Hi all,
I have put together some ideas about Direct Democracy that I believe could get some traction. It is in a website that should launch 8/24/2019 called DecisionWebsite.org. I am posting my articles here on Steemit as well, so that I have an alternate repository. Steemit is important because of the quality of its thinkers. Feedback would be welcome.
Here are some key points:
The concept of Direct Democracy should be broadened to not only include voting, but also the debate and the formulation of the laws. With the Internet, we can now technically achieve this.
Imagine a website, the Decision Website, that is structured such that it can encourage a raucous debate and move towards consensus positions. Assume for a minute that this debate website works, and allows every opinion to be heard, all bad behavior to sink out of sight, protects against the majority with consensus techniques, forces natural common language, and results in decisions that make sense.
The model of that decision website can also be used in a democratic workplace, to administer organizations, or manage government agencies. Most importantly, that model can be applied to run the Decision Website used in Direct Democracy. That means that our tool (i.e. Decision Website) is democratic in and of itself, and therefore can be trusted by us all.
Using that same democratic website model, the people could create a media network that is owned and run by the people. We can decide that we want the news balanced and not sensationalized. It becomes news we can trust.
The articles that I have put together are inclusive. AnComs and Alt-Righters are equally invited. Why? Because everybody has opinions that they feel are not being heard. The Decision Website is the way they can be heard. If your opinions have validity, they will be recognized and the broad spectrum of the nation will hear about it. Even if you find yourself in a tiny minority, you have at least presented your perspective and people now understand you better.
A pivotal point is that we should solve the democracy question first, without have to sort out all of our differences about economics, lifestyle, world-view, trust, and religion. Those are matters for later. This is why we can all come together about Direct Democracy.
The proposed plan is to bring about Direct Democracy using the U.S. Constitution. As you might know, constitutional change is a bumpy road. But consider that we can build a Decision Website without touching the government in any way. We don't need permission, can democratize the process, and do this first step as the "people" without having to change the government. If we succeed, then we have a common voice that we can rally around. We can use it in our election process and dramatically improve our national discussions.
I welcome your feedback.
Norman
P.S. I am in my 60's. I originally started writing this to the middle age folks of my generation that are sitting on their couches and don't have an inclination to challenge their political or world-view ideas. It's written in basic language, stresses patriotism, does not touch much controversy. It is not an intellectual treatise by any means.
