A Program for Direct Democracy Through a System of Proxies 2

One of the key aspects of this program is an attempt to redefine the roll of government or rather to return it to its democratic origins. There is a lot of fighting in current American politics, and I would imagine in other developed democratic nations as well as to what Government should be doing and should not be doing. The issue ultimately boils down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly a democratic government is, those who argue for a limited Government are conceptualizing the Government as an entity separate from the people which can be seen to be opposed to the People in an antagonistic relationship. Perhaps this has become the case in certain respects and where that is true a change needs to be made. In truth the Government of a democratic nation is, and should be, nothing other than the organ through which the collective will of the citizens is expresses, the collector and manager of the shared resources to which all contribute and within which all collectively decide on what is in the best interest of the group and how best to achieve these goals and what resources to devote to them. One of the problems facing our current system is the growth of the bureaucracy and the institutional inertia it has brought about. Some argue that the Government has gotten Too Big, in some respects they may be right, but they are over simplifying the problem, size is not fundamentally the problem. The Government needs to be as big or small as is necessary to achieve the goals as they have been determined by the collective will of the people. In this way there is something to be said for a smaller more dynamic entity with the flexibility to respond to changing situations without being overly tied to continuing the course and policies of the past. Bureaucracy will continue to be a problem as institutional memory and experience is an important part of any functioning organization and comes with both positives and negatives which will need to be balanced. The advantage which can be exploited by bringing the voting and legislative power closer to the people is to remove the incentive currently dominating the political process of retaining power. The power will much more widely spread out and also much less stable. This instability will also have negatives to it which will need to be identified and consciously mitigated. The goal will be to give the Government the ability to change quickly when needed without allowing it to swing wildly at the changing whim of the people. It is my contention that such swings are unlikely as the general opinion of the populace is unlikely to change quickly without significant cause. Further it will be important to limit the power of the Government regardless of the public opinion as even the will of the majority can be tyranny. The outcome desired by the majority is to be assumed as the best outcome but it must still abide by the generally agreed upon ideals of the society to be determined as guiding principles above the particular opinions of any given moment.