NASA recently decided to name its new space station module by way of a national internet vote. The Colbert Nation, talk show host Steven Colbert's legion of followers, seized the opportunity and stuffed the online NASA ballot in favor of naming the module after their standard bearer, Mr. Colbert. It is yet to be seen whether NASA will follow through and actually name the module after the election winner, Mr. Colbert. Nevertheless, the NASA internet balloting, and the Colbert Nation, have showed us how a model of direct democracy could work.
America is a Democratic Republic, not a Democracy. Democracy is a system in which all government decisions are made by the people. This kind of system is more accurately known as Direct Democracy. It existed in Ancient Greek city states such as Athens. Every elector (men of the patrician class) frequently met in the city to vote on legislative proposals, judicial decisions, and the like. To be sure there were elected executive officials that made certain decisions when necessary, but for the most part all government decisions were made by the people. Direct Democracy is fine in a small city, where all the electors are able to meet on a regular basis.
Democracy becomes impractical, even impossible, as the government increases in geographic jurisdictional size. The limits on Direct Democracy are limitations on travel, and communications. Imagine how unproductive you would be to have to travel for days from your home, business, and farm every time there is a legislative meeting.
The internet solves this problem. Now due to enhances in communications technology, we can all communicate with one another instantly, even virtually meet, discuss, and vote without leaving our homes. The Colbert space module is a model of how this can work.
There is a distinct advantage in direct democracy, versus representative democracy: decisiveness. Our modern representative form of government is actually hampered by telecommunications technology, not enhanced by it. In a world where everyone can instantly learn what is said and what is done over the internet, outrage and political correctness, dominates. No government proposal, such as naming a space module for instance, can get accomplished when the name offends some group, or fails to adequately represent some group, or interest.
One major example comes to mind: the re-building of the ground zero sight in downtown New York City. Almost eight years have gone by since the towers fell and in that time literally nothing has been done to re-build the ground zero sight. Its sad really. The most powerful nation in the history of the world cannot re-build the sight of its most tragic domestic attack in almost eight years: not a monument, not a building, scarcely a plaque, statute, or memorial of any kind. The reason is a hyper-sensitive populace, made more responsive to perceived offense, by the internet.
Political correctness has run amok, largely due to everyone being plugged in, all the time. Unfortunately elected representatives face the brunt of political correctness scrutiny and can therefore get nothing done. Here is how it works: a politician proposes a plan for a building including a name, and a blueprint. Some group decides that their particular ethnicity, or cultural heritage is underrepresented, or that the building is somehow offensive and they go online and rail against the politician and the plan. The media, having taken its cues from the internet for at least five years, picks up on the "outrage" and reports it, and then the outrage mushrooms. The politician cannot afford to stand up to the outrage, and he withdraws the proposal.
All is not lost. The internet can be used productively in a democracy, and the Colbert space module is the model. If there is no elected representative to focus the outrage on, no strawman who represents the insensitive or politically incorrect proposal, than the group's (or groups' ) outrage does not act a veto, but merely a voting block.
In the NASA internet voting model, every citizen who had cause to weigh in, weighed in and voted. The Colbert Nation was more mobilized than any other interest group, and their members signed onto the NASA sight in greater numbers than anyone else, and they won for their man, Steven Colbert. The module now has a name, and no one person is responsible for any possible offense, or lack of cultural sensitivity for the name. And, no one has any reason to be offended, left out, discriminated against, disenfranchised, etc., because everyone had a vote. This is decisiveness, created out of the inherent fairness of the direct democratic process.
So, thank you Colbert Nation and NASA. You have provided the model of the future of direct democracy in the nation and in the world.
More to follow.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Drive for Political Irrelevance
There is a bill presently making its way through the Colorado Legislature which will peg the Colorado electoral votes during Presidential elections to the national popular vote. It is House Bill 1299 and it has passed favorably through the Colorado House of Representatives. If it passes the Senate, it will likely be signed by Governor "Rubber Stamp" Ritter and it will make Colorado irrelevant in Presidential elections. Indeed, it is part of a national strategy, working its way through several states' legislatures to back-door the elimination of the electoral college as we know it, the effect of which will make the votes and interests of all small states, irrelevant.
People forget that one of the major concerns of the Founders during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was tyranny of the majority. The Founders were very careful to check the power of large states in the Federal Government. The nation might never have been founded were it not for the Connecticut Compromise, also known as the Great Compromise which resulted in a bicameral legislature, one house's representatives elected popularly, the other elected by states. The Connecticut Compromise created a check on the power of large states, and ensured the power and relevancy of small states.
The Virginia Plan, named after the largest and wealthiest state at the time, would have based the election of representatives of both houses of congress, on population. So Virginia, the California of the day, would have dominated both houses of Congress. Were this the only idea for the legislative branch, the small states never would have voted to adopt the Constitution, and America never would have been founded.
Like the Senate, which creates equal legislative power among all states, big or small, the Electoral College was designed as a way to equalize the voting power of all states in presidential elections. In 1789 Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York could almost have elected the first president without the support of any other state. The electoral college made this impossible.
Today there are more states, and the states are spread all across the continent, but we still have the problem that certain states are larger than the others. If the electoral college were eliminated in favor of a popular vote system, California, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan - all large states - would dominate Presidential Elections, and the smaller states in the rest of the country would be ignored.
Colorado is an interesting example of being ignored in national politics. The 2009 "Stimulus" Bill, allocated some $787 Billion for various spending projects across the nation. Colorado is estimated to receive almost $2 Billion of the total. Is Colorado's share equal to the per-capita population of the United States? Not even close. The 2006 estimate figures some 4.7 million humans in Colorado, some 1.5% of the national total of 299 million humans. Colorado's offensively miniscule share of the Stimulus will be .2% of the total. Colorado is underrepresented in Stimulus spending by more than 7 times what it should be.
To add insult to injury, President Obama chose a museum in Denver, Colorado to sign the Stimulus Bill, hoping perhaps that no one would notice the slight. The gamble worked, and no one seems to have noticed. Imagine how irrelevant, and overlooked Colorado would be if it delegated its electoral authority to the national popular vote? Colorado is not unique, all small population states will be ignored as irrelevant if the Electoral College is dismantled through bills like Colorado's HB 1299, known nationally as the "National Popular Vote Bill"
A more appropriate title might be the "Middle America Marginalization Bill" or the "Bill to Establish Flyover Country."
People forget that one of the major concerns of the Founders during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was tyranny of the majority. The Founders were very careful to check the power of large states in the Federal Government. The nation might never have been founded were it not for the Connecticut Compromise, also known as the Great Compromise which resulted in a bicameral legislature, one house's representatives elected popularly, the other elected by states. The Connecticut Compromise created a check on the power of large states, and ensured the power and relevancy of small states.
The Virginia Plan, named after the largest and wealthiest state at the time, would have based the election of representatives of both houses of congress, on population. So Virginia, the California of the day, would have dominated both houses of Congress. Were this the only idea for the legislative branch, the small states never would have voted to adopt the Constitution, and America never would have been founded.
Like the Senate, which creates equal legislative power among all states, big or small, the Electoral College was designed as a way to equalize the voting power of all states in presidential elections. In 1789 Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York could almost have elected the first president without the support of any other state. The electoral college made this impossible.
Today there are more states, and the states are spread all across the continent, but we still have the problem that certain states are larger than the others. If the electoral college were eliminated in favor of a popular vote system, California, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan - all large states - would dominate Presidential Elections, and the smaller states in the rest of the country would be ignored.
Colorado is an interesting example of being ignored in national politics. The 2009 "Stimulus" Bill, allocated some $787 Billion for various spending projects across the nation. Colorado is estimated to receive almost $2 Billion of the total. Is Colorado's share equal to the per-capita population of the United States? Not even close. The 2006 estimate figures some 4.7 million humans in Colorado, some 1.5% of the national total of 299 million humans. Colorado's offensively miniscule share of the Stimulus will be .2% of the total. Colorado is underrepresented in Stimulus spending by more than 7 times what it should be.
To add insult to injury, President Obama chose a museum in Denver, Colorado to sign the Stimulus Bill, hoping perhaps that no one would notice the slight. The gamble worked, and no one seems to have noticed. Imagine how irrelevant, and overlooked Colorado would be if it delegated its electoral authority to the national popular vote? Colorado is not unique, all small population states will be ignored as irrelevant if the Electoral College is dismantled through bills like Colorado's HB 1299, known nationally as the "National Popular Vote Bill"
A more appropriate title might be the "Middle America Marginalization Bill" or the "Bill to Establish Flyover Country."
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