07/21/2007
Direct Democracy NOW! by Alfons

This is a great idea, so don't just cast it out of hand. Direct Democracy, yeah you read that right. Why not Direct Democracy? Some would say "well that would be mob rule" Yes it would be mob rule, but it would be our mob, not their mob. If you don't want the people (the mob) to have power and control, then who do you want to have power? Do you want the elite to be the ones who make all the decisions, with absolutely no oversight, and the people have no recourse? Well that is what we have now, isn't it? I have heard these objections to Direct Democracy ad nausum, "the people would abuse their power, and oppress minorities" they say, or "the people would vote themselves tax breaks, and vote our country's treasure into their own pocket" (isn't that where our treasure belongs?). These objections in light of the abuses of our rulers/government by the few, the powerful, the elite, who have done exactly what the anti-direct democracy critiques fear the people would do. Did the elites vote themselves tax breaks? Did the elite vote our country's treasures into their own pockets? Yes they did! So these critiques of Direct Democracy, undermine their own power, and defend, and enhance the power of the elite, who have clearly abused that power. How dumb is that?

Dream of this: The people by means of referendum and vote are endowed with the power to impeach any public servant, at any time, for any reason. If we the people had such power, both Bush and Cheney would be long gone. The war in Iraq would have never started, and Supreme Court Judges would actually interpret the laws instead of having opinions about them. Health care would be universal and reasonable priced, because our representative public servants would listen to what we the people want, and would do our bidding, or they would be fired. The hidden inflationary tax of a Federal Reserve Central Bank would be gone as well.

Here in the USA, we the people are like a high level corporate manager who can't fire anyone. I have often wondered why we the people have the power to hire (elect people into office), but not fire (un-elect people out of office). Oh sure we can just not vote for the bad politician next time, but then the politician stays in office doing great damage until they run again and are not elected.

You know I like the Constitution, but I don't love it unconditionally, even the founding farters (sic) knew that it needed to be amendable; even they knew it was very likely not perfect, and would need tweeking as systemic flaws reared their ugly heads. The one huge fatal flaw in our revered Constitution is that we the people have virtually no power, or at least not enough power to remove corruption and poor management quickly and before it has a chance to do great harm to our country. I actually believe that if we the people had the timely and accurate information we would be much more likely to do the right thing, than a mob of interest conflicted rich elites would. Yes Direct Democracy would accomplish all this and more, and it would happen fast, and we the people would likely never take impeachment off the table. The people would use their new powers of Democracy for the greater good, and this new power would enhance their interest, and diminish their apathy, because then the people would have something they could do about things. I think apathy is a symptom not a disease; it is a symptom of powerlessness. Now all we the people need to do is amend the Constitution.

By means of Truth we shall wage Peace,
Alfons v911t