Raise the Hammer

Kiely: Your response re engineers - interesting - but I got hit with two events yesterday that by reflection discouraged me about Hamilton. I visited a Pakistani cafe/restaurant in Toronto and about 9pm visited Spencer Smith Park on my way home. Both were vibrant. Nothing in Hamilton quite like them. The first seemed to be breaking the mold/rules/orthodoxy about how to build a restaurant, the second, an example of creative 'diversity' included a bunch of astronomers (including a professional) sharing with the public. I saw Saturn for the first time.

Today i drove back to Burlington. Why? Because their newspaper (online adverts) outsmarts ours and the people in Burlington are sharp, much sharper than people in Hamilton so its too frustrating dealing with relative idiots. Someone pointed out earlier that many immigrants (the more talented) high tail it outta here as soon as they can which hits to the point of your article. Along the way i got a lecture as to a possible solution. Our entire democratic system is wrong headed - it serves to maintain entrenched elites as you pointed out. Incumbency has diabolical benefits. Ancient Greece solved this problem by choosing many of their magistrates and other officials by lot as well as having direct democracy (citizens vote directly on motions). They also adopted several measures to encourage participation. One might wonder how dummies were kept out of the system but i suspect that demographics and proximity/ participation plus only allowing qualified citizens to vote made the system work relatively well. This sounds almost diabolical, but suddenly makes sense for many topics, not just immigration. We passed up MMP but yesterday's happenings made me feel we have to do something drastic and we have to do it now. Back to basics sounds good to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_de...