Direct voting by the people on big issues, particularly financial issues such as spending, taxing and national budget approval.
(contact us at: votingdirectly@gmail.com)
Getting direct voting for the people on big issues is made possible using modern communications technology (like the internet and cell phones), I have never said it would be easy to do. I have said it is the right thing to do if we want more democratic participation in government, a purer, better and more direct democracy, and a more just society in which each person will be allowed to vote directly on the big issues that concern him or her like taxes, national borrowing, finances and war (Not only do I believe giving more power on big issues to the people is the right thing, but I believe it is the wise thing and will form a government that works better than the previous one did. The idea is right theoretically but will also work better. It will be an ethical as well as a pragmatic success.)
I have never said more power to the people would be an easy switch over or that the change would result in perfect government. The change will certainly not make things perfect, but the change will make things more democratic and better. The people will come out ahead with a vote directly on issues, instead of having their decisions made by a strangely Byzantine and patronizing political elite locked in two party combat..
For the people to win, the politicians must lose. When the politicians win, most everyone realizes that in way the people will lose. It is an odd political wind that blows nobody bad. Yet I tell you plainly that when the people finally win the right to vote directly on big issues, which is technologically inevitable and politically predestined, the politicians will lose some of their power to the people, Hooray! Good riddance of some of the rubbish of questionable and flip-flop politicians.
However, the politicians will be miserable over any loss of power, since generally politicians live and evade for power. Politicians are often re-election addicts who for their shot of power or at power may do or promise most anything. (If you will examine the present situation of the country, you will see that this is true.)
The politicians, as you will see, have done some strange things and seem to have submitted to oddly anything, I suggest they now represent the people in a very poor and sluggish way and the people may represent themselves better by their voting on big issues. Certainly they should not vote on all issues but on big issues quickly by cell phone, internet and electronic media. (People use credit cards to charge items on cell phones, and pay bills on the internet. If we the people, can trust our money to the media, why can't we trust our votes?) That means a new method of voting that allows the people to vote and take part, on big issues.
But at the mentioning of any idea of change or innovation, you may expect to hear the politicians plus their appointed or employed elite in Washington literally screaming in outrage at the thought of any change in a lazy antiquated two hundred year old , and very undemocratic system of voting that they presently use.
This website urges you to consider updating our methods of voting to the present century. Updating our voting methods will enable us to consider a more direct democracy now that we have the modern technology to implement it
The right of a person to vote on the big issues that affects him if possible is one of the inalienable "rights of man" Enjoyed in ancient Athens and the New England Town Meetings, it was lost for ages because of the enlargement of democracy, but is now once again made possible through modern technology, cell phones and the internet. More direct voting on issues is possible once again thanks to technology.
More power now can be transferred to the people. Merely to change politicians in the present system is not sufficient change. Without some solid structural adjustments, the old habits of misrule or no rule by politicians will be back in two, four or six years as the politicians change. (And you should bear in mind that the people's will is put through a political sausage grinder by the politicians and called government, the result is "ground up government"
The changes recommended on this website are a safeguard from more misrule by politicians. This lack of responsible leadership is shown clearly in such things as the nearly bankrupting debt, instant wars, etc. The solution is to transfer some power on many great decisions such as finances, taxes, borrowing and wars give that power directly to the people who are more to be trusted and wiser in common sense than the politicians. This is not only the morally right thing to do but the government will be better and more democratic for it...
We need to guarantee the people some from politicians. The public's real enemy more likely may be an army of unaware fifth column politicians who have abused the people's trust with wrong votes or no voting at all on some issues. (Remember the people have almost never gotten to vote directly on issues,) just on off the wall "party" politician personalities...preferably nice looking for television appeal. Therefore the people must be held largely innocent until the representative political "gag" is taken off and the people have a direct vote on big issues. (We are working for the time to come when inevitably the voters shall be let out of the closet.)
Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States, advised the country to "Let the People Rule". It worked and the country enjoyed a new infusion and rejuvenation of democracy. We suggest the same is needed for our time as well as the future of our children, and generations to come. Whose fate we must be very mindful of.
Our answer is a decentralizing step and a return of the government to the people. I suggest that this is a desirable thing in a time when much of what the people get as the answer is more power to be given to Washington and more power to be taken by politicians. I say, no more involvement of the people is the answer.
More voting power to the people. That is the way the country can best be saved and rejuvenated. Even if the people vote wrong on issues, that they are voting on issues is right. Right lies more in the method we use than any one conclusion that is reached. If the system is right, we will still sometimes err, but we will do so less than if the system used were wrong.
Let the people vote directly on issues that the nation may advance once more in democracy,. The right answer for America is what it always has been. Liberty ! Expand it ! The slaves were freed. Women were given the vote. The time for another positive democratic change is here. May the people vote directly on big issues now that it is possible and implement it as quickly as possible. The time has come. Let Freedom Ring !
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Dr. MacLeod is a poet who writes politically involved poems inspired by the hope of change. Through his poems the writer advocates political changes such as a Constitutional Amendment requiring the direct vote of the people on many types of issues affecting them. One of these issues is financial. It involves control of money, national spending and taxing.
His poems suggest the spending, taxing and control of money and the finances should not be left in the hands of politicians who generally follow party lines and misrepresent the people. If changes are not made in the present political structuring, the national debt and the financial debacle of these times (as well as other challenging situations) will constantly be repeated in future history. He argues America may one day suffer severely for not changing the system as some of the political poems urge..
The poet suggests that before the present time, quick direct voting was neither possible nor feasible. But with modern technology, voting (with a social security number, pin and telephone or internet) can be done literally overnight. The people now can have a direct vote on issues at all levels: local, state and national. The poems considers technology to be an infinite blessing that will eventually shift the country towards a more direct democracy and away from so much control by politicians who may (and he thinks often do) misrepresent the people's will.
When asked how he thinks direct voting by the people will work, the poet says, “ I believe in the people. They will make mistakes, but generally the people can't do worse than the politicians have done and, I think, they can do much better. There is a great deal of common sense in the people that does not seem to be represented by our political parties or elected politicians. (The poet suggests that if you don't believe this, look for yourself at the present debt and observe America's financial situation as well as other political tragedies.)
The poet points out, particularly in the poem, “Democracy Comes In Waves,” that over history, expanding freedom and enlarging participatory democracy comes in waves: the American Revolution, the freeing of the slaves, votes for women. The next wave in expanding democracy is here: more direct voting of the people on many issues at all levels of governing.
The enabling of the new direct voting is through use of new communications. This new union of technology and politics will be one of the great breakthroughs of all political history. The poet says the struggle for more direct democracy and more direct involvement by the people is now on. The poet announces the New Era.
He warns us in his poems the coming of this new era WILL be a possibly long and enduring struggle, which will need a creative minority to nurture it. But more democracy, as has been seen in so many previous political waves that involve the expanding of power to the people, will ultimately come. It is ordained, as the poems sing, by the will of Providence, history and the people..
A New Era of more power to people, more freedom through participatory democracy, real democratic progress is on the way.