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You can't have a weak federal government and consistant laws through out the country. If the drug laws are up to the states, you'll get 50 different sets of drug laws.

Exactly! And, once we eliminate the TSA, we'll again have "freedom of movement", so we can vote with our feet when our state decides to go rogue. Not all states will have the same destructive policies -- you're absolutely right. Those with less destructive policies will see more growth.

Vote Ron Paul, and move to New Hampshire.

It's interesting that we've finally come to a time where people are actually vocally discussing a change of the whole system. That really says something about the magnitude of the changes that are happening.

That said I think you got it quite right about the problem being that humans govern other humans and thus face a conflict of interest.

However I dare to claim that the program you are proposing already exists and is in place and has been for practically ever since humans existed on this planet. That program is indeed open source to the core and completely free for everyone to participate in. It is called THE FREE MARKET.

If the problem is humans governing other humans how about letting human individuals governing ONLY themselves. I govern me and you govern yourself. If you want somebody else to do something for you or believe as you do, do not apply force to make them comply (like the current governments do), but instead use persuasion and other PEACEFUL non-violent means. And if it doesn't work then simply give up. Using violence against another (which current governments unfortunately legitimize, even while forbidding everyone else from doing it, thus taking a monopoly on violence) only results in more violence - violence breeds more violence.

This is not anarchy in the sense most people have been taught to look at anarchy. It is not lawlessness in the same sense either. It is simply a lack of a coercive ruler in place of self-rulers trading both value and ideas between each other on a purely voluntary basis. And it is law that is private where the only universal, and natural, principle to be followed by everyone and at the same time enforced by everyone (right to bear arms for defense) is the principle of non-initiation of force or fraud.

This philosophy is called by varying names: anarcho-capitalism, market anarchy, voluntaryism (because the CORE idea is that all human action should be voluntary, not coerced) etc. It is arguably also the original libertarian idea, although nowadays libertarianism is seen as compromising with coercion and government a bit too much so with respect to that we can call it a subset of libertarianism, or libertarian purism.

Lastly I want to refer anyone who didn't before think this idea through to check out these sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism
http://www.mises.org/
http://www.lewrockwell.com/
http://freedomainradio.com/ (a fairly popular podcast by a genious market anarchist philosopher Stefan Molyneux which can with great proficiency answer every question you might have about market anarchy).

If you're curious enough that you'd give a book a chance, there's a free one with an audio book available here called "The Market for Liberty": http://freekeene.com/free-audiobook/

It changed my life.

And if you are convinced already or become sufficiently convinced after exploring this, there is good news: a place where free market and liberty stand most chance in the world: New Hampshire, because of a project of moving thousands of liberty minded people to it: http://www.freestateproject.com/

Thanks for your consideration (and sorry for such a long post, I'm just too passionate about this). I truly hope that instead of worsening conditions for our freedoms, this shift we are seeing happening in the world opens the eyes of people towards the true nature of coercive governance and what freedom truly is).

Float your boat so long as it doesn't sink mine.

There's an effort to restore our freedoms. Check it out.

At least someone's got a plan to start getting our freedoms back.

A good secure method for mail voting, combined with Internet verification (your ballot has a serial number, you verify online after it's counted that the numbered ballot matches how you voted) can be found at the process being used by the Free State Project voting process.

It seems like large parts of the process could be adapted to have a repeatable and perfectly secure vote.

Unfortunately, Eric Klien has somewhat of a reputation amongst those of us who have been (sort of) following Oceania as a bit of a crook. Some of us have been trying to keep the goals and the idea behind the Atlantis Project alive via a Yahoogroups mailing list called fountainhead-l. The Free State Project also has some great ideas.

It therefore follows that public (re: government-run) schools are not suitable institutions for education, because forces external to educators (and families of students) are restricting freedom of speech and expression. The time has come to do away with the public education system. The education of children, like the feeding of children, should be 100% the responsibility of the parents anyway. Parents who fail to provide an education for their children should be found guilty of neglect. Education funding for impoverished families should be handled via AFDC and charity, rather than through a department of education. Quality control of schools could be handled just like the universities are regulated today, only acredited schools could award valid diplomas.

I agree with your assessment 100%, but don't expect it to happen in this country any time soon.

Of course, there are alternatives...

A group of people trying to do a little of both can be found at http://www.freestateproject.com/.