Posted on 04/17/2010 8:17:55 AM PDT by Big Bureaucracy
The US Congress is a redundant body. Two hundred years ago “We the people” had to send our representatives to Washington DC because it was just not possible to fit all of us under the Capitol roof. Today we don’t really need representatives. We can easily vote on any piece of legislature electronically while eating chips on our couch.
Technologies give us the chance to abandon the sleazy politicians and to govern through a Virtual Congress where every registered voter is a Congressmen or Congresswoman or Congress-something-in-between. Here is how the Virtual Congress can work. Every bill proposal can be downloaded into the Virtual Clerk docket. Voters can choose which bill to co-sponsor. If a certain bill gets enough support (let’s say 500 000 thumps up) national Up-or-Down vote for the bill is announced by the computer.
All registered voters represent themselves and through electronic signature vote to approve or kill the bill. 60% “yes” votes are needed for the bill to pass. If approved the bill is printed directly on the President’s desk. Imagine all the special interests fighting for your attention instead of circling the Capitol all day long. Imagine you getting a sweetheart mortgage deal instead of Senator Dodd. Imagine you getting Caribbean vacation instead of Rep. Rangel. Imagine you too will be called Senator not only Barbara Boxer.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigbureaucracy.com ...
Nonsense. This isn’t Cuba or Venezuela.
Now, if you rethink your idea and get the representatives out of Washington, make them stay home and telecommute to Washington, that’s a great idea. It would do wonders to stifle the influence of lobbyists and would keep representatives in their districts with their constituents.
That will probably save us money. But why do I need representative when I can vote myself?
A hacker’s dream!
Wrong. Fifty one percent of the populations would vote to take everything from the 49 percent.
Then we become a true democracy and lose all the safeguards the founding fathers gave us. True majority rule would spin out of control almost immediately. All the current “Blue” population centers would dictate our destiny.
It is all fun thinking exercise - I am not getting serious with it, but it is fun to speculate.
Besides the implication of electronic fraud by the certainly criminal Obama Regime, the very absolute last-ever thing I want to see is TV living room voting of the leech masses, period. I want it as difficult, time consuming, expensive and troublesome as it can be, frankly.
We will fight hackers instead of Acorn - every system has its fight.
How many decide now - 216 for ObamaCare?
Virtually all of Congress nees to be in the same place at the same time. They all need to see the same Tea Party movement at the same time the next time it descends on Washington en mass.
Because all it would take is one rigged vote or one bad idea with a great sales pitch to completely destroy the nation.
Take a look at our founding documents and our history. Then, look at countries run by dictators. You’ll find that all the ones run by dictators do things the way you describe (minus the internet).
Hugo Chavez loves national referendums.
Our system of checks and balances works to slow things down, so bad ideas are less likely to make it through. Some of that has been perverted or circumvented by our politicians, but we can change that if we have the will to do it. Your way will only end up in tyranny. On our current course, we may end up at the same place, but at least we have a chance to avoid it. Your way offers none.
You say every citizen would vote on every bill but who writes the bill in the first place?
I really do like the idea of getting the slime out of Washington and making them stay in their districts with the ‘little people’. I wonder how many would quit because of that.
Citizens have to organize themselves and propose bills - than they have to get enough citizen to support the bill before the bill is put for a national vote.
It is in the full text of the article.
direct democracy would be a terrible idea
Are you saying that our representatives know better than us? That we are stupid like Bill Maher think :)
Many liberals agree with you that direct democracy is a terrible idea. Check this old article:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982257-2,00.html
No. I’m saying that our government is designed with a system of checks and balances for a reason.
Doing things your way is the way dictators do it. Are you saying you like dictators? Because that’s what people like Sean Penn like.
The people who elected Obama and Pelosi and Reid would be winning those electronic votes.
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