A first step to doing what you talk about necessitates the people having the power to create laws.
About half the states already let people create laws through a process called "initiatives" or "propositions". However, each state process is different and most if not all of them are flawed. Furthermore, there is no way at the federal level for anything similar.
However, there is a proposal on the table called The National Initiative (see www.ni4d.us) which would add a federal ballot initiative process to the constitution and would put in place the most basic infrastructure that is needed for any government by the people: a way for the people to effect change by being able to enact laws. With that basic underlying ability, everything you talk about can be built on top of it.
If this isn't clear, let me try to give you some examples.
With NI4D, people would become a true peer group of the elected representatives. The people as a whole would be able to propose and make laws just like the elected representatives (think of the people as one large congress).
Once you give people the power to make laws, their involvement in government increases, they become more responsible. The people in fact don't make worse laws than the representatives.
Initiatives are a sort of "bolt-on" to existing government, it does not fix what isn't broken. Initiatives don't take away anything from representatives, however, they do keep them in check. If the representatives make a law that the people don't like, the people just overturn it.
Please check out www.ni4d.us, it's very much in line with what you have posted.
Michael Grant
Discussion on:
Message 4 of 1
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