fitzo
Gold Member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2001
- Messages
- 6,648
One more soapbox tirade then I'll leave off:
I firmly believe the original intent of the founders was to allow every voter to have as much say as possible in all issues. Representative government was the easiest way to accomplish this in a day when mail traveled even slower than the USPS today and it was impossible to poll people very often. Elected representatives were expected to vote based on what their constituency wanted.
Today, politicians have grown arrogant, and see their role as some type of "enlightened" dictatorship where they vote "what they feel best" for their constituency, not necessarily as the voters feel. (The electoral college got us Bush, remember?; not the one-man-one-vote ideal.) We have one opportunity to change this at election time, but, essentially, in between elections we are hamstrung. The elected know this, and thus have perfected the art of the big lie to get elected, knowing they almost certainly have 2-6 years of no checks and balances by the voters. They know we have short attention spans, and only the most egregious of screwups will be remembered when they come around to lie again. We all see that a politician's first and foremost concern is not helping the people, but getting re-elected. Any benefit we derive is serving that purpose. (Don't misunderstand, I feel they all start out with the best intentions, but get steamrolled by an entrenched system of "good-ole-boy" special interest. Soon they succumb if they are to persist.))
I think the ideal represented in the Constitution is almost acheivable: we live in an electronic age that is rapidly approaching a reality wherein we could have a much truer democracy in which NATIONAL REFERENDA could do a lot of the deciding on important ethical direction for the government. Encryption technology and identity verification will soon be possible to make this doable. One man, one vote could be a reality.
That may be scary, and it may be disastrous, because we are unfortunately dumbing down as a nation in all too many instances. However, it would test the efficacy of a truer democracy, and would get us a bit closer to Chuck's thought of an "ideal anarchy", albeit I question our ability to really do the rational part.
I have had a scifi fantasy for years that predates the Internet by decades: I imagined that every politician has a nice radio-controlled explosive device implanted at swear-in. Every citizen would have two buttons and a rocker switch connected to some supercomputer/radio transmitter. The rocker switch would say "President and cabinet; Senator A; Senator B; Congressman," etc. One button is "blow" and the other "hold". If, at any given time, the sum of blow plus hold is positive towards "blow" and exceeds 50% of that specific constituency, we hold another election for the deceased's postion.
It would serve the purpose of allowing us more direct sway over our elected officials, and would also be a good inducement to think twice about screwing us.
Pretty radical, I suppose, but I like the idea of the experiment.
I firmly believe the original intent of the founders was to allow every voter to have as much say as possible in all issues. Representative government was the easiest way to accomplish this in a day when mail traveled even slower than the USPS today and it was impossible to poll people very often. Elected representatives were expected to vote based on what their constituency wanted.
Today, politicians have grown arrogant, and see their role as some type of "enlightened" dictatorship where they vote "what they feel best" for their constituency, not necessarily as the voters feel. (The electoral college got us Bush, remember?; not the one-man-one-vote ideal.) We have one opportunity to change this at election time, but, essentially, in between elections we are hamstrung. The elected know this, and thus have perfected the art of the big lie to get elected, knowing they almost certainly have 2-6 years of no checks and balances by the voters. They know we have short attention spans, and only the most egregious of screwups will be remembered when they come around to lie again. We all see that a politician's first and foremost concern is not helping the people, but getting re-elected. Any benefit we derive is serving that purpose. (Don't misunderstand, I feel they all start out with the best intentions, but get steamrolled by an entrenched system of "good-ole-boy" special interest. Soon they succumb if they are to persist.))
I think the ideal represented in the Constitution is almost acheivable: we live in an electronic age that is rapidly approaching a reality wherein we could have a much truer democracy in which NATIONAL REFERENDA could do a lot of the deciding on important ethical direction for the government. Encryption technology and identity verification will soon be possible to make this doable. One man, one vote could be a reality.
That may be scary, and it may be disastrous, because we are unfortunately dumbing down as a nation in all too many instances. However, it would test the efficacy of a truer democracy, and would get us a bit closer to Chuck's thought of an "ideal anarchy", albeit I question our ability to really do the rational part.
I have had a scifi fantasy for years that predates the Internet by decades: I imagined that every politician has a nice radio-controlled explosive device implanted at swear-in. Every citizen would have two buttons and a rocker switch connected to some supercomputer/radio transmitter. The rocker switch would say "President and cabinet; Senator A; Senator B; Congressman," etc. One button is "blow" and the other "hold". If, at any given time, the sum of blow plus hold is positive towards "blow" and exceeds 50% of that specific constituency, we hold another election for the deceased's postion.
It would serve the purpose of allowing us more direct sway over our elected officials, and would also be a good inducement to think twice about screwing us.
Pretty radical, I suppose, but I like the idea of the experiment.
we all should wonder for our kids and their kids, kids..