Misrepresentation

These days of instant worldwide communication have brought with them an

opportunity for a new type of government that needs to be seriously considered.
Our current situation requires that we seriously ask what senators, presidents, and
representatives are good for. This question brings a wide variety of answers from
the general public, but it is good to question the core of every concept. So, to
answer it, first ask yourself another more basic question: Why do we have
representatives in the first place? The answer is simple; at the time these systems
were established, communications were limited to physical transportation.

But with the presence of the Internet, and the ability for anyone with a library
card to e-mail the president, what real need have we of representatives?

Here's how it was supposed to work; I as an American citizen live far away
from the place of government, I do my thing, but I have political needs and can't be
involved with my leadership while at the same time maintaining my life because I
can't afford to travel all the way to Washington every time there is a decision to be
made. And neither can the rest of the citizens of my town, village, city, or state. So,
we select a person to go there for us, stay there, and to speak for us since we
cannot speak for ourselves for purely logistical reasons. Later, we were wrongly
convinced that we must be somehow “qualified” in order to speak our opinion on
given issues. Our first representatives were just like as, but over time as the
specialist American politcin was born, a sort of arrogance developed. An idea that
decision making was a skill one had to cultivate, and in the direct logical sense, this
is true, but since our leaders do very little logical thinking about anything other than
their reelection, this point does not apply. In short, contrary to the opinion we’re told
to have, we do know what’s best for us.

Now, there you have the need of representatives and such in a nut shell. That
is why we vote on people and not laws. A question for which I got all sorts of non
answers as a child. Tradition, and socio-psychological inertia, and nothing more is
the real answer, once one understands three things, the original need for
representatives, the simple fact that said need has evaporated, and that those
we’ve selected are doing a very bad job.

The point I am trying to make here is that congressmen and the like are
needless now. They are by and large corrupt, inefficient, middlemen, that could be
easily replaced with something as simple as a web page. And before you spout the
tripe the media tells you about electronic voting being impossible I have simply to
point at the electronic banking and stock systems to refute that contention. Sure
the guys that run DiBold rig elections but that could be repaired with a tiny bit of
oversight. Clearly it is possible to make accountable and anonymous records of
electronic decisions. One would simply have to treat the vote as a dollar and the
voter spends it on one policy, one dollar, per SSN, per decision.

The capacity to communicate instantly over thousands of miles has removed

the root need for a representative style government. I think the populace should be
given the opportunity to vote on inception and repeal of laws directly, as well as
propose them. I would also suggest a time limit on all laws demanding that they be
re-ratified every so often unless they are constitutional amendments. Kind of like
license renewal.

We as citizens of the United States, and of the world, are so accustomed to

being represented by people we'll never meet that we've not even considered what
it would be like to actually have some say in our government. Imagine actually
having a bit of real power. I think the overall apathy and lethargy expressed by the
masses with regard to the entire field of political influence is caused mainly by this
very clear separation of us from the law. If the whole country was given the
opportunity to vote on issues directly -no matter their age-, rather than a handful of
people, I feel that people as a whole would take a more active stance on things. I'm
a 24-year-old male -at the time of first draft, 28 now- and I think it’s fair to say that
those of my generation feel almost powerless to change anything. Getting our point
across on the coat tails of senators and congressmen seems overly aristocratic and
feudalistic to me in this the age of genetic engineering and light speed
communications.

I submit for your examination a hypothetical question which I hope will

illuminate the core problem with representative government and the problem of
implementing fundamental revisions:

What if congress had before them a ‘perfect’ bill, one which did something
monumentally good for all mankind, one that expressed the very nature of human
hope and capability with its perfection of goal and function, one they all could agree
on but for the tiny problem here stated; that passing it meant the removal of
congress. Do you think they would they pass it?

I think we all know the answer and this is why I think a drastic restructuring of
the way we rule ourselves should be at least discussed, and I don’t mean politically,
I mean among ourselves. We clearly aren't doing all that we can with technology.
We should focus these, our most advanced capabilities, Imagination and
Technology, to the one skill, which guides all others, Imaginative Leadership.

We are clearly stagnating. Take the advent of computer communications with

regard to paper use: Think of all the paper you've used that could have been
replaced by an electronic document of some sort. This is but a small example of the
widespread problem I'm speaking of, that problem is not using what we have and
not trusting what we use. Also, all these little things that annoy all of us are
subordinate to the main problem of not being able to make changes to our way of
life; our forced economic and sociological dependence on "the way things are". How
many times have you heard someone tell you “Well, that’s just how it is.”? In
response to your pointing out some social flaw, as if making that statement
somehow removed the speaker’s responsibility to do anything about it.

Instead of concentrating our power as citizens in a rather limited selection of

rich old white male politicians, those overpaid under worked buffers and middle
men of the old representative system, why don't we give it to ourselves? After all,
just whom are they supposed to be representing anyway?

So here it is my petition to the American people. A request that we discuss

and conceive a way to set up a nationwide system, that makes use of internet
communications, for the express purpose of removing the middle men that are
tasked to represent us, but clearly represent themselves and only themselves, that
we restructure our current "Democratic" system into one which is more befitting the
name.

I would ask that we put this to a vote, after we establish a mechanism to do

so.

Sincerely, A disillusioned patriot.