A Digital Direct Democracy For the Modern Age 308
New submitter lordofthechia writes "Last month the White House created an online petition system through which constituents can directly voice any grievances and concerns to the US government. Any petition that reaches 25,000 signatures (5,000 originally) is promised an official reply. This weekend the first petitions will be closing, and already many have far exceeded the required number of signatures. Is this the way for the voice of the electorate to gain more weight in modern politics, or is it the web version of a placebo button? Will the President's office really consider the top pleas, which include petitions to Legalize and Regulate Marijuana, Forgive Student Loan Debt, and Abolish the TSA?"
That's not direct democracy (Score:5, Informative)
Direct democracy is where the people are in control of the decision-making process. This is a mass-petitioning system, where the people are granted by their ruler the ability to make a plea. This is functionally no different than a king saying he will grant an audience to any mob of more than 25,000 people who appear at the castle gates (how nice of him!). There is no guarantee that the ruler will act according to the will of the people. Even calling this democracy at all is a real stretch and a betrayal of the values of the founding fathers.
Real direct democracy is possible with internet tools, but this isn't it. The options for real democracy are:
1. Mixed democracy, where we keep the current representative system, but the representatives are legally bound to act according to the input of direct-democracy-style websites. For info on this, see the E2D initiative:
http://www.e2d-i.org/ [e2d-i.org]
and the many national member parties:
http://www.participedia.net/wiki/E2D_International#Signatory_Parties [participedia.net]
2. Collaborative governance, where actual decision-making is directly and solely controlled by a collaborative consensus process. This system also requires a break from the status quo of hierarchies of governing states: it is starting by providing tools to replace the governments of tiny organizations, and will scale upward from there, disrupting and replacing the current system bit by bit, peacefully and slowly. Because it is consensus-based, it avoids the pitfalls of mob rule.
For info on this, see the Metagovernment project:
http://www.metagovernment.org/ [metagovernment.org]
and the many constituent projects which are involved in it:
http://www.metagovernment.org/wiki/Active_projects [metagovernment.org]
Not likely (Score:5, Informative)
Obama has done this before. The number one question submitted was whether legalizing marijuana would contribute positively to the economy, in terms of providing jobs, tax revenue, and freeing up resources spent on law enforcement.
Obama laughed and said no [telegraph.co.uk]. There was no discussion of any of the issues. I see no reason to believe he will take this any more seriously than he did before.
How long does he think he can keep up this charade of openness?
Re:Diff between Greeks & Electronic Direct Dem (Score:5, Informative)
Go outside. Ask 1,000 people for directions to somewhere that they don't have a firm grasp exactly where is located. You'll get a bunch of answers. A few of them may be right, many of them will not be.
Your analysis assumes a static system, where you ask people a question and get an answer. Collaborative governance is a continuous process: consensus is never achieved at the outset: it is attained by debate, collaboration, and synthesis. All original proposals get rejected, and most subsequent ones do, until some genius comes up with something that actually works for everyone. That is something actually worthy of consensus.
Direct democracy is 3 wolves and 1 sheep voting on who gets eaten for dinner.
No, what you are describing is majority rule. It has nothing to do with consensus governance.
By comparison, I would describe our current system as three wolves charged with the safety of a thousand sheep. Guess what the wolves have for dinner every night??