THE NEXT REVOLUTION: COULD TECHNOLOGY AND DEMOCRACY MEET?
This article explores what is possible, not what is probable, with respect to the future of democracy. by Mark Vogl
(conservative)
Monday, December 5, 2011
My life experience in elective politics and governance, and the study of history tell me that large change, (revolution) come when one of two phenomena occurs:
a. The interests of two or more powerful groups reach critical mass where compromise is unable to cool the friction inherent in competition, or
b. When the rise of a man (am unaware of any involving women) is connected to a social cause by coincidence or convenience.
Opposing revolution or change are the vested interests of existing special interests and the inertia of human understanding and thought which is as chaotic and self-oriented limiting the ability to see to the horizon and beyond. So it is difficult to say whether the concept of actual democracy will ever meet the potential provided recent leaps forward in technology.
I am a strong believer is democracy for a number of reasons. And these reasons are central to why I ponder whether the practice of theoretical "democracy" will ever be embraced.
First, I believe each human soul to be created by the Creator. And, with that comes a degree of equality which cannot be justifiably taken away by humanity. Just as the Founding Fathers, in the Declaration of Independence, cited the Creator (God) with endowing us with inalienable rights, so I believe the Creator has established the concept of equality through His presence in the creation of soul present in each human body.
Second, that sovereignty is provided to each individual by the Creator, and that we each surrender a degree of that sovereignty to the state. This is not a new, concept, but rather the one practiced by the Founding Fathers when they conceived the confederation known as the united States of America. At that point the sovereignty of the individual was surrendered to each of the 13 colonies. The colonies then surrendered a portion of their sovereignty to the confederacy, or central government as designed in the Articles of Confederation. This concept would be carried over to the Constitution, and evidenced by the Bill of Rights, and the belief that the Constitution was a safeguard against oppressive federal power. The power we see today. With respect to democracy, the practice of it in actual governance being impractical, a representative republican form of government was established first in the colonies, then the states and central government. The people would elect representatives who would be charged with exercising the will of the people. In order to protect the individual from a sporadic will of the people, the Constitution provided for a separation of powers, and the Bill of Rights.
What has occurred in America, over the past two hundred and thirty six years or so, is a morphing of the original America towards the conditions of the Europe of the past and present, where special interests have replaced the will of the people, and the rights and sovereignty of the individual with respect to the actions of the government at all levels. These special interests are a wide array of domestic and international forces who benefit directly from influencing the actions in the national, state, local capitals. The American public, being less interested with infinite number of causes and purposes of the special interests and trusting the concept of “representative democracy” have surrendered their voice. The Tea Party, and to a much small extent, some in the Occupy movement, are evidence of a recognition of the failure of citizenship to stand vigilant against the usurpation of the sovereignty of the individual. These movements are most likely temporary in their form and so democracy will remain in jeopardy.
Liberty is under constant pressure when population density increases. The more people you have, and the more compact they are in space, the more likely aspects of liberty will be chipped away, or eroded through efforts to stop behavior disapproved of by the special interests. Abortion is a perfect example of this dynamic, where despite the promise of the protection of the right to life, the government, through the Courts (supposedly the supreme protector of rights) decided against the rights of the unborn terminating 50 million divinely inspired souls.
This leads to the question; THE NEXT REVOLUTION: COULD TECHNOLOGY AND DEMOCRACY MEET?
The introduction of the internet provides at least two avenues for the re-establishment of the value of the individual with respect to the governance of this nation;
a. Decentralization and dispersement of the location of the representatives as they did their primary function, or
b. A revolutionary form of government which retains much more governmental decision-making to the people through the use of the internet.
The first option centers on using the enhanced communications technologies and systems to dismantle the physical being of Congress, and thus allow Congressman and Senators to remain in their home state as they do the business of Congress. Debates, committee meetings, votes, etc. all could be done via the communications system. Face to face meetings between representatives would decline dramatically, and the special interests and lobbyists would have to expend great amounts of energy, time, and money to travel the nation to meet the five hundred plus representatives. Simultaneously, these special interests would be in competition with the local citizenry and interests, for the time of the representative who would almost always be “in the district” or his/her home state.
In addition, this would place a distance between the bureaucrats of Washington, or the state capital, and the elected representatives. And it would decentralize media coverage, placing an importance in local news media personnel absent today. One great advantage to this mode of operation would be that representatives would or could retain longer their “rookie” mind set, meaning they would remain closer to the mindset of the citizenry who elected them, and be less influenced by the “beltway mentality” which permeates the ruling elite.
A second means for the execution of this revolution would be even more substantially in that it would require a complete re-evaluation of the role of the individual citizen in protecting his or her own rights and participating in the governance process. Because of the internet it would be possible to expand the role of the citizen in governance, to conduct many more referenda with respect to government decisions, and to re-establish the “town square” concept of government initially used in the early colonies. Power could “trickle down” to the citizenry and the principle of “the consent of the governed” which was destroyed with the conquest of the South and its surrender at Appomattox, could be re-established.
Could this revolution occur? If I were to attempt to predict it, I would say it would first occur in a novel or other fictional story. It could occur in a third world nation yet to be invaded by substantial progeny of the Founding Fathers, or possible on a distant planet, decades or centuries now where
The failure of the American nation as reflected in its present is in large part due to the failure of the American people to practice citizenship. The oppressive powers of government have expanded as individual Americans, culminating in the society as whole, have surrendered liberty for security and materialism. So will the revolution occur here? Not likely in my view. This type of revolution is unique to men who see liberty and individual freedom as the paramount priority, and those are not the Americans of today.
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