Public Policy

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Public Policy

I would say that ‘stem cell research’ and ‘global warming’ are labels of current public policy matters which have not yet become fully accepted strategies for most nations. Many nations are further along in the path toward deciding public policy for global warming than for stem cell research.

I claim that public policy establishes goals and strategy (the art of devising or employing plans or stratagems) to meet those goals.

Because the strategy undertaken by each nation is fundamentally connected to the strategy taken by every other nation no nation can feel secure in its own internal decisions on these matters without carefully integrating the strategy of others.

It appears to me that a nation’s public policy is often a matter of grave concern to all citizens of all nations. Because this is true I would think that the Internet is an invaluable tool for all of us when we consider matters of public policy. In many parochial matters the Internet forum is not very useful for the obvious reason that the facts are so different for each community.

The theory of democracy is that many or perhaps most citizens share in the policy decisions of their nation. Ideally all citizens would have an input for these matters but the preparation required for a citizen to provide intelligent input is significant and few citizens are interested. As citizens back-away from their responsibility a small group of elite make public policy decisions without significant input from the vast majority of the citizens.

I guess that 80% of forum members are younger than thirty. If we assume that public interest in participating in public policy is steadily declining then this new generation is at a lower level than any generation before.

Do you think that 80% of forum members are under thirty? Do you think that citizens under thirty can be expected to display more or less interest in participating in public policy decisions than previous generations? What is required of any citizen to be properly prepared to participate in making judgments about public policy?

2

You’ve opened the curtains on a fundamental flaw in democracy here, namely that only a minority of voters take enough of an interest and a good enough interest in politics to “vote properly” as it were. I don’t think we can change this, but I think compulsory voting – with a “none of the above” option – would improve things a little.

3

coberst - yes, if we assume that interest in public policy is steadily declining, then this generation is more apathetic than the last. Brilliant observation. If we assume that the world population of unicorns has doubled in the last five years, then the current generation is larger than the last.

Passive-aggressive philosopher-king propaganda. “Tsk, tsk, people just don’t care about my pet projects as much as they should.” I’m probably twice the age of most posters here. I care about global warming because I live mostly in cold climates. I say, bring it on. People care about what affects them. A guy from my home state once said, “All politics is local”. He was correct.

4

There are a few web sites that encourage and advance matters of public participation in dialogue and engagement in matters of public policy. I have investigated these sites because I wanted to join in their Internet activity but discovered that they seem to have no interest in Internet forums for these purposes. They seem to scorn Internet forums and seek only matters of face-to-face activity.

Community face-to-face are their only interest. Since there appear to be nothing like what I am interest in I am trying to start such an activity. Perhaps I will soon discover why these people have no interest in Internet forums.