simply end up rubber stamping the committee’s agenda without reasoned debate.
On the occasions a debate does happen, it is usually not reasoned but rather based on emotion and unsubstantiated opinion because the debate amongst the members is usually initiated by someone with a genuine issue in the matter and then everyone piles on. In these instances the vote generally follows the bullshit baffles brains axiom as most people in the audience aren’t educated well enough on the topic (as per the a/m point) to actually separate the wheat from the chaff.
Motions passed during one mess meeting are subject to being overturned in subsequent meetings. At one mess I was at there was a debate regarding increasing mess dues to cover operating expenses. Rather than agree to the increase proposed by the committee those in attendance line by lined the budget and eventually voted in a smaller increase than proposed while also voting to dump the season’s tickets to the local major league teams (which the mess had had for decades). The subsequent mess meeting saw a member (who hadn’t bothered to attend the previous meeting) voice his righteous indignation that the tickets were dumped without notice and proposed that the mess buy them back which wasn't possible as anyone who has tried to ever buy season's tickets to a long established team knows and he then motioned that the mess buy individual tickets each game to raffle off to the membership. The vote was duly passed and the mess was forced to buy individual tickets for those same teams at a cost which probably equalled or exceeded the cost of the season’s tickets for worse seats. The end result was that that the dues increase was still not sufficient to meet operating expenses yet the mess was out great season’s tickets.
Motions voted down are subject to being recycled for re-voting verbatim due to the membership being unable (or unwilling) to accept that what the committee is attempting to have passed is required and the most cost effective solution. Again, at one mess I saw the exact same motion tabled by the committee at least 4 times in a row. During each of these attempts to have the motion passed, approx 30 min of debate ensued to rehash the same issues which were covered during each previous attempt. Notwithstanding the fact that the crux of the matter was the Mess Manager was attempting to head off a Health and Safety complaint by bar staff a few vocal opponents to the proposition were able to force the committee to restudy the problem in an attempt to find a lower cost solution which did not exist, a fact the committee kept trying to communicate to the membership but no-one would listen.
If we, who generally pride ourselves as being more disciplined, knowledgeable and responsible than the average Canadian, have difficulty exercising direct democracy in an institution with rather simple issues such as a mess, how do we expect the Canadian public to be able to exercise direct democracy any more effectively when dealing with complex matters such as voting on revisions to the Income Tax Act or the Criminal Code when even persons who deal with them on a daily basis have problems interpreting the legislation from time to time?
Additionally, given the vested interests in maintaining the status quo, do you think there’s the remotest possibility the required Constitutional amendment would even be introduced, let alone passed? I personally do not but I do find this an interesting topic of discussion.
