Independence Day Proposal

Some people love traditional ways but progress is a fact. Cameras using film are almost a rarity. Analog TV's will be phased out in two years making millions of sets so much trash. Unmanned drones can bomb brown people and not endanger our own. Who would have ever thought people could phone others without being attached to a wire? Telephone operators, door to door delivery people, and bloodletting basin manufacturers are gone.

The one place progress is stymied is in our government. When transportation was by horse and letters took months to reach their destination, an electoral college made sense. When communication was slow, representative government was probably the only option for anything close to a one man, one vote type of democracy. Times have changed a great deal in nearly 300 years.

The technology for a one man, one vote on every issue is available with computers and data banks. Majority rule is technically possible. Sure it would be hard to sneak in earmarks in bills the whole nation voted on and it would be difficult to write 600 page bills because the populace would grow tired of reading and automatically vote "no", but I don't see the downside here. You say it wouldn't be fair to the poor people who don't have computers? That's what libraries are for. Perhaps only the people interested in government would take the trouble to vote, but I bet the numbers would increase over the percentage that vote now on the rare occasion anyone asks for our opinion between bad and worse. Hell, we could even have a vote of confidence every 6 months for the President and two consecutive "nays" would mean dismissal. Laws would be passed by the people who made the most persuasive arguments not the ones with the most money and we could eliminate the expenses of housing, insuring, and paying for huge retirements for 500 plus parasites and the K street "johns" who fatten them.

People spend so much money seeking public office for a reason. I really laugh when they call themselves public servants when nearly all are self-serving. Let's see some creative approaches to a real democracy here at home before we force it on others. Dave Away From Home had a post about improving our government elections. I say screw electing a government. Let the people be the government.

For those who believe in tradition I hope I have the title right but Gertrude Stein wrote a short story called Tradition in which a man is pulling an old man by a rope. The old man falls but the young man keeps dragging him over rocks and thistles. Finally the old man shouts, "I never pulled my father beyond this tree."