Daycare and Free rides?

In the last post we talked about the Citizen's Burden, which makes it hard for the citizens to exercise power in a meaningful way.

So what can be done to reduce the physical, economic, schedule, and information barriers to citizen participation?  Here are some "straw man" proposals, that I think are worth discussion but are ultimately unworkable:

• Provide free transportation (bus rides or charter buses) to political rallies and public meetings.
• Provide free daycare for parents who are attending political events
• Mandate that employers give time off for political activity.
• Provide detailed analysis to each citizen on current issues, covering the whole political spectrum, so citizens can informed choices.

Providing benefits like this, would amount to the clear recognition that civic duty is a critical part of each citizen's role in society.  If these types of incentives were in place, the Citizen's Burden could by substantially reduced.  It would be as if the government actual wanted the citizens to participate in the process (gasp!).

But there are serious problems with these types of benefits:

• Since presumably the government is providing them, they would get to choose when to dispense them.  That might work for inviting citizens to a town hall meeting.   But why would the government dispense them for controversial political action they would rather not happen, like protests?  The incentives would provide yet another lever for the government to encourage or discourage citizen participation in particular activities or events, giving even more control to the government.
• These benefits would be expensive, and it would be very hard to avoid fraudulent use.  When budgets get tight, we might expect them to be the first on the chopping block (assuming we could ever get them in the first place).
• As for "detailed analysis" to inform voters on issues, you might say the media is supposed to play this role.  (In my view they do a comically terrible job at it).  But then where would this commentary come from?  If it came from the government, it could not be expected to be complete or unbiased.

We need to level the playing field between the government and the citizen, but there are too many issues with this approach.  And none of this properly addresses the complexity issue.

Modern civic participation is a multi-faceted, complicated affair.  There are thousands of important issues we need to consider, with new developments literally happening non-stop.

Being an informed citizen these days, is about as simple as being an Air Traffic Controller

Consider how people in business, government, or military manage jobs of equivalent sophistication.  They have systems to provide them accurate information.  They have trusted advisors.  They can delegate action and representation.  

What if we treated citizens civic duty with the same respect and importance as leaders in business or government or military, and provided them with the tools to properly do their job as citizens?  What if we empowered each citizen to be their own "Civic CEO", their own individual "Citizen Executives"?

Lets look at that idea in the next post!