How would people and society react to a requirement that anyone wanting to run for election have a psych profile? It seems an difficult thing to manage, but does it reduce problems or create more than it solves?
Askew Adjusting the balance
[ October 12, 2005, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: Askew ]
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
You might find this gets more responses in the Books, Food, Film, and Culture side of the forum. Since it doesn't have anything to do with OSC.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
It could if Scott decided to run for office. <grin>
Posted by Askew (Member # 8438) on :
Sorry, wasn't sure. I was specifically interested in OSC's comment. If this is the wrong place can Papa move it?
Askew
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
It's not necessarily the 'wrong' place. They're more 'guidelines' than 'rules'. You'll probably still get some responses, and you can actually move it yourself if you so desire.
Edit your first post, and you'll have the option to move the whole thread to the other side. Or leave it here and see if OSC has something to say about it.
Posted by Askew (Member # 8438) on :
I'll give it a day or two and move it.
Thanks
Posted by Jebu (Member # 8718) on :
Psychological profile? Would they publish the results, so that the actual voters could base their decision on them? Or would someone analyse the profiles and decide which of the candidates are unsuitable for the position (doing the work of the voters)?
I can see the point in arranging the testing. The problems arise when I start to think about the actual criteria by which the filtering works. Also, what's the authority behind those tests assuming the presidential candidates are among those to be tested?
Posted by Askew (Member # 8438) on :
The results would have to be accessible to everyone to help base their decisions on. It would also need to have some standardization. One of the difficulties would be determining lying. Maybe add lie detector results. The goal is to take all the spin out. After all we are electing a person with an agenda, not an agenda with a person. I also think a number of people would not want to face the test and wouldn’t run. I also believe that these would not be people we would want running our government.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 233) on :
The problem is that with the amount of power that's at stake, the tests would be administered frauduently, and there's no way you could stop it. We have cheating in the voting system, it's endemic and we'll never really stamp it out. But at least it's difficult to cheat enough to make a big difference there. With a required psyche test, there are just too many ways to cheat. You can get at the testers, you can get at the definition of the test itself, you can use harrassment or subtle chemical attacks to cause a candidate to have a bad test, you can cheat at the test by having the candidate memorize all the answers, etc etc. It would be meaningless.
Any group is free to lobby the candidates to take any kind of test, and then to recommend or oppose a candidate on the basis of whether they took the test and how well they did.
But in the end it really comes down to letting the voters choose the person they want. I don't think that mandatory testing of candidates would do anything other than drag the entire counseling profession down into the mire. Oh, it might shake the people's faith in government and the electoral process for a couple of elections.
Has anyone here heard of Lyndon LaRouche? We don't need testing to keep people from voting for a guy like that. So what would the point be?
Posted by MoralDK (Member # 8395) on :
I think character is more important than IQ. And you can't determine someones character with a written test.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
Not entirely on topic, but one thing I'd like to see in elections is a clear consise position statement. At some point before the elections, a set of major issues would be decided upon. Then the candidates would have a certain amount of time to return a short statement regarding their position on each of the issues. These would be made freely available both ahead of time and at the polling places themselves.
While it wouldn't be as important in the large elections (such as the presidential) where it is fairly easy to keep track of such things, it would be a godsend in the smaller races. Most people simply don't have time to research every office that is being contested, yet we also don't like blindly following someone else's endorsement.
For this reason, an issue sheet might even increase voter turnout. I personally find one of the most frustrating things about voting is to look at the ballot and see a fair number of offices where I simply don't know enough to cast a vote. I would imagine that there are others who also feel this way, and it isn't too big of a stretch to believe that there are people who avoid voting due to this frustration and disconnect.
Posted by Askew (Member # 8438) on :
A collection of issues and stances would be helpful. It can be hard to keep up and cast an informed vote.
quote:Originally posted by MoralDK: I think character is more important than IQ. And you can't determine someones character with a written test.
I think they are both important. But I don’t agree that you can’t tell character from a written test. I think you can tell a lot about character with the right questions. What is harder is to determine if they are just putting out spin. Even in the debates they have rehearsed everything and very seldom get into anything that would show character.
Survivor, I agree that preventing fraud would be difficult. Picture a single test that is given to all the candidates at the same time (maybe you only use it for national elections). The results are released and people can discuss what they mean. It provides a means of seeing character or at the very least having another method to evaluate the people who are leading us. Many of the techniques to cheat you mentioned could also be used in any debate. The information they publish or the commercials they put on TV are all spin. It really sunk in for me when one of our election spin teams went to Russia and got Boris Yeltsin elected (1996) when he was losing. It’s was marketing not finding the best person to lead us. The best information for evaluating is their past records. I would like the chance at a glimpse of who they are, though it may be the same as the answers on the beauty pageant questions.
Posted by Askew (Member # 8438) on :
quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: Edit your first post, and you'll have the option to move the whole thread to the other side. Or leave it here and see if OSC has something to say about it.
I don't see any option for moving the post under edit. The only one I have found is at the bottom of the reader. It says only an admin can move it. If this is not the correct place can an admin move it?
Posted by Papa Janitor (Member # 7795) on :
As mentioned above, this isn't so much the wrong place to post it as a place likely to get fewer responses. But I'll move it for you.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101: Not entirely on topic, but one thing I'd like to see in elections is a clear consise position statement. At some point before the elections, a set of major issues would be decided upon. Then the candidates would have a certain amount of time to return a short statement regarding their position on each of the issues. These would be made freely available both ahead of time and at the polling places themselves.
While it wouldn't be as important in the large elections (such as the presidential) where it is fairly easy to keep track of such things, it would be a godsend in the smaller races. Most people simply don't have time to research every office that is being contested, yet we also don't like blindly following someone else's endorsement.
For this reason, an issue sheet might even increase voter turnout. I personally find one of the most frustrating things about voting is to look at the ballot and see a fair number of offices where I simply don't know enough to cast a vote. I would imagine that there are others who also feel this way, and it isn't too big of a stretch to believe that there are people who avoid voting due to this frustration and disconnect.
I totally agree with this. In the smaller elections I don't vote for most of the offices because I've never heard of any of the people running. If there was an easy way to find out canidate's opinions that would be amazing.