Kicking out the politicians for good... A Pure Internet Democracy. Give us your best ideas

reply to post by ATS4dummies


Making sure every vote gets counted!

Solution: All votes go directly online that can be fact checked. At the voting booth you receive a receipt with a randomly generated number that you can plug in this number online and see who was voted for. This would allow people to verify their own votes and etain their anonymity.


The website would be something like google where where there is just one box. While the poles are still open you input that number and it returns:
Random#373927293
Order vote receiv: 300th vote
Obama/Biden: 1
Zip Code: 99999
When the polls end all votes are browsable online in sequential order by the order received.Everyone would be able to verify and this would eliminate rigging.

We all know our votes really do not make a difference anyway so how about changing the game? Too many people in Politics have been in their chairs for way too long.

How about changing their term's to say 2 yrs so others can have a chance to get in the door? They have locked them doors and keep the same people in over and over so nothing changes.

The best it could do is someone gets in who can actually make a difference and worst case is they would have to fight with each other for Power and shake it up some.

Might leave the oil company's and other's with money, lost somewhat. Or at least make them spend more

I say make voting mandatory. imagine who would actually get elected if everyone had to vote and not just 60%

reply to post by ATS4dummies


You're right that democracy only advances as fast as the communication technology that accompanies it.
Newspapers brought us to post WWII. TV got us here. But television is breaking down as a viable conduit of information and now we have the internet. But we have yet to see the democracy that accompanies this new advance in technology.

I say, no democracy. Voting can always be skewed. The game can always be fixed. In this day and age, why do we really need governments? Protection...from...other...governments.

The next democracy isn't democracy. It's all of us doing what we do just because it needs to be done. And its lots and lots of people "working" less, in the traditional sense. The tasks of our generation, right now, (cleaning the environment-stopping nuclear war-protecting ourselves from chemicals-renewable energy) cannot be solved with money or politics. They can only be solved by us, doing them, together as a culture. That is the next democracy. No jobs, no money, no voting, no "representatives", no pundits, no trash lives and trash economy and trash politics.

How disappointing that no-one responded to my last post. Let me try again.

There are really two kinds of democracy.

In an assembly democracy, the whole electorate participates in devising policy, passing laws and governing. All issues are put to a general vote. As I said earlier, this works well for small polities. Ancient Athens, the classic assembly democracy, had a voting population of about 30,000 (rising to 60,000 during the Peloponnesian War) though it was often hard to find the quorum of 6,000 needed to allow the Assembly to pass a law. Still, it worked for about ninety years before it crashed.

For larger polities, such as modern nation-states, assembly democracy doesn't work so well. One of the problems is, of course, ensuring that everyone gets to participate. Modern communications may solve that, at least once everybody everywhere is online, but there are other problems too. The biggest one is that people often disagree viscerally with one another, and will not accept the will of the majority. This makes large assemblies ungovernable and causes them to break up, resulting in anarchy or civil war and opening the road to tyranny.

The other kind is representative democracy, where the voting population elects representative to pass laws and govern. Its flaws were clearly pointed out in the OP. However, it works for large polities where assembly democracy is impractical. Representative democracy also tends to solve the problem of faction by ensuring that politicians who are good at negotiation and compromise, and have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the state, are elected — and are vested with the power to compel people to obey the law.

I believe that the need for leaders is instinctive to humans, hardwired into us by biology. Whenever people try to function without leaders, chaos and slaughter are the result, until a weary populace is only too eager to welcome a strongman who will put an end to the general violence by monopolising it for himself. I think it is best to avoid such outcomes by choosing leaders we can live with, and kicking them out when they start to go bad. Representative democracy, despite its flaws, does that pretty well.

reply to post by wrabbit2000

Sorry for the barrage of replies, but this is easily the most interesting thread on ATS for a while, and so far the participation has generally been of a pretty high standard.

Wrabbit, your concern for educating the populace has been a refrain in the history of democracy for a very long time. And yes, an ecucational (at least, a literary) qualification for voting has also been tried many times. The trouble, as John Stuart Mill pointed out, is that once you start extending the franchise it's pretty hard to stop. And taking the vote away from people is nearly impossible.

That doesn't mean you're wrong. It's great that you brought up that issue so early in the thread. But making democracy work is hard; the thing is always a work in progress. You've raised a very important issue. Let's see how it pans out.

reply to post by theMediator

Your suggestion becomes your chosen screen name.

I think the idea you propose has a lot of merit, though I'm not sure about the 50:50 split.

In republican Rome (which was an oligarchy), there were officers called tribunes who represented the will of the people in the Senate. Of course, the system was easily corrupted, and when Augustus made himself Emperor he quickly made himself a tribune too, just like any popular dictator would.

Still, now that we have the technology of near-universal polling, your proposal might be workable. The thing is, don't we have it already? It seems to me that Western politicians are, if anything, too sensitive to opinion polls, so much so that they sometimes do the wrong thing instead of the right one because it helps their popularity.

reply to post by ATS4dummies

My counter to this is the shining *example* of the ATS forum educating all of us in ways we have difficulty finding elsewhere... Are we not all here because we get news and information not offered by the elite controlled communication channels?

Ah, yes... but ATS and its like only exist because of constitutional protections on freedom of speech which were first put in place by a small, undemocratic elite whose concept of 'we, the people' was basically rich, cultured white men like themselves. A paradox, eh?

reply to post by LewsTherinThelamon

a decision should only go into motion if the votes are unanimous for or against.

How do you avoid paralysis of government?

People need to come to an agreement on needs, what is required just to live a reasonably happy life.

Bring back the constitution, understand it's not perfect, know it was better here once than it is now.

Get rid of the Federal Reserve, reign in the corporations by revoking corporate personhood and re-writing charters and imposing limits for failure to perform, get America back to a semi-isolationist state like the past, there will be only a possibility for improvement then...

I think everyone, or many people here in the U.S. will just keep being reduced to a point of impotent rage, and turn on one another in a civil war, agreeing only on the fact it was wrong to do so before it ends..

MyHappyDogShiner
Bring back the constitution, understand it's not perfect, know it was better here once than it is now.

I've never understood the logic of phrases like this one. If they had the constitution back when it was better and things have gotten to this point, what does bringing it back guarantee?

Astyanax
reply to post by LewsTherinThelamon

 

a decision should only go into motion if the votes are unanimous for or against.

How do you avoid paralysis of government?

The same way you avoid the paralysis of a jury. Deliberating.

Although, sometimes a hung jury is the favorable outcome.

daskakik

MyHappyDogShiner
Bring back the constitution, understand it's not perfect, know it was better here once than it is now.

I've never understood the logic of phrases like this one. If they had the constitution back when it was better and things have gotten to this point, what does bringing it back guarantee?

The constitution has not brought us to this point.

Later amendments to the constitution have brought us to this point.

LewsTherinThelamon
The constitution has not brought us to this point.

Later amendments to the constitution have brought us to this point.

Never said it did.

I said that it didn't prevent it.

reply to post by LewsTherinThelamon

The US Constitution was put together in secret by a small elite who had no intention of allowing anyone but a handful of rich white men to have a say in government. It was ratified and put into place by that elite. The vast majority of the population of the United States of America had absolutely no say in the matter, for they were not allowed to participate in the democratic process for many years, indeed generations to come. The same goes, by the way, for the first eleven amendments to the Constitution.

Now, tell us please, do you regard the Thirteenth Amendment as being among those which 'brought us to this point', as you put it?

How about the Fourteenth Amendment?

The Nineteenth?

The Twenty-Second?

The Twenty-Sixth?

The Twenty-Seventh?

Will you even reply these questions, point for point? I wonder.

I hope you will.

reply to post by daskakik

Of course it wasn't better. There was never a time when the USA was more democratic than it is now. People have a tendency to hark back to a past Golden Age, but such an age never existed, in America or anywhere else.

reply to post by Astyanax

The US Constitution was put together in secret by a small elite who had no intention of allowing anyone but a handful of rich white men to have a say in government.

The Constitutional conventions/debates were not a secret.

It was ratified and put into place by that elite.

"Elite" is very vague. The founders were the representatives. There were many men involved when the Constitution was being hammered out.

The vast majority of the population of the United States of America had absolutely no say in the matter, for they were not allowed to participate in the democratic process for many years, indeed generations to come. The same goes, by the way, for the first eleven amendments to the Constitution.

1. The United States is not a democracy. The founding fathers knew that all democracies failed. The United States is a republic.

All democracy is mob rule, which is just another form of tyranny.

Here in Ohio where I live, it was not too long ago when the people of Ohio voted on a bill to stop patrons from smoking in businesses. The bill passed because of the "will of the majority." The "majority" should not have the right to dictate what decisions a business owner decides to make in regards to his or her business. Instead of throwing this decision to the mob, it should have been left to the ones with the right to make the decision: the property owners.

Not everyone should have the right to vote. Originally, only land owners had the right to vote, and that was because they had a vested interest in the republic.

Seriously. It's not hard to understand the intent of the founders. They wrote their thoughts down on paper. The Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers come to mind.

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, in a republic, the sheep has a gun.
-Benjamin Franklin

Now, tell us please, do you regard the Thirteenth Amendment as being among those which 'brought us to this point', as you put it? How about the Fourteenth Amendment?

Actually, yes, the 13th and 14th amendments are the very two amendments that have caused the most damage to the republic. Those two amendments, along with the reconstruction acts directly after the civil war, warped US law. Which is why we have seen the rise of the corporation. Every amendment after them (all the ones you listed) have only perpetuated the perverted law that those two amendments created.

Here are some law definitions from 1856 (Bouvier's Law Dictionary):

BODY POLITIC, government, corporations. When applied to the government this phrase signifies the state.

2. As to the persons who compose the body politic, they take collectively the name, of people, or nation; and individually they are citizens, when considered in relation to their political rights, and subjects as being submitted to the laws of the state.

3. When it refers to corporations, the term body politic means that the members of such corporations shall be considered as an artificial person.

NATIONS. Nations or states are independent bodies politic; societies of men united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage by the joint efforts of their combined strength.

2. But every combination of men who govern themselves, independently of all others, will not be considered a nation; a body of pirates, for example, who govern themselves, are not a nation. To constitute a nation another ingredient is required. The body thus formed must respect other nations in general, and each of their members in particular. Such a society has her affairs and her interests; she deliberates and takes resolutions in common; thus becoming a moral person who possesses an understanding and will peculiar to herself, and is susceptible of obligations and rights. Vattel, Prelim. §1, 2; 5 Pet. S. C. R. 52.

3. It belongs to the government to declare whether they will consider a colony which has thrown off the yoke of the mother country as an independent state; and until the government have decided on the question, courts of justice are bound to consider the ancient state of things as remaining unchanged. 1 Johns. Ch. R. 543; 13 John. 141, 561; see 5 Pet. S. C. R. 1; 1 Kent, Com 21; and Body Politic; State.

NATIONALITY. The state of a person in relation to the nation in which he was born.

2. A man retains his nationality of origin during bis minority, but, as in the case of his domicil of origin, he may change his nationality upon attaining full age; he cannot, however, renounce his allegiance without permission of the government. See Citizen; Domicil; Expatriation; Naturalization; Foelix, Du Dr. Intern. prive, n. 26; 8 Cranch, 263; 8 Cranch, 253; Chit. Law of Nat. 31 2 Gall. 485; 1 Gall. 545.

STATE, government. This word is used in various senses. In its most enlarged sense, it signifies a self-sufficient body of persons united together in one community for the defence of their rights, and to do right and justice to foreigners. In this sense, the state means the whole people united into one body politic; (q. v.) and the state, and the people of the state, are equivalent expressions. 1 Pet. Cond. Rep. 37 to 39; 3 Dall. 93; 2 Dall. 425; 2 Wilson's Lect. 120; Dane's Appx. §50, p. 63 1 Story, Const. §361. In a more limited sense, the word `state' expresses merely the positive or actual organization of the legislative, or judicial powers; thus the actual government of the state is designated by the name of the state; hence the expression, the state has passed such a law, or prohibited such an act. State also means the section of territory occupied by a state, as the state of Pennsylvania.

COUNTRY. By country is meant the state of which one is a member.

If you've been following along you just realized that the United States (all of the states together) is not a "country." The states are the actual countries. The United States is a Union. Nationality was derived from the state that a person was born in (meaning they were state nationals). The 13th and 14th amendments changed that, they basically just mucked it all up.

The Federalist Papers
The Anti-Federalist Papers
The Law of Nations

reply to post by LewsTherinThelamon

The Constitutional conventions/debates were not a secret.

They weren't?

Those who drew up the Constitution at the Federal Convention that began in Philadelphia on Friday 25 May 1787... deliberated in strict secrecy. It was agreed that the Convention proceedings could not be 'printed, published or communicated without leave', a point that James Madison raised in a letter to Thomas Jefferson in Paris a week after the Convention opened by reiterating that not 'even a confidential communication' about the issues and votes was allowed by the Convention's own rules.

The constitution makers ordered the Pennsylvania State House, where they were meeting, to be guarded by sentries; they agreed that debates would not be officially recorded; that the official journal would show only formal motions and roll-call votes tabulated by state; and that the proceedings were to be locked away until such time as the new Constitution was ratified.

Naturally, the press had to be kept well clear of the tough business of writing a constitution for four million people. George Washington, military leader turned presiding officer, angrily chided one of the delegates for absentmindedly dropping his notes on the floor of the State House. 'I must entreat Gentlemen to be more careful, lest our transactions get into the News Papers, and disturb the public repose by premature speculations,' he said. James Madison was equally adamant. 'No Constitution,' he later said, 'would ever have been adopted by the Convention if the debates had been public.'

Source

More about the source

1. The United States is not a democracy. The founding fathers knew that all democracies failed. The United States is a republic.

That statement identifies you as a reactionary. In fact, the terms are not mutually exclusive. The United States of America is both a democracy and a republic. It wasn't always so; on the whole, the Founding Fathers despised democracy, as their preserved writings clearly show, and did their best to restrict the franchise to rich, educated, mostly slave-owning white men like themselves.

Responding line by line to the tragedy of errors in your post would be tedious. Educate yourself with some real history, rather than the political propaganda dressed up as history you seem to favour.

As for this,

The 13th and 14th amendments are the very two amendments that have caused the most damage to the republic

the amendments in question are those abolishing slavery and giving black people the vote. I think that says everything about your political views that needs to be said.

reply to post by Astyanax

How do you avoid paralysis of government?

The normal state of the government should be paralysis.

The best use of a conventional vote is as a brake or veto. The citizen has a way to stop something dysfunctional, incrementally created by law, custom, society or government.

Starting anything new at the level of society wide government is at best risky, and most likely an abuse of power. No group of people can process enough information or guestimate sublimely enough to design and run programs which are universal in scope, i.e. governmental activities. Especially not the normal voting person, who should be busy pursuing happiness full time. No new program is a good idea.

The accessible knowledge of Science, Art, and Business encompasses vast dimensions. Any level of intelligence could be the first to find a new way to do something. Each person, finding their own way through the colossal mega-gargantuan galactically enormous super titanic catalogue of known or suspected facts and ideas would lead to a golden age that lasts forever. Waiting for government to permit each and every possible human action will use forever the other way.

The best way to vote is by choosing which, what, how and who to spend time or money on.