A Revolution or A Transformation?!?

Many on this site have wished for a revolution, many have argued for and against, we are all of one mind, we need a change but many don't think it is the time and others worry we will act too late. Well, I think we are arguing for the same thing but in the wrong way, we do not need a revolution, we need a transformation.

It is true that we need a revolution, but not in the sense of the word one may think. We need a move from the Republic toward true democracy. When our founding fathers made our great nation they had envisioned a true democracy, but since it was impossible to enact such a massive undertaking in that age they settled on modeling our great nation after the Roman Republic and thus we ended up with the Senate, President, Supreme Court, and The House of Representatives. This was fine 230 years ago, but technology has improved and it is time for a revolution into the 21st century!

We have the technology to allow every single citizen to vote, and thus they should. This would end political corruption and we could finally get laws that meant something and changed the things most want changed. Now, you may say, "This opens the door for voter fraud and technology hacking to make things worse than they are today", or you may say, "This is a much to cumbersome system and it could never be undertaken, afterall, how can we submit bills for voting and won't 300million+ people submit way to many changes to even consider sifting through?"

I have the answers, it needs more thought and revision so I am posting my ideas here for discussion.

1. We keep our current representation in both the House and Senate. These will be our representatives, but their job will be different. They will be professional bill writers and presenters. In the original constitutional convention our representatives broke into committees to write bills and amendments etc, because the entire congress was much too cumbersome for this undertaking. Thus our committees in congress stay, they write bills, submit them to congress, and the representatives then submit them to their districts for a vote.

2. The vote in each district will be a simple yay or nay vote, essentially ending political parties since the congressman presenting the bill will not get a vote, the districts decide.

3. The votes are much to populated in many cases so we will choose the vote based on population. For every 1000 people in a district 10 people will be chosen randomly to take part in the vote in a town center or similar area. So, 250,000 population will have 2500 voters much like jury duty. The bill will have been presented and talked about in our media and by our representative and our representative will have one last opportunity to persuade us on what he thinks at the day of the final vote.

4. What about voter fraud? Well, what about it? We already have it, look at ACORN. But yes, this is an issue when presumably we will be using the internet or computers to aggregate the total vote around the country. However, it would be relatively low since it could only occur in a district by district basis and we could employ outside companies that were only allowed to observe and report on 1 district per state, thus securing at least somewhat, the election itself. We could even make it 1 company per district and thus voter fraud could occur, but on the whole it should average out to a point that doesn't matter.

5. Keep the constitution almost entirely in its current state. The only changes that should be made should relate to the way bills and votes on bills are carried out.

6. The first act of our new congressional duties will be to look at old, unpopular, or obsolete bills and re-present the bills that seem to need to remain enacted back to the public for a vote. Leave our laws in tact for 10 or 15 years until the original transformation process can be completed.

7. Voting is a privilege, not a right. Every high school student will have to pass a very comprehensive civics test on law and current events and the political process before they are allowed to vote. People will get 1 chance at this in their life, their senior year in high school. Since current events will be a topic the test, and will change every year, and our laws will truly be changing every year, the test will be updated every year and the same test will be given to every student across the country. What about teachers cheating to pass students? Well, hopefully the invisible hand will work here since the teachers won't want morons taking part in the law making process.

8. Every American will have 5 years to brush up on current events and laws and then be tested for voter registration. We test for driving, why shouldn't we test for voting?

So, we have brought everyone into the political process, we have updated to the technology of the day, we have eliminated party lines in congress for the most part(of course not in the committee level), we have made it desirable to elect intelligent people to write bills since they will essentially be professional bill writers now and thus law makers, and most of all we have changed our representatives in a way that they are more accountable for their actions(Since we don't want lazy congressmen they will have to report to the people on a much more regular basis), and we have created jobs with the creation of the new companies that will have to regulate the voting process.

Maybe with this system our schools will even emphasize civics since our teachers won't want uneducated or uninformed people making decisions later in their lives.

I couldn't disagree with you more.


www.wimp.com...


www.abovetopsecret.com...

Technology could serve to change the way government functions and bring it closer to the people themselves. However, provisions must be made if there is some sort of outage.

Sunset clauses should be required without exeption for legislation. Any law worth keeping is worth examining on a regular basis. It also discourages the buildup of enormous numbers of obsolete codes.

We still have to prevent tryanny of the majority from playing a role. A democracy can be oppressive to minorities. Look out for the dangerous majority factions!

The pre-qualfication for voting is obviously quite Jeffersonian. If my only chance at qualifying were my senior year in high school, I would have failed that miserably.

reply to post by EnlightenUp

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Maybe 1 chance is a bit harsh, but definitely a test. Maybe we can retest every 5 years, this would give people a chance to catch up with what is important, current events, and so on. I agree that we would have to look into protecting the minorities and factions, but with a jury selection type of vote then factions shouldn't be that much of an issue. Minorities are a bit of a problem, but then again, there is no majority in the U.S. any more anyway. I am pretty sure that we are 40% Caucasian, 30% black, and then the rest is pretty well divided below that. However, right now we have a majority of Caucasian representatives, with this system places like Miami or San Diego will have a better chance at having their views heard. The writers of the bills would have to consider the impact on the minorities, so hopefully they will realize in those areas that they need to elect a minority representative.

The good thing would be that the political process wouldn't be clouded by party lines as much. The representatives would have no vote, only the educated and informed would have a say in the result. On top of that, we could elect elitests without this feeling in the back of our mind that they are taking advantage of us, we would want smart people to write these laws.

I agree completely about the sunset clauses to reexamine the bills every so often.


[edit on 12-10-2009 by memarf1]

reply to post by memarf1

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Of minorities, I was not speaking specifically of racial or ethnic groups. I don't believe the idea of tyranny of the majority was meant to simply address that. The oppression could be directed at any minority subgroup for any reason.

reply to post by Remixtup

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While I agree with your video and your point, I wonder if you read my entire post. I wasn't saying the people need all the power(The people are dumb animals as can always be seen on Jay Leno during the Jay Walk), I'm saying that the Congress itself needs to be limited by the people. We still elect representatives into a Republic like state, and then they, the elite, educated, and informed, write laws and edit them as need becomes evident. Then, they submit them and present them to the people for a vote. That is where the move away from partisan politics shrinks and we are left with a more stable, more powerful Democratic-Republic, where the government is limited by the people and the people are protected by the law. The people shouldn't submit laws, only the elected officials can do that. Thats my point, they write them we decide if we like or don't like them. We already have the factions and lobbies that push terrible agendas that are leading us down the same road as the Roman Republic, this is a transformation meant to save us from that or at least slow the progression.

reply to post by EnlightenUp

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Agreed, but that is why the representatives write the laws that the people vote on. These are the speakers who get the opportunity to persuade the populous on their decision. We will end up with a very similar system to what we have now, but a much more informed and educated populous that actually cares what is happening and has the power to change it inherently. The lobbies are already pushing similar agendas to what you are talking about.

[edit on 12-10-2009 by memarf1]

Why don't we just quit writing new laws/bills? We need to enforce/fix what we have and quit changing stuff.

reply to post by memarf1

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It does make special interest payoff more difficult so long as the voting isn't corrupt. Paying off 4,000,000 citizens isn't quite such an easy task.

What if a "district" had no 1% of members qualifying to vote? Who would represent their interests? They presumably have life, liberty and property interests even if they happen to drool a bit too much.

reply to post by sr_robert1

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hahaha, My brother and I always talk about that, if we ever get the chance to run for office a major part of our platform will be No New Laws! We definitely need to edit and rework many of the existing ones, but we do have far too many!

reply to post by EnlightenUp

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True, however I think those liberties would still be represented by the rest of the country. In that case however, maybe we have to put in a "What If" clause. Maybe we should make it up to 1% of the population and when 1% of the population doesn't qualify then we make it 25% of the qualifying members. That way we insure that no special interests can manipulate the system as efficiently since they will not know which of the 1/4 qualified people will get to vote.

[edit on 12-10-2009 by memarf1]

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"

~ Benjamin Franklin, leader of the American Revolution

"We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy... It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity."

~ Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury to George Washington, author of the Federalist Papers

"Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

~ John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

~ Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

~ James Madison, 4th President of the United States, Father of the Constitution

"The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived."

~ John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States

"Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos."

~ John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1801-1835

I think you were just proven wrong.

here is my thoughts. dont think there is enough peeps to have a transformation. dont think enough people either for a revolution, but there is something. if we could get enough lawyers and people together to get rid of the ELECTORIAL COLLEGE, then i think we might just see a change. again my opinion!!

reply to post by memarf1

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Actually.. I'd say they knew that a total democracy would be a failure. That's why they gave us a republic.

I think you need to do some research, rather than make up what you think they thought.

I don't think memarf1 is actually proposing a pure democracy. Others of his posts that I've read indicate he isn't that naiive. I think he tripped over his words and really is proposing a Republic where We the People are actually Congress directly rather than through representatives. The bill writers answer to the people. Rule of law is still in force. The Constitution reigns supreme. Whatever is drafted and voted on must not be in conflict with it. Jury nullification must still be practiced (not that it is properly at this point anyway).

Modern technological developments make things feasible that were not in the 18th century when the U.S. Constitution was originally drafted.

reply to post by EnlightenUp

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Well stated, that is what I meant but just didn't have the right words to explain it thus I tripped. That is what the thread is for however, discussion and clarification. Thanks EnlightenUp!

Obviously there are problems with true democracy, but there are also problems with a republic, thus we need a move toward something a bit less to the extreme of both. What I mean to say is we need to tweak our system and that my bullet points are ways we can do that.

Obviously our founders got it mostly right(entirely right for their time), but corruption in the system is still beginning to take greater and more powerful roots. We need a better way to hold our reps accountable and I think with current technology we can do that in this way. I think our founders knew things would change in time though and thus they made our system moldable. Only a few tweaks and changes, not a complete removal from the familiar.

[edit on 13-10-2009 by memarf1]

The real issue with direct democracy is that we would put people on the honor system for reading thousand page pieces of legislation such as the health care proposals. That kind of effort is like a second job. You can't expect a full time worker to come home, read a thousand pages, critically analyze it and then go to bed and wake up to do it all over again. That's why we elect people with law degrees whos job it is to read and analyze legislation. Other wise we would have a bunch of idiots depending on the MSM for summaries of the proposed legislation and depending on pundits opinions and not actually critically thinking for themselves. A balanced republic is a much better option.

reply to post by The Transhumanist

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I agree with you and that is why part of our legislators job would be to present the legislation to their constituents for the vote. Having say, 2500, uninformed voters who simply vote yay or nay and really only count as 1 vote in congress, is really very much not different than 1 uninformed congressman. This would provide incentive for our leaders to read the bills and present them to the masses before the vote. There would be uninformed voters but many would read it since it would be their civic duty.

I think your thought about uninformed voters is very much like the thought our congressmen recently had when attending the townhall meetings. When the people matter, make no mistake, they will take that seriously and they will act.

Statisitically speaking, if we have 2500 voters, of which 2200 didn't read the bill, those 2200 should be split relatively uniformly(depending on the persuasiveness of the representative and the media but probably pretty evenly split), thus 300 would be informed and would decide the vote logically, informatively, and intelligently.

Now, you may be concerned that the congressman is skewed by ideology or something, well there are 300 who read and understood the bill and can also speak at the meeting before the vote occurs. This doesn't even consider the media that will be involved in reading and informing the people of the law that should be decided soon there after.

People are smarter than we or our Congress give them credit for, they will investigate, they will learn, and they will listen. I don't know about you, but I would rather have 300 of 2500 informed than 1 of 1 uninformed.

[edit on 13-10-2009 by memarf1]

300 to 2500 is a terrible ratio and 300 is still hopeful at best. Did you read the health care proposal? All 1,000+ pages of it? 2200 uninformed opinionated idiots who don't takes facts into account have no place in political decision making. If you don't read the bill, you shouldn't have a say in the matter period. That's why the republic works because (supposedly) every representative has read the legislation.

reply to post by The Transhumanist

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Okay, let me go through this for you. 2200 uninformed means, media and representatives influence them roughly evenly(statistically speaking of course), and thus 1100 yays and 1100 nays(+ or - the error margin) thus they don't matter because they cancel each other out. However, we must also realize that of the uninformed people there will be informed ones talking to friends and the information will get out at least in part.

Yes, 300 of 2500 is a pretty bad ratio, however it is much better than 0/1. I would much rather have 1/2500 informed opinions than the 0/1 that we have right now wouldn't you? How can you argue that just 1/2500 is worse than 0/1! Plus if the town hall meetings told us anything it told us that we have many more informed individuals than you may think.

To answer your question, no, I read several hundred pages, probably 3-400 when debunking rumors on this vary website about it, but no, I have not read the entire thing. However, I also don't get a vote on the subject and thus have nothing to gain from reading it. Our retarded, uninformed, moronic, stupid, and idiotic congress will do what they are going to do no matter what we say or how much we insist that they read the bills and actually do their jobs.

Thus I say transformation is required.

By the way, don't say the bill is 1000+ pages, that was just the part that qualifies as the actual bill. If you had read the bill you would realize that it references other bills roughly 10 times per page, and those bills are written the same way, and we can see that the pages increase and increase and increase until you truly need a law library to read and completely understand these bills, and we see the actual bill size grow to 10's of 1000's of pages. I find yet another reform we should look into pushing for, no references, sunset old bills with new ones when the time comes and let new laws simply supersede the old ones that they are meant to otherwise edit.

[edit on 14-10-2009 by memarf1]