What is Direct Democracy?

Direct Democracy is a political system where everybody has a vote on all issues related to managing our country.
Simple and straight forward, huh?
Theoretically it is simple and resonates with our desire to be heard, but practically it feels unsettling.

The term “Direct Democracy” is sometimes used to describe state initiatives and referendums.
While this is a valid smaller form of direct democracy, what is referred to below is full direct democracy.

Now let’s expand our definition of Direct Democracy, and include the idea that the citizenry will also formulate the laws.
That is, we won’t be voting YES/NO on laws that someone else designed.
We will democratically be discussing and forming the directions we want to go.
The citizenry will take the power from top to bottom.

Compare Direct Democracy to our current “Representative Democracy,” where we vote for other people to make our decisions.
“Representative Democracy” is what we started with in America, and what our constitution spells out.
Therefore, we have work to do in changing our constitution.
The article called “How to get there” presents a pathway to a peaceful constitutional change.

See also: What’s wrong with Representative Democracy?

In Direct Democracy, the people make the laws, and so Congress is basically unnecessary.
The President can also be eliminated, at least as a position of power.
All government workers, President included, become our employees.
Direct Democracy is a vast shift in the power structure.

Interestingly, our country’s founders wrestled with the idea of pure direct democracy, but couldn’t feel confident in its workings.
They were likely right given that time period.
When one considers having to regularly ride your horse to a meeting place, for both discussion and voting, the task seems impractical.
But we now live in a different type of world.

Today it is not unthinkable to consider a new style of democracy.
It’s remarkable that it has only been in the last 20 years or so, that we now have computers and the Internet in virtually every home and pocket in America.
The Internet has the potential to provide both the debate forum, and the voting mechanism needed for Direct Democracy.

Consider how unique you are to live in this period of time.
Just as in 1776, it is our time to look hard at our situation, recognize where power is out of control, and bravely determine to fix it.
We can be patriots who demand more freedom.

A pivotal tool will be a democratic Decision Website, owned by the citizenry and run by the citizenry.
A place where every perspective from across America is discussed, analyzed, and fact checked.
Every pro and con gets challenged in a logical fashion.
And we emphasize finding solutions that incorporate all of the pros, and remove or lessen the cons.
Imagine even now, how we could benefit from such a tool.

P.S. This (decisionwebsite.org) is not the Decision Website.
This is a website about the concept.

When you envision having to vote on every issue in America, it seems overwhelming and almost ludicrous.
But if we think outside of the box, address troublesome issues, and recognize that there are factors we can change…
then the task is less daunting.
Please consider Direct Democracy and read on.
We have a lot at stake.

See also: Why haven’t I heard of Direct Democracy?

So let’s break it apart.
 Scope – What will the people control?
 Information – How will “the people” get solid information?
 Voting – How will people easily vote?
 Responsibility – Do we all have to vote on every decision?
 Majority – What keeps the majority from dominating the minority?
 Government – Who will do the day-to-day operations?
 Judicial Courts – What role will courts play?
 Complexity – Are the nation’s issues too complex?
 Money and Taxes –What if we vote to give ourselves new benefits?
 What to Expect – a list.

 Scope 
This plan for a Direct Democracy can go beyond our U.S. government.
We can use the same system for our state government.
It can apply to our city and county governments.

Once we create a workable Decision Website,
we can apply that tool to all kinds of applications.
Most notably, we will use a form of the decision website
to let us democratically manage the Decision Website itself.
We can decide on employees, website features, policies, and finances.

We can also use this model to democratically run a media network.
It can be applied to any type of organization such as a Red Cross.
Government agencies can use it as their management tool.
The tool will be revolutionary wherever applied.

 Information 
How will we, the people, get information to make decisions?
This is a crucial element.

The existing model of the media will not work.
Television, newspapers, magazines, press feeds, etc. are either privately owned, or in the case of non-profit organizations, controlled by a small group of people.
Someone is picking and choosing what you hear, and strongly suggesting how you should think.
We will need to solve this with a democratically run media network.

Interestingly, the same type of Decision Website we will build for voting,
can be used to democratically run a media network.
We can then decide how news is acquired and presented.
We can eliminate sound bites, sensationalism, and spin.
Our media network can guarantee a balance of perspectives.
It can summarize as well as go into depth.
Our media can revolutionize our understanding of the world.

See also: What’s wrong with today’s media?

Our current government keeps a lot of secrets.
This secret information is critical to understanding our world.
Of course, some secrets like defense are necessary.
But government also restricts the flow of information to protect their personal reputations, to further their personal careers, to hide impropriety, and because they don’t trust us citizens with knowledge.

Transparency is the answer.
But not how the term is used by today’s politicians, where they pat themselves on the back, and offer to show us “some” material.
We need transparency that assumes everything is available, and only items that the people deem acceptable, are able to be kept secret.

We will primarily use the Internet to get information.
But, no more Google this and Google that.
It is time to get our source of information structured, and trusted.

We will build a Decision Website where the information is organized, and all sides are presented.
The Decision Website is not only our tool for voting, but it is our tool for discussion.

Issues are debated, fact-checked, synthesized, and simplified.
No more sound bites, misleading commercials, political spin, TV personality opinions, biased politicians, and repetitive psychological persuasion.
It is all logical thinking from here on out.

But who controls the Decision Website?
This is critical for trust, so who is it?
Well, it’s us… the citizens.
We fund it, we choose the employees, and we decide how the website will be run.
It is a democratically run website, that results in a democratic information system.

Notice that there is no government involvement, and there is no private ownership of this website.
It is ours – yours and mine.
In a sense, the Decision Website becomes the focal point of government.
It supplants Congress and Presidential authority.
It reveals what the people want to do, and then government employees carry it out.

Let’s explore this Decision Website a bit.
Who gets to add content to the decision website?
Any of us.
There are a lot of smart people in this country, who would love the opportunity to participate.
We are replacing the 535 decision makers in congress with millions of bright individuals.
And for every person stubbornly pushing a personal agenda, there will be countless people with the desire for fairness, and wanting the best solution for the entire country.

The Decision Website is not a clunky Internet forum, or a thread of comments.
It is a website that helps us manage our information, reducing redundancy, culling inaccuracy, broadening our thinking to include all sides of an issue, and pushing us to summarize as well as give supportive data.
Most importantly, it helps us move towards resolutions accepted by the vast majority.

Some folks will participate heavily, writing ideas and embracing the discussion.
Others will play the watch-dog, up-voting and down-voting each aspect of an idea, whether it be for accuracy, balance, or clarity of writing.
The discussion will always be moving toward a conclusion.

Every challenge and every point of view gets addressed, and if not… then we rally, and step in to make our concerns known.
The Decision Website will have techniques to ensure that a simple majority, cannot abuse the minority positions.

Many of us will just watch the debate, contemplate the issues and ensure our perspectives are represented.
There will be a drill-down effect, where readers start with graphical displays of the arguments, then on to summaries with straight-forward language, and the ability to dig in whenever we want more detail.
Statistics and analysis will be available, to see which areas of an issue are contentious, where folks claim they are not being heard, how differing opinions are being resolved, and what alternatives are being suggested.
Polls will show us how the rest of the country is feeling, and thank goodness, they are our polls… trustworthy polls.
It will be enlightening.

Most of us will wait for the result of the discussions.
Watch-dog groups will keep us informed of the progress, and whether our participation is needed.
The end product will be clear and succinct summaries.
The language must be understandable for all of us.

As a nation, our understanding of issues will deepen.
The Decision Website is going to revolutionize our democracy.

See also: How does the Decision Website work?

 Voting 
How will we vote?
We vote on the Internet using the Decision Website.
You don’t have to vote on everything, but you can if you want.

Remember, by the time we vote…
the issue has been debated, our voice was already heard as we up/down- vote each sub-topic, and the issue has been amended
to satisfy as many opinions as possible.

Our first main vote will be for our intention or national opinion.
For instance if the issue is immigration, our national opinion consists of our thinking and approach to admittance, illegal entry,
national security, border protection, impact, etc.
It is what we want to accomplish in an immigration policy.
No legalese here, or any cryptic language, or overwhelming detail.
However, when we vote, our national opinion becomes binding.

Laws will follow that must spring from our national opinion.
The Constitution will require this fact.
We will vote on both the national opinion and on each subsequent law.
The language of laws needs to be very precise.
It can be extremely difficult to understand this wording.
Lawyers and experts will then have the prestige of being our critical watchdogs, and ensuring that the law reflects our full intent
from the national opinion.

How do we make the Decision Website secure, so it cannot be hacked or manipulated?
We can use a computer method called blockchain, which was invented for the digital currency, Bitcoin.
Blockchain’s design spreads the system across an unlimited number of computers, such that a hack into one computer gets rejected, because all of the other computers recognize the fraud.
It’s a system in the hands of the people.

The question of “who” can vote is a bit problematic.
Citizens must register on the Decision Website.
Some people do not trust the government system with another registration process.
But this and many other distrust issues go away once “we the people” are in control.

See also: More on Registration

Each citizen’s account needs to be secure.
Passwords, biometrics, and secondary security methods are all available.

As to the question of everybody having a computer and Internet access, this is so easily solved.
First, your cell phone is a computer and can be used for voting.
Your cell signal is essentially Internet access.
And then, we simply take an ultra-thin slice of the Pentagon’s 600 billion dollar annual budget, and ensure that everyone has Internet access.

 Responsibility 
How can each of us be responsible for all of these decisions?

First, many people will love to get involved.
This is their world and they want a say-so.
We will have millions of watchdogs overseeing our government.
Compare this to the 535 members of congress that we now must trust.

Second, everyone’s vote is not critical on every issue.
You are not voting for a representative, who can do whatever they want for the next four to six years.
You are voting on a single issue, a direction, or an opinion.
And besides, it will be easier to change our initial decision, when new data arises or our thinking needs to change.

We can make participation easy for ourselves.
Imagine that there are advocacy groups, for people that hold a particular point of view.
The advocacy group is a watchdog of our system.
For example, consider an ocean wildlife advocacy, for spawning salmon and such.
You can subscribe to them, follow their lead, or simply use them to help monitor issues.

The advocacy group can issue warnings that alert you to upcoming votes, and allow you to easily vote based on their recommendations.
You don’t have to follow their lead.
You are not locked in to the advocacy group.
Advocacy groups are not a political party with a broad set of opinions, but rather a focused concern.
Advocacy groups won’t work like special interest groups, that weasel their way into the favor of representatives.
They are just a tool.

See also: Direct Democracy will consume our time

 Majority 
What keeps the majority from unreasonably ruling over the minority?
For instance, “Scenic homes must be abandoned to restore natural habitat!”
Urban and suburban dwellers are easily the majority voting bloc.

This is a very important question,
one that the founders wrestled with in 1776.
It is why we have the Bill of Rights to protect the individual, and the Senate has two representatives per state, regardless of the state’s population.
It is also why we have districts within the state for representatives to protect the voice of the sparse rural community.
The majority should not be allowed to oppress the minority.

One of our first steps in Direct Democracy should be to guarantee our Bill of Rights and our basic individual freedoms.
Our new bill of rights might be more robust than our current one.

Next, we learn how to fairly compensate and protect people, when they suffer the consequences of our decisions.
If we want to stop fracking, then the loss of drilling jobs needs to be solved as well.
It is to our advantage and should be a common goal, to give everyone a secure and good quality of life.

The big step though, is to move from a simple majority rule to a consensus model.
Consensus attempts to get everyone on board with each issue.
Consensus has the goal of addressing everyone’s concerns, and adjust the solution accordingly.
It is looking at the pros and cons of each side of an issue, and resolving them as best we can.
Most of our divisiveness occurs when we simply choose a side, and dig in our heels.
But if we address each point, incorporate the pros and offset the cons, we can come to a new direction to pursue together.

The Decision Website will have methods to force consensus, and protect minority opinions.

We might find that citizens actually have very similar ideas.
We all want a good quality of life.
We all demand freedom.
The polarization that is now apparent in the country will diminish, as it was caused by our current two party system, and by the misinformation in our media establishment.

See also: What is Consensus?
See also: Majority Rule

 Government 
Who is the government in a Direct Democracy?
Well, they are employees of the people.
They will be following the will of the people.
Government employees will have no real power.

Our current government is divided into departments, and further subdivided into agencies, councils, and boards.
There are 15 departments like: Defense, State, and Homeland Security.
And lots of agencies like: Forest Service, FEMA, CIA, FBI, FAA, ATF, and IRS.
They are all referred to below as agencies.
Agencies carry out or administer our laws and get things done.

These agencies are controlled by the branches of government,
but the executive presidential branch controls most of them.
Within each agency is a hierarchy of directors, deputies, managers, etc.

There is currently a great deal of power in an agency, both with the President or whoever controls it, and within the agency structure itself.
While an agency must follow the constitution and the laws we make, there is lots of interpretation, regulations, and wiggle-room
for the agency to act outside of the will of the people.
This agency power needs to be restructured, so as to let citizens serve as watchdogs, and eventually participate in decisions.

It is a huge project to transition agencies and their millions of employees, to a new form of management.
It won’t be done quickly, because they provide critical services.
It will occur after we have made good progress on forming opinions and making laws.
After all, the agencies need to reflect our new way of thinking.

But to mitigate their power immediately, our transparency requirements must go into place.
Within reason, everything they do and all of the decisions, must be documented and posted online.
They currently have a public face, posting online and in print what they want us to know.
Now we want to see what goes on internally.