Imagine if the format of ATS was applied to the governance of our country on the local, state and planet level? That rather than trusting men, which Thomas Jefferson called a fatal mistake, our elected representatives were merely the individuals who carried out our wishes in person?

For the sake of this discussion, let's take for granted all of the noble, Natural or Divine (your choice) human traits and capacity for discernment referred to by the Founding Fathers is a fact.

Starting on the neighborhood block level, a Block Representative would be elected to take a census of the certified citizens on his block to ascribe official log-ins. While he was at it, he could get to know his neighbors and their abilities in the event of a natural disaster. By knowing other Block Representatives, vote results could always be confirmed on a local level.

Once citizens were registered, all would be reminded and taught in school of the civic duty to participate on the forum as time allowed. At that point all business conducted by the local, state and federal politicians would be conducted absolutely transparently. All new business, budgets, proposed legislation, etc would be posted and open to the community. No official votes could be made prior to some set amount of time was given for citizens' input and non-binding online voting.

As an analogy, think of the relatively new process of connecting networked PCs into a grid to create a supercomputer. Just the unutilized processing power of a couple thousand computers is equivalent to the speed and ability of the most accurate supercomputers.

Imagine a series of cumulative stars and flags to highlight important parts of proposed legislation driving debates all over the country. Think of all the amazing ideas, experience and knowledge now going to waste. Think of the enormous responsibility we now place into the hands of a very few people today. Even at the local level, a very small city has a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars. How can any small group of people NOT be tempted to conspire at some level?

I can't imagine that if the 800 page NDAA bill were broken down into small sections and sent to citizens based on their preselected interests and experience, ATS would have been able in a couple days to distill it into its most salient and troubling parts. It never would have seen the light of day had its authors known it was going to be reviewed in such detail prior to a vote. people will naturally become more active during issues effecting them

The question is "Are we mature enough as a civilization to embrace the notion all men are created equal?" Or have we become so brainwashed and fractured that we believe we are neither capable nor deserving?

Am I crazy? I really think this will work. I think we don't have much time to wait and find out. A highschool kid actually did a neighborhood census where I live last summer as part of a hurricane readiness program. I met a lot of people I would not have known otherwise. It gave me an opening to meet people under good intentions and mutual aid.

This can start as a highschool civics project and become the great cleansing.

Please use that part of your intuition endowed to you by your Creator. Let your heart guide your feelings. There are some members here lacking noble intentions who live in fear of this happening. They are currently winning the war of divide and conquer.

Great idea and intention, well written piece

I can see it becoming a potential solution and agree with the establishment of transparency in various levels of government can work.

The only possible pitfalls I see are;

-Security (the forum being hacked)

-You would have to be given login credentials exactly matching your birth name (no screen names or even I'd be tempted to troll!)

-Another thing that will further reduce physical interaction and put more people in front of PC's.

It's no secret that as time goes by we're reaching (or have reached) a point of no return in regard to our dependancy on the internet.

I like the way you think mate.

We the citizens of the United States have become so distracted by meaningless stupid crap like the friggin Super Bowl, we have been fractured and splintered into so many competitive, mutually exclusive groups within sub-groups, we have become so ignorant of the laws and our duty to monitor our government that we are being turned into mindless slaves unable and unwilling to help ourselves.

Then somebody has the ignorance to say it would be too intrusive to get to know each other Using real names and real ID numbers! It's one thing if the government assigns you a number and knows what you think. It's revolutionary for the citizens to come together and stand up to be counted to fight back!

What the Hell do you think a petition is? What's the point if nobody signs it???

We must get to know our neighbors. All politics are local and must start at the grass roots level. At some point the colonists had to make a choice to be counted and drafted into the revolutionary army. When is late too late. Is it when you see a neighbor getting black bagged and stuffed into a van too late?

Is it when ACTA is passed and we no longer have access to a free Internet too late? WTF people. Am I surrounded by pussies to concerned about another flat screen TV or who is winning Dance with The Stars that nobody else gets it?

OP, How would the rights of the individual be protected from the tyranny of the collective will?

The very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy and the tyranny of the majority. The very purpose of the Constitution is that individual rights supersede all voting and all regulations. Rights come first. Laws are to come second, and only to protect those rights.

What if the Bill of Rights were put up to a popular vote today, do you think it would pass?

"Duh, Well, I like that freedom of worship thing, except for Islam... and I don't like the gun thing or the privacy thing, so I won't vote for those."

Again, my question is what would be the limits on what aspects of life are subject to majority rule?

Sorry double post.

Society based on ATS would be a horrible state of affairs. Don't get me wrong, I've been posting on this site almost daily for years, but it's not anywhere close to utopian.

If society were based on stars & flags, you'd also want a system in place to voice disapproval. The mods here have time and again said they won't implement a system for down-voting.

If all you have is a positive indicator, you have no way of measuring how many people might be against it, because they get lumped in with people who have no opinion, or haven't even read the issue at hand.

Additionally, ATS as a system has a bad habit of deleting threads wholesale when things get too controversial, rather than simply locking them, but leaving them around for openness. I wouldn't want that kind of oppression or censorship in a real-world system.