alt Hacker NewsThe main failure here is the failure of the elections system to elect anyone reasonable.
On its own it is not that bad an idea for someone who carries a mandate of the majority of the population to be able to grant pardons.
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All of the presidents pardon tons of people unpalatable to the other side of the political spectrum. They usually just save it for the end of their term so it doesn’t cause too much noise.
Honest question/thought experiment: if we only elected people who are qualified for their job (assume we can measure competence at least in some dimensions like we do for a myriad of other professions before we allow people to work in them) and if the election process was set up in a way where when casting your ballot you have to take a multiple choice quiz which tests for basic knowledge on what you will vote for and the country you’re in (as in “what is the household budget roughly, is this candidate in favour or against x, did the crime rate increase or decrease nominally” take these as rough examples of what I mean), to ensure that the people who vote for something have some clue what they are voting for and the broader context it’s embedded in (we require a license to drive a car, this would be akin to have a having a license to vote) would that remedy the situation a little? The idea would be that informed people would vote for informed people. Could you imagine this being a net benefit or not? I would assume it would make democracies significantly better than they are now. Imagine going to a doctors office to find out your doctor is a Plummer and he was voted into this job and that the people working for him and handling your prescription is a random assortment of people he seems to like.
> On its own
The reality is in front of you. So, you can't look at this "on its own".
Assuming a sufficiently functional congress[0], why not require that pardons go through congress as well rather than be unilateral presidential actions?
[0] A big if, I know…
Yep. The problem is the system of elections itself. Biden and Obama also issued a lot of dubious pardons and commutations. The incentives of elections naturally favor short-termism and populism. Instead of having the people vote on candidates, we should randomly select citizens to an elector jury, which would carefully research and deliberate on the candidates before choosing.
Why is it not a bad idea? Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority?
Taken to the extreme, we could have an impartial legal system putting in prison criminals from an even mix of society, and then the president pardoning everyone from the majority group, leaving in prison only the minorities.