Slashdot Mirror
Internet Based Political "Meta-Party" For Massachusetts
sophiachou writes "The Free Government Party, a non-profit, open source political 'meta-party' focused on providing citizens with more direct control of Congress through online polling and user-drafted bills, seems to be looking for a candidate to endorse for US Representative of Massachusetts' 8th Congressional District. If you're from the Boston area, you might have seen this already on Craigslist. The chosen candidate will be bound by contract to vote in Congress only as do his or her constituents online. However, they don't seem to be going for direct democracy. To make voting convenient, you can select advisers to cast your votes for you, unless you do so yourself. Supposedly, interviews for the candidate position are already underway. Anyone from MA's 8th Congressional District on Slashdot already apply?"
The way we were supposed to choose our president was to know and vote for our electors, who were supposed to be the wisest people we knew. Political parties kind of buggered up the plan.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This is just what I've been waiting for!! I have my vote-bots standing by, ready to tilt the vote when the time comes.
Of course, I won't use them for just ANY occasion, I will save them for something important. Hmmmmm.....the invasion of Canada vote!!!! Prepare thyself, Oh Canada!!
Qxe4
And "Republic" doesn't seem to sound right either, when there is so much potential for this sort of system to take direct action. Is this right? Answer: Also "perhaps".
How about a "Liberacy"? (a) Maybe, but it evokes the wrong sort of popular pianist to appeal to everyone. YMMV. But I think we've blurred the boundaries so far it's really hard to use the original terms for this sort of political party.
But I think it's a great idea, myself.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
What if a company tried something like this? The whole concept sounds corrupt.
Of course they aren't going for direct democracy. That is an organizational nightmare. Direct *Representation* is the model I have always advocated, and that is what they are doing. I should have a vote, and be able to give that vote to anyone that I feel is able to represent my views and interests best.
e-mocracy
Think of what we would have done if we were following the opinions of people just here on slashdot:
The whole thing reminds me of a chess game, Kasparov VS the World, in which Kasparov played against anyone who willing to log in to MSN to vote. On one move, 2.5% of the people voted for a move that was completely ILLEGAL. In that particular game, the world did manage to play a good game, but arguably only because a few very good players managed to take charge and guide the hoards through it all. In general the message boards degenerated into a lot of flaming....
Qxe4
Liberacy
pianist
it's really hard
Ok, maybe not that last one. From Wikipedia:
known as "Lee" to his friends
Also
it's really hard to use the original terms for this sort of political party
Political parties blur the names of the politics, no?
In theory, this could work really well, but realistically speaking, I wonder how many voters would even read the bills before voting on them. Not to mention how short sighted people tend to be when it comes to politics.
So basically, we have a choice between (more) intelligent and informed representatives working towards their own personal, and sometimes detrimental goals. And the well intentioned idiots that generally put more thought into their votes for American idol than their votes in national elections.
**sigh**
The Democratic Party primary can quite reasonably considered to be the end of the line for candidates seeking Federal election from MA. Unless you have a genius plan to disrupt the internal workings of the party, I find it hard to believe you are going to accomplish all that much.
MA was bought and paid for a long time ago.
But it just can't happen. Proving constituancy. Ballot stuffing. Out of state voters. Ingoring voters who still haven't gotten into the whole "internet" thing. I wish it could work, but it can't without years of real change.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
I can't remember my password, so screw Karma.
The pay for this job in MA is 31k.
Anyone intelligent at all is making 60k+.
Anyone unintelligent is making 40k at Mcdonalds if they actually fucking worked at it.
In other words: the pay doesn't just suck, a teenage dropout can make more.
I live in this district. I'd apply, and mean it, in a second if the job payed -anything- livable. 55k maybe.
For all of you who go "But 31k is fine in hickland" this is less than .01 miles from Boston! The cost of living here is crazy. I don't know anyone who can live on 31k a year, pay rent, own a car, and possibly even -dream- of owning a condo, let alone a house. 31k here means you live with roomates- forever. You do not get to support anyone. Ever. Feeding children? No way, that's just dreams.
The simple fact is, unless you are suicidal, 50+ (and so close to retiring you can afford the pay cut, because you already saved up your retirement fund and the pay is just icing), or so dumb you can't succeed at a damned mcdonalds.
Good people aren't cheap. And Reps are very cheap. Do you even wonder why reps are so easy to buy?
-They aren't paid to care about you, and never will be.-
Discloser: I am 25, and a software engineer.
Sounds almost like theyre just taking a select group , leverage whatever pressures and influence they have in a manner to get a puppet elected, and toss in yet another layer of representation to determine what the puppet does... almost like a broken socialist microcosm of a republic. But hey, whatever floats their boats... I just hope their vote server is solid...
Never disregard the raw power inherent to stupidity... they call it "dumb luck" for a reason...
It isn't easy to start a political party. I would also like to meet the genius who implements this. I generally have confidence in people, but the dead vote is another issue.
What do slashdotters think about other methods of reform? For example, Olympic range voting (hot-or-not style) would prevent the two-party system from reigning supreme. Then, something like this freegovernment.org movement could take off. (Leaving us with a one-party system)
A good representative is not someone who conducts polling every time something comes up. A good representative makes as sound an educated a decision as he or she can, weighing the good of ALL the people they represent against the good of the commonwealth, against the good of the planet...and more importantly, they should not make a career of it.
I don't see the voting populous having that kind of foresight. I'd be a happier if representation was randomly assigned amongst people.
Please help metamoderate.
George Washington is spinning in his grave...
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
excellent congressman AA+++++++++ would def vote for again
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
Don't like it. Makes it sound too much like it's e-commerce, and that's the last thing I want from politicians that I vote for.
wikiocracy
This is scary. Dealing with our laws, our freedom, and our future in the exact same manner as the best singer is chosen on t.v.
A "pure democracy" has the potential to be even more oppressive than the worst sort of communism or dictatorship.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I happen to stumble upon something similar here : http://podvoters.org/
:)
PodVoters looks to me like a much better idea (IMO), because it's an online system for selecting candidates, according to a process that should yield much better candidates, than we get at present. It's not about users directly managing the entire legislative process which is too burdensome for most (any?) citizen.
just my two cents
Therez light! : aHR0cDovL3hrMGRlci53b3JkcHJlc3MuY29t
The way we were supposed to choose our president was to know and vote for our electors, who were supposed to be the wisest people we knew. Political parties kind of buggered up the plan.
Correction: Human nature kind of buggered up the plan. The fact that we have a kind of floating aristocracy, divided into a couple of camps depending on which segment of the wealthy and powerful aristocracy they get more support from, is entirely by design. Many of the framers didn't want the common people getting too much control over things for fear that we wouldn't choose to let them run things.
Thomas Paine was basically run out of town on a rail for being too much against the idea that the "smart people" should make all the decisions for us dumb rubes.
- (A)
Israel = Social conservative cunts who practice the stupid religion of judaism
Rest of the middle east = Social conservative cunts who practice the stupid religion of Islam
America = Social conservative cunts who practice the stupid religion of christianity
Everyones a troll, I just have the balls to admit it!
...vote for our electors, who were supposed to be the wisest people we knew.
Sounds a lot like a monarchy: the elite nobility governing the unwashed ignorant masses.
Something that is increasingly forgotten is that the key innovation of the American revolution was to move away from trying to find the most superior person to govern and to instead rely on a system. Instead of having a (supposedly) superior king decide whose head to chop off, they had a system - of laws and judges and lawyers and juries.
The basic realization was that you're not ever going to find some guy who is just so special that he can make all the best decisions for the country. Instead, you need a system of specialists, experts and ordinary citizens working together collectively.
For example, in that view, the president is not supposed to make decisions himself (and certainly not based on his "gut") but, like a judge, he is supposed to preside over the system to insure that the system reaches the correct decisions.
Corpocracy is what you are looking for.
Why not try it and see what happens? What could possibly go wrong? Seriously, this is definitely something worth persuing. Maybe some variation of it in the future will prove better than what we're doing now. I'm sure there were people who didn't believe American democracy would work when our forefathers started this country.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Inflamatory but largely true. Democracy got Bush elected for two terms inspite of being unqualified and totally botching his first term. The people don't always know what's best for them. Also Congress got elected by somebody and they are slightly less popular than smallpox. No alternatives? How many people in this country honestly consider a third party candidate? People want "their" team to win but the person representing your team may be a moron and is probably owned by corporate america. There is a saying about getting the government we deserve. Until people can get over this us against them attitude in politics and vote for the best person for the job nothing will change and any of these plans are more smoke and mirrors. Want change? Vote against everyone in office today no matter the party. Wear a t-shirt on voting day with the line "People shouldn't fear their government their government should fear the people". Get 50,000,000 people to do that in November and there will be a shock wave in Washington that won't stop in our lifetimes. When over 90% get relected what do they care what the people want? If they all get voted out then the next batch will know fear and the ones that weren't up for reelection will know fear in two years.
Sounds a lot like a monarchy
Nope, it sounds like a committee. The electors were supposed to be performing an occasional, temporary public duty, like serving on a jury.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I live in this district, and must say that as much as I love this idea, it would be tough to sway me (as a social libertarian and economic moderate) to vote out Capuano. His voting record is very consistently exactly in line with what I would want.
To whit, the ACLU ranks him at 94% voting the way they advocate and 100% by LBGT advocates (I'm also gay). He's in favor of affirmative action, which I have some minor objections to, but generally think isn't particularly evil. He voted against expanding criminal prosecutions for minors and is rated "soft on crime" (which I approve of, having been harassed by the police and FBI several times despite having committed no crimes). He is generally not in favor of the war on drugs. I don't think he's as savvy on energy and the environment as I'd like, but he probably is better informed that an average group of citizens...
I dunno, I'm not sure I'd trust my neighbors in general to be as sensible as Capuano has been. I've seen my neighbors believe some pretty stupid crap. I'd have to see a very sensible plan before I'd vote to change.
It needs:
A) A rather large amendment to the Constituition
B) A population that actually understands the issues being voted on, including causes, effects, and solutions.
As an American, I believe that B does not exists. We are not rich landowners like ancient Athenians, who had lots of time to ponder these things, and were able to have an efficient direct democracy. Americans, on the whole, are specialized to hell. We don't sleep, we don't take vacations, we just work. We don't have time to think about the government.
...but it was started by two comedians, mostly as an elaborate joke I hink. They called it "The Political Party" and almost all the representatives were known Norwegian comedians. http://www.dpp.no/
Well, you are so totally out of date. The electoral college was great for the old days when nobody had computers. Nowadays, things like this are controlled by something called a "bot net". This is great because it will extend modernity. Now the candidate will also be controlled by the person with the biggest bot net in Massachusetts who will vote on behalf of the electorate using their own computers. That's what I call an advance.
Where I come from, any contract binding an elected representative to vote in a certain manner would violate the constitution, and thus be invalid from the start. Once a person is elected into the office, he/she can vote however he/she sees fit, and nobody can influence the vote (except $$$ of course ;). Also, it doesn't matter WHY the person has been elected, whether there was an invalid "contract" in the play - the person becomes a legally elected representative for full 4 years.
Sounds like they are confusing a representative with a delegate.
rewriting history since 2109
There were federalists and anti-federalists from the get go.
You don't have to live in the district in order to run for Congress in that district, you only have to live in the state.
The folks running the Free Government Party might require a candidate to live in the district, but it isn't a restriction required by the United States or Massachusetts.
I was just thinking of a solution like this in the wake of the Telecoms debacle. What if some reasonably intelligent, semi organised group was to set up a shadow government of sorts, with its own structure to debate and vote on issues on a public website?
You could set it up like Slashdot, with the explicit goal of influencing government policy and officials to move in a suitable direction.
Such a group could have policies on health, education, technology, science, military, the whole gamut, all debated by people who know what they are talking about, with a moderation system like slashdot. Once the debate was finalised, you could hold a poll for the final direction of that piece of legislation or whatever, and set that as the policy for the year. The debate could perhaps be re-opened by popular demand as situations change.
And then you give it teeth. All members donate a hundred bucks a year to it (also a handy way to ensure that there are not too many duplicate accounts) for lobbying or funding the political group, and representatives are appointed to push the agenda on the hill. Its just the bare bones of an idea, it needs a hell of a lot of fleshing out, but damn me if I wouldn't set it up myself if I had the time.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
why not go the whole way? Abolish paid for, special-interest driven, corruptable politicians entirely?
Allow anyone to draft legislation, post it on some server (ArXiv style) and allow it a few months to be peer reviewed to discuss merits of new law. Legislation that looks like being worth considering is then written up by professionals into a version worth voting on, then put to a public online vote.
Set a suitable quorom so single interest groups can't force things through. Give every law a 12 month sunset clause, so if it doesn't work in practice it can be dropped unless people activley vote again to keep it on the books.
Government then restircted to basic administrative tasks and oversight into government departments provided by citizens chosen through further popular votes.
Yeah, i can see flaws in this system (especially with budget allocations) - and I'm sure /. will pick them to pieces, but is it any more flawed than the current systems in place in western democracies?
echo $SIGNATURE
...slashdotted!
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
There is no "RIAA" headquarters!!
There is no RIAA - only Sony, EMI etc. It's a front that they have created to deflect the hate elsewhere for the evil deeds that they have committed.
Seriously though, I have to wonder if some people will vote for the issue/candidate with the shortest required reading. Or, we might start seeing stuff like this:
SEX! SEX! SEX!, vote yes on proposition 2600, SEX SEX SEX.
I see so many problems with this "direct voting". It's not even funny. Well, it's a little funny. SEX!
Is it pure democracy when you have so much legislation to read that you tend to skim bits, and let representatives - proxies, as it were - handle the rest?
I would say no.
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood."
- James Madison
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Why not have artificially intelligent avatars represent you?
You know what your overall objectives in voting are, but don't have time to pursue them on every single issue. You can't trust a human representative (who certainly has his own agenda) so you program an AI with parameters reflecting your personal preferences and it tries to emulate your vote on every issue that comes up, and if it comes across something it can't handle, alerts you so you can vote in person.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Turn the presidency over to a cluster...After all, it's doesn't need to play golf and can't smirk like a drooling idiot.
Many of the framers didn't want the common people getting too much control over things for fear that we wouldn't choose to let them run things.
One possible motive.
There may have also been a nod to the level of literacy in the general population. Remember, this was in the day where if you could do enough math to perform celestial navigation, you could be an officer in the navy.
Times have changed, the pool of smarter heads is bigger. You'll never eliminate the "dumb rubes", but you can gather useful input from a broader swath of people.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, those Framers may not have come off as so elitist in a modern context.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
In my observations, the wisest people have no desire to control others through coercion. They realize that economic and social progress naturally arises through voluntary association.
Government naturally attracts those who DO wish to control others through coercion, not those who just want to live their lives in peace. Realizing this, I'd feel a bit silly claiming that government should (or could) be comprised of the wisest people.
No, not really a mini electoral system. The fact that you can directly cast your vote is funadmentally different. In some ways this is a better model, you can still choose someone you trust, but vote specifically on your issues but still delegate most of the gov't running process to a trusted party. Additionally if the trusted party demonstrates a track record that you don't like, there is always the option of choosing another at any time.
Call it a hybrid democracy.
What happens when this representative gets elected and comes to a situation where his open source constituents collectively decide he should vote one way on an issue, and the rep cannot vote that way for reasons of conscience, or for reasons (s)he cannot fully reveal, e.g., info from secret briefings (assuming for this discussion that the info is reliable).
What about the situation where his Free Party votes one way but the rest of his constituency clearly feels differently? (S)He does represent ALL the consistuents in the district...
This siutation is guaranteed to happen, and is a dilemma faced by all reps at one time or another. But, this will be more of a problem for this rep and his party.
The chosen candidate will be bound by contract to vote in Congress only as do his or her constituents online.
You can't sue a congressman for the performance of his duties. Well...you could sue him, but it would be thrown out of court so fast it would make your head swim.
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
I'm predicting you would see a landslide victory for Optimus Prime. That or we'd have a lolcat in office.
Sounds great. On paper.
Who are the Geeks that are going to prevent cheating? (I want names.)
If you have been to high school or college, you know, this country is full of cheaters. Even the Geeks. Only real geeks (of which I am one) would be able to police this system and keep it from being taken over by private interest hackers.
If we could design a bullet proof polling system (tra-la-la), I think it should be MANDATORY that EVERY citizen vote on EVERY issue. (No notes from Mom saying you were sick.) We could tell most of the politicians to take a hike, and largely remove graft from the political system.
But thats just my opinion. I could be wrong. (Who said that?)
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
Or should I say VOTE PARENT UP? Either way... he/she has something there... Despite contradicting him/herself - calling for abolishment of politicians while asking for "professionals" to write up the legislation. Sounds a lot like politicians to me. But the part about anyone drafting the legislation, quorums and sunset clauses sounds good... though some obvious polishing is still needed.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I have been thinking for many years of roughly such an affair myself, and am relieved to find that I'm not totally alone in this. It seemed as if every time I'd tentatively mention it in this forum or that, the idea would meet an enormous, terrible silence, with absolutely no response whatsoever.
Actually, my thoughts have been more along the lines of not merely influencing the current corrupt mess, but of replacing it altogether, with rather a great effort by very many like-minded people, most especially including legal experts capable of drawing up laws and regulations decently worded in plain English. This means a quite complete, rational set of laws and regulations, and a few suggested sets of cultural customs for normal social practices that ought not to be choked to death by formal laws and regulations. This is obviously a non-trivial endeavor, and one of the largest requirements would be an effective set of methods for mediating the inevitable sharp disagreements amongst even fair-minded people, such as over abortion, the death penalty and what might constitute reasonable regulation of keeping and bearing arms (beyond such obvious regulations as those forbidding the simple-minded possession of nuclear weapons in private hands or wildly shooting off a machine gun dangerously near populated areas or in other unsafe ways).
Such an endeavor would by its very nature influence current legislation in any case, as it became obvious from Condorcet or more likely Approval voting within the project that there was widespread opposition to or approval of this or that law or regulation, even amongst politically disparate groups. General opposition to the thuggery of the RIAA and other industry groups comes to mind, as does general opposition to frightening spying and expansion of police powers by the Federal government. Such an endeavor would fairly effectively provide a shadow government in its later stages, even without a complete set of laws and regulations, ready to step in should the current corrupt mess finally overstep even the most elastic boundaries of tolerance by the People.
Obviously, this brief post barely scratches the surface, but you get the idea. I have even bothered for a few years to pay out a bit of perfectly good money to keep a domain name for a Web site for it. (Since there is nothing there now, I'll not waste anyone's time by mentioning the actual domain name).
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
Congressmen cannot be contractually bound to vote in any way, for any reason. You could get someone who promises to vote in alignment with whatever votes are made on the website, but he or she would be exactly like any other Congressman.
Then of course there's the fraud issue. Is the website really invulnerable to malicious attack? Is it really invulnerable to fake registrations? I'd be much happier voting for someone competent and honest than for someone who promises to follow the dictates of a basically anonymous online community. (good luck finding that politician, though)
Direct democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.
Representative government at least takes the "mob-rule" out of democracy.
and I follow politics closely. But there's no way I 'd have the time decide how my congressman should vote on every issue. To do it in an informed fashion, that is actually reading the bills and researching them, would be a full time job in and of itself. This is why we elected Capuano and give him some staffers, so we don't have to deal with all of this ourselves. The whole point is to vote for someone who more or less share your views, then if they screw up, vote them out of office.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
This is what we need and what democracy is.
Right now, our congresspeople have decided they think they know what's best for us. They're not voting for our interests. They're not voting for what we want.
A congressperson bound by contract to vote for what his constituents want is a great idea.
Since integrity and honesty are no longer requirements of being in congress, this will give people representation again.
Bravo.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I don't follow your reasoning. The electoral college was an attempt by the framers of the US Constitution to institute a buffer between the masses and the Presidency, so that a rabble rouser (think: Bill O'Reilly, Michael Moore, Jesse Ventura) wouldn't be elected President.
This Mass. proposal seems to be attempting to do the opposite, in that it takes the judgement of the representative out of play. That person becomes a clerk registering the majority opinion of his/her constituents; however the voters are generally not well-informed on the particulars of bills before the legislature, or on laws on the books, the state budget, etc.
Democracy is a funny thing. I thought of it once in a functional sort of way and came up with the following three characteristics
1. people choose what is to be achieved (goal)
2. people choose how to achieve the chosen goal
3. people choose who is to lead us there
If you take these three and measure our western societies against them we will see that none except maybe the Swiss live in democracy. OC it is complicated to govern and make rules but if I see that my vote is nullified by sets of say less informed (masses) and by much smaller set of very well informed (political establishment) then I do not have motivation at all to even that and get myself a beer instead of participation in life of a democracy.
so get rid of aristocrats and give votes to those that actually did something to improve their own value - see there for an example how it could look like: http://www.globalvoter.org/englisch/index.html
technology that allows direct democracy is there - why not try?
It's called a Democratic-Republic, and it's the system we already have. There's no compelling reason to add extra layers of complexity to it.
Oh, and as for the genius idea of getting the candidate to only vote the way a bunch of people vote in a Slashdot poll: what's your recourse when the Congressman you sent to Washington doesn't vote that way? None, zip, zero, zilch. You'll have to wait until the next election cycle to vote him out; but if during those two years he's worked with other groups to get what they want done, he'll have a new voting bloc to help him keep his job.
I'm all for keeping idealism in politics, but this idea is just dumb on the face of it.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
"However, they don't seem to be going for direct democracy."
You don't say.
Democracy = Tyranny of the Majority. It's why we're not a democracy, although the President keeps calling us one and wants to make the world safe for it. Go figger.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
That's not monarchy, that's aristocracy. Monarchy means one man or woman in charge. The founders were opposed to that, but many of the them were very much aristocrats, believers in an elite class.
Indeed, a jaundiced commentator on the American Revolution might say its original intent was less about "freedom" for Americans, than about power moving from a distant king to a local ruling class. But then the unwashed classes started taking some of that rhetoric seriously...
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Man, I am so happy to see my idea stolen. I've been ranting to anyone who would listen about how much we need this for a long time now. Going to dig into this and bring it to the attention of The Atlantica Party leader. They haven't dreamed this far, but it's consistent with their ideology, and I so want to live this way...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Correction: Human nature kind of buggered up the plan. The fact that we have a kind of floating aristocracy, divided into a couple of camps depending on which segment of the wealthy and powerful aristocracy they get more support from, is entirely by design. Many of the framers didn't want the common people getting too much control over things for fear that we wouldn't choose to let them run things.
But due to illiteracy and the rules stopping anybody who wasn't wealthy (and therefore already powerful) getting any power (and in many cases not even the right to vote). That's how it worked in europe anyway, I believe America started on a somewhat better footing but has since shifted quite far due to blind faith in capitalism among other things.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
As a whole, the general public is full of morons. Because of this, we vote for representatives that have a better understanding of the issues at hand. Not that these politicians are absolutely brilliant, but I think they have a better understanding of economics than Bubba, Farmer John, and T-Dog.
Can we just have DIRECT voting and proposals for laws? I don't need someone thinking for me. I've been educated and so has most of America. I think it's time to step away from groups and organizations and time to focus on giving power back to the individual. This can be done easily with an online system. Someone drafts an online bill. If it has an effect on you (by region or a national issue) you're allowed to vote on it. Popular vote wins. Bill passed or denied. Hell, you can draft your own bills; have some fun! It's democracy!
It is all about "informed" collective control that eliminates special interests and disproportionate advantage that benefits a few to the detriment of the many
The other deliverable is our representatives have no mechanism in place to know our intentions; this is what the Authenticated and Measured voice of the people is all about. There are many fictions alive in the world today, the dissolution of which is pending.
"In a world of truth there is no fear, in a world of fiction they fear the truth" ~Infinite Play the Movie
http://infiniteplaythemovie.com/
Read One Click Revolution http://oneclickrevolution.com/
and
Zulu Time http://pc.zulu.mobi/
if you want to know what is coming....
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
Looking at their site, it seems as though anonymity goes out the window. You go to their site, click on people, choose a person (what the hell, let's look at Sophia Chou in Boston, shall we?) and take a look under Recent Activity:
She voted yes on FG Bill #2... doesn't like Obama's stance on FISA... thinks medical pot is OK...
Of course anonymity mandated in the US so that we can all vote without groupthink seeping in via direct methods like vote buying or bullying or indirect methods such as a friend saying they don't like people who think a certain way about something. What do Slashdotters think of this- giving up anonymity to participate in a (potentially) real, accessible (at least much moreso than by traditional methods), engaging political process?
And for that matter... doesn't the lack of anonymity break US law? If this party were to start being taken seriously, of course. Say, if they really did get a representative under contract.
Wrong, the electoral college was established because back then the word 'telecommunications' didn't exist, and it could take months for a piece of mail to make it across the country. The fastest way to travel was horse back in most places. And most of the country was illiterate.
There was no physical way to actually get everyones vote, the electoral college was a way to streamline the process down to a point that was actually achievable at the time.
People propagate fictions because if others believe them they derive benefit from it. So they try to convince people why they should believe such and such. Some people even create their own fictions because it benefits them; so they think. A lot of advertising is an attempt to establish fictions in your mind that will affect your behavior to the benefit of those who paid.
So they devise the belief systems producing a design on your behavior. You are born pure and perfect and then you are taught language with which the illusions are created. You are also taught that you are imperfect.
And then you are indoctrinated with the be(lie)fs that benefit others. The same thing happened to your parents, and their parents. If you don't believe then you are a threat to the "believer's" belief system and they won't like you and may even attack you (actually they attack the illusions in their minds, so don't take it personal).
This sets up the illusion of the battle between good and evil, but the only real battle is between choosing fiction and truth in each individual mind. There is no such thing as good and evil in the universe, but there is love and fear. Fear is an illusion and love is real, and the same energy is behind them both.
Quite often if you do not adopt the fictions of "the others" you are an outcast, you are punished so the child gives in so that he can get his rewards going against his true self.
Scarcity is a good example if you own something scarce, then you are richer for it and can escape toil, yet they end up toiling in bed unable to sleep. There is no escaping toil, yet make toil an art and love the doing and it is effortless for all is in service to your self.
So as children we are taught these fictions about life and we deny our true self leading to a life of strife, conflict, toil and no happiness, for most. Many become indentured servants enslaved without chains; their attachments are their chains and society is the wip.
Society creates collective fictions to avoid it's own collective truth. Each new member of society is indoctrinated with the "popular" stories of the time. The educational system insures that the collective fictions are installed.
Every once in a while One comes along and refuses to embrace the fictions of man, and there was a time that they might be crucified or burned as a heretic and threat to the status quo but now, with the Internet One comes like a thief in the night working and they that would object are unawares and cannot find one out.
The truth will set you free. I am you and you are me. Remember language is used to both create Illusion and destroy it.
Of course all fictions eventually lead to the truth, for they create conflict and while there are some exceptions, for example when some perceived benefit exists in creating conflict, we seek to avoid conflict, eventually we seek truth which brings an end to conflict.
Love and fear cannot both exist in the mind at the same time. The knowing comes to mind, that if there were no fear on this planet there would be nothing to fear. Fear is what causes detrimental behavior. Fear is born of ignorance and the fictions we are taught or choose to be(lie)ve.
In belief the fictions are imposed upon the truth and in knowing the truth through direct experience is imposed upon the fictions. Beliefs are the foundation of the world of make believe, knowing is the essence of reality.
The wise one discards belief systems, and becomes One Being of knowing.
Labels and all their linguistic attachments are the seeds of Illusion and can blind one to what is actually there creating false perceptions.
The One has a passion for adventure... a love of drama.... a fondness for comedy, and a lust for romance and is blessed with amnesia which saves him from the curse of omnipotence and sometimes the Infinite Player, engages in the
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
"To make voting convenient, you can select advisers to cast your votes for you"
What a great new idea, people to cast votes on issues on your behalf. In Britain we could call them MPs. For you, our colonial Brethren, why not call them Congressmen.
Hang on a minute, that sounds familiar...
'Speak softly and carry a beagle'
The article and summary say the congressman will be "bound by contract to vote in Congress only as do his or her constituents online."
I'm pretty sure such a contract is unconstitutional (or at least, trying to enforce it would be unconstitutional, as congressmen may not be held accountable for anything they say or do in session (other than cases of treason or breaching the peace).
Rather than being able to *draft* law, I'd rather there were some kind of public, line-item veto power. So the nation as a whole could vote against stupid laws and pork spending.
However, one of the big problems is that we're still quite vulnerable to media manipulation. You see it all the time, like those "Clean Coal - America's Power" advertisements (when they leak more radioactives than a nuclear plant). Or the anti-Net Neutrality ads about people wanting to "legislate QoS away" or whatever when we only ever wanted to stop ISP extortion (we should've picked *that* as a name).
When we don't even see retractions for grossly inaccurate stories (people still tell me about that "car that runs on water" and violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics), it becomes evident that fact-based reporting is more needed than ever.
But as long as people like Fox make more money by reporting lies, well...
Direct Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting for what is on the lunch menu.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Reading TFS, it says they'll be bound by contract, so I'd assume the recourse is a breach of contract suit.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Is that a party whose platform is to develop party platforms?
How about a "Liberacy"? (a) Maybe, but it evokes the wrong sort of popular pianist to appeal to everyone.
So...the word "Liberacy" evokes thoughts of Ben Folds or something?
Hmmmmm.....the invasion of Canada vote!!!! Prepare thyself, Oh Canada!!
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/thepitch.htm
I'm upside down here in backwards little 'ol NZ, hoping that it is just a joke.
Happy moony
Yeah, good luck with that. The House of Representatives has the sole power to punish its members, and only as a body. You specifically CANNOT sue congressmen for the way they vote, it's against the law. Try it and it'll be tossed out. Try it with the wrong congressman, and you might find yourself hauled before a congressional committee facing sanctions.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I saw you write "Liberacy" And thought you wrote "Liberace" http://oregonmag.com/Liberace.jpg
Direct Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting for what is on the lunch menu.
Meanwhile, a Republic is the sheep voting on which wolf seems the least hungry.
Fascism is where the head wolf rises to power by promising to eat only those nefarious black sheep, leaving the rest of us alone.
I'm more a fan of Anarchism, where the sheep watch out for each other, and shoot anything that tries to eat sheep.
It seems reasonable that more power should be granted to people more capable of wielding it intelligently/wisely. Measuring intelligence directly per person isn't necessary--voting is a process of averaging, so as long as we do well on average there is no harm done.
For purposes of assimilating knowledge and making decisions, critical thinking skills and an understanding of propaganda techniques (roughly, rhetoric) are probably a good proxy for more abstract concepts like wisdom. Right now, we grant power according to wealth. Is wealth a good measure of wisdom, or even intelligence? On average, probably better than chance. But how much better? If we could answer this question easily, we would not need to ask it. But looking at the directions in which our society is moving, it is clear that wealth is not a particularly great metric.
How to measure wisdom? Intelligence? Critical thinking skill? Something useful? A good and easy system might be: one vote for highschool graduates, 3 for college grads, 9 for MS and similar programs, and 27 for PhDs. Or whatever. PhDs aren't always wiser than the rest of us, but I'd like to hear a plausible argument that they're not generally more capable of using their brains rather than having opinions spoon-fed to them.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
What is of as much interest to me as the system for scoring the initial wisdom of the leadership is the negative feedback loop that keeps the leaders from going "cuckoo for cocoa-puffs" over time.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Yes, but that's a much harder question.
I propose only that since voting is a means by which everyone can affect policy, we take advantage of the fact that large numbers of people make any one person's vote irrelevant, as long as trends are wise, on average. As voters go cukoo, others go cukoo in different directions, and still others, hot off the press, start voting.
Keeping an individual on track is a much much harder problem, since you can't rely on averaging anymore. Average over time, perhaps, but we've seen how much damage someone can do in 8 years. Perhaps 1-month terms would help? Especially if combined with a more robust system of checks and balances (which is supposed to provide this, but isn't working very well in the USA right now)...
Or perhaps elect 9 heads of state, and do some load-balancing: new decisions get doled out to them randomly. Of course, the current crop would start trying to create messes for each other to clean up, to make the other people look bad. *sigh*
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I propose only that since voting is a means by which everyone can affect policy, we take advantage of the fact that large numbers of people make any one person's vote irrelevant, as long as trends are wise, on average. As voters go cukoo, others go cukoo in different directions, and still others, hot off the press, start voting.
"A means", yes, but the financial contributions to the campaigns are a large component of the output, too. The idea that the voter noise cancels might be theoretically true, but I'm not so sure of the reality.
I submit that what is needed is a healthy dose of transparency.
If there was away to appoint a non-partisan broker,
through which _all_ money used in political campaigns must pass, _period_,
and that broker allowed transparency,
such that knowledge of who bought whom and for how much was globally visible,
US politics would get quite a bit simpler in a hurry.
Instantiating this idea is impossible, even if you could somehow obviate all of the history that got us here: every system implies a work-around, no?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
This article should mention the open source movement for direct democracy. Have a look: http://www.metagovernment.org/