I am apolitical. I do not engage in the political process as it is. I do not vote. I do not participate in political dialogue, for much the same reason I do not gamble: it's a rigged process where only the house wins. Of course, I favor Democracy over Anarchy or Theocracy or Monarchy and other forms of government. However, Democracy as we know it has such elemental flaws that have evolved into the process that it is crumbling at an increasing rate. Let's consider an improved form of Democracy. Let's call this new, improved Democracy D2 and the current form we can call D1.

D1 has not evolved with the realities of the world, and therefore is sorely lacking in its design of a "government of the people, by the people, for the people". Our current form of Democracy was established well over 200 years ago, long before the modern miracles of electronic communications such as radio, telephone, television, computers, internet, email, bio-informatics, encryption, and so on. In those olden days, Democracy (D1) had us vote for "representatives" of the local communities and states to physically meet with each other in the same room to discuss and agree on compromises and establish laws that would be in the best interests of the nation, the states, and the local communities. The representatives were necessary because all of the rest of us normal people were too busy with our farms, jobs, and families to be in those far away central government places to debate each and every issue and to vote on the bills as they came up. This scheme essentially places the Fox inside the hen house.

D2 is essentially the same concept, except that the Fox is removed from the system completely. We get to vote directly on any or all laws we want, any time we want, simply by using the currently available technology (website/email/telephone, etc).

D2 would completely eliminate the process of "Vote For Me" election campaigns, because with D2, every candidate is unnecessary, all become equal in their irrelevance. They are useless, and could eventually be eliminated from the system.

Consider how responsive government would be if we could simply use the computers we have to register our will as quickly as we felt it important to do so. Would we really go to war so quickly? Would we have so much waste and corruption of government individuals? I suggest that D2 would be an order-of-magnitude improvement, a paradigm shift.

You may say that there are many in our nation who have no computer, and would be left out of the process of self government. The obvious solution is to give them all computers. The cost would certainly be a small fraction of what it costs now to run D1. And, it would have the added benefit of improving literacy and education and reducing poverty by giving those disadvantaged people one of the greatest tools for self improvement the world has ever seen. There is a historical precedent to this concept of computer power to all the people. It happened in France, in the early 80's, and it was named Minitel. Another, although abortive, attempt to move in this direction was attempted here in the San Diego, in the late Seventies, by this author, and was named PAL.

To minimize the cost of giving computers to those who don't yet have them, the first could represent those communities having a high density of computer users. Wouldn't some giant computer company (Dell, IBM, HP) donate a number of computers to some poor community as an experiment in Democracy?

You may say that there are many government issues that are so technical or complex that each of us ordinary citizens would be hard pressed to understand all of them in order to make informed voting decisions. True enough, and we are faced with these same issues every day in all areas of human existence. And we find ways to reduce the complexity based on common sense and what we learn from other people who study these issues in more depth. Imagine: if instead of representatives who owned our vote for everything for several years, we could vote, or not, based on the feedback we could get on the internet from distinguished writers, college professors, business people, and lots of other people just like us (in discussion forums, blogs, etc.). And we could make up our own minds as to whether these people had their own self interest involved in their point of view. If it was subsequently learned that a deal had been done out of self interest, we could reverse our vote on that same issue. Corruption would be dramatically reduced. Government would be much more responsive. Billions could be saved, and put to better use. People would be empowered as never before in History.

There is much discussion about electronic voting machines, and how there is the potential for hacking into the machines, and somehow stealing the vote. What is missing from these voting machines is a way of accurately identifying the voter and yet retaining the anonymity that is demanded by the Australian (Secret) Balloting system. Today, computers are being made that can be operated only if the proper fingerprint identification is used, and when coupled with other identification such as password, and subsequent email encrypted positive identification techniques (none of which are used in current e-voting schemes), the system of voting can be made much more bullet proof.

To begin with, the idea is to present a candidate for election on the platform that the platform will be determined by the people! The candidate will do exactly what the people want done, nothing more, nothing less. This representative will offer a website that can be used by the people he represents to log on and voice opinion, ask questions, get answers, and vote. The candidate's job is to offer information on the choices, and supply a voting mechanism that is open to instant analysis. For example, you would know immediately how various types of people (not their actual identities) were voting on the issues, at any time. We certainly have the technology to perform instant analysis of huge amounts of constantly changing data (Google, Amazon, Yahoo, etc.).

The candidate will get elected because it is the first real opportunity for the people to change The System at a fundamental level. The beautiful thing about it is that the people get to decide their own form and process government as well as the content of government. The Speed and Leverage it provides is the icing on the cake.

This ability to get instantly updated analysis will eliminate the current process of polling companies asking rigged questions and giving reports that are meant to inform us but only confuse, or worse, distort the truth. With D2, you get the ability to ask your own questions, and even see what other questions are being asked, and their answers.

D2 is highly effective, quick acting, much less costly and corruption-proof.

We can start this at any level, from the local mayor of a small town, state or federal representative, or Independent Party candidate for President.

Initial funding would build a website, do some startup programming, and start the legal process to register for elections. Visitors to the website would be presented with the entire Proposal, instant access to the analysis software, demonstrations, and a discussion forum for all to participate and learn.

The Calls to Action are: Vote on the idea, Sign Up for the Newsletter, Volunteer time and computer resources to help spread the word, and to Donate, what ever amount they feel comfortable with, as a personal investment in a New Form of Democracy.

Will you support this initiative?

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