Government vs or by The People?
In the news today, both mainstream and alternative, you’ll find ample stories depicting The Government as some entity of its own, as if it had its own life… made its own decisions. You’ll find The People responding to The Government as if to confirm this is true, treating it as if it was an individual force that we have to support or fight. The People have referred to The Government as the entity that keeps us safe and The People have also referred to it as the entity that oppresses and enslaves us… the entity we must fight to ensure our freedoms.
As the video depicts above, this “entity” is but one tiny dot compared to The People; and yet we often feel powerless against it! Or on the other side of the spectrum, the “entity” is but one tiny dot, and yet somehow it has the power to “protect us and keep secure our freedoms.”
GOVERNMENT INC
Either way you look at it, it seems we have all come to accept The Government as an entity of its own. But is that so true? Does that make any sense? Sure, I can hear many of you saying “its been incorporated, so yea, it is an entity of its own”… but still yet, “The Government” was an idea born from “The People” to facilitate improvements to our society that make everyone’s daily lives better. We needed an organization to plan and execute the building of streets, the protection of the innocent from the crazy humans amongst us, the relations with other “Governments”/People. It was an IDEA that somehow we have given autonomy to!
But what is the reality? The Government is OUR system that WE put in place to HELP all of us. In theory thats what it is supposed to be now, but do you know ANYONE that voted on income taxes, state taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, capital gain taxes, corporate taxes, import taxes, and the systematic elimination of the freedoms that all humans have the right to enjoy? WHO does all this benefit? When you follow the money, it seems to be benefitting major corporations, not the people.
So what happened? It seems like major, greedy, power-hungry corporations (driven by people) took over our Government and started making all the decisions for us. Why are we allowing it? Do we even realize it has happened?
DEMOCRACY
de·moc·ra·cy
/diˈmäkrəsē/
Noun
A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
Most people would agree that Democracy is good. It is the way to enable governments that are BY the people. But how many of us have actually taken an honest look at Democracy as if it was the first time we heard of it? Most of us are raised on the notion, the feeling of it. We don’t question it, somewhere inside we just feel that it is good, and when we don’t like what our governments are doing, we feel as though Democracy is not being adhered to. But perhaps the problem is with the very system itself?
A FIRST LOOK
Looking at the definition above, lets consider what it means:
A system of government by the ELIGIBLE (huh?) population through elected representatives (eh?).
First of all, what makes the population NOT eligible? Luckily as a society we have recently been able to transcend our differences of religion and race so that does not (anymore) play a role in eligibility. Now it seems to be just your age and your nationality… not so bad, though could argue some points here.
Now we get to the real nitty gritty… “through elected representatives”. OK – Who here adores politicians and thinks they always do what their election campaign says they’ll do? Honestly, no matter which side of the street you stand on, in support of Government or against it, I think EVERYONE agrees that our “elected representatives” don’t do a good job at all at representing the people. So who do they represent? This part is painfully clear…. you see, it costs MONEY to “campaign” and try to get voters to vote for you. So is it only rich people that can be politicians? Probably, but even so, they would never spend their OWN money doing this! So whose money are they spending on expensive marketing campaigns? Enter the corporate interest lobbyists. People representing major corporations, whose only goal is to increase profit margins and market domination, are the ones plunking down millions of dollars into the politicians’ pockets. So if they are the ones paying for the marketing that the people ultimately buy, whose interest do you think the politicians represent? Doesn’t take a genius to conclude on this one.
But now is this the real problem? Do we need to get rid of corporate money on political campaigns, get rid of lobbyists whom only represent the greed and power of corporations? I mean, corporations don’t have a right to vote, they are not citizens, they are not eligible for their own vote, but yet, they control way more than the people do!!! How interesting. So yea, maybe one good way of dealing with this is to eliminate lobbyists and corporate donations, but we all know what would happen after that… it’ll just happen in the shadows (as much of it does anyway even now).
So what else can we do?
Consider the very nature of “elected representatives” and where it came from. It was born in a world where technology did not exist, where we still wielded swords and wore white wigs as a sign of authority. It comes from a really ancient and outdated world where the people were so disconnected that the ONLY PLAUSIBLE way of creating a democracy was through elected representatives. There was NO WAY to hear the voice of each citizen!
But does that hold true today? Do we still need to elect representatives to make all the decisions for us? In a world dominated by the Internet and computer technology, we humans are communicating at an astronomical rate when compared to just 100 years ago.
Why aren’t we eliminating the old wigs and adopting a more sophisticated approach to a Government By The People? We have the technology today, world-wide, to enable each and every citizen an individual vote on EVERY SINGLE ISSUE on the table!
Sure, its corruptible as well, all things are. But there are ways of reducing that corruption, we’d figure it out. But as it stands, we have a level of corruption running rampant in all countries today that is completely out of control! This old system of elected representatives is NOT working and hasn’t worked for many generations! It is remarkably outdated I’m surprised people still waive their banners to the notion!
We live in a world today where each individual has the ability to give THEIR PERSONAL VOTE on every single issue. Could you imagine a Government that is actually responding to the majority vote? We’ve never had it though we were raised to believe we did. Could you imagine the drastic advances we would enable through a true majority vote? Sure there’d be conflicts, when a vote is so close to 50/50, but an enlightened culture would not simply oppress the minority, instead, a think tank could assess the issue and come up with alternative solutions that might make the vast majority more happy with the conclusion. There’s no end to human ingenuity, but whilst we remain driven by survival and greed, we cannot realize our true potential!
The Government is YOURS!
And so is its MONEY!!!
Stop referring to “The Government” as some separate entity, some separate force, some other thing you must contend with! The government is an organizational idea put in place BY The People to HELP The People!!! The government doesn’t have a job, it doesn’t make its own money, it has no salary! We all think of the government as having a massive amount of money, TRILLIONS of dollars, oooooh how rich!
But if it has no salary, no job, doesn’t actually WORK for a living – where does it get its money? FROM YOU OF COURSE!!! Through these “taxes” that nobody actually voted on, you GIVE the government YOUR money! But since the Government is YOURS, then SO IS THE MONEY! All that money the Government has IS YOURS! It BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE!
Shouldn’t you be a little pissed that the government has been spending 10s of MILLIONS of dollars to build a simple bridge? Who the fuck authorized that nonsense? Why are we allowing the government to overspend on roads, bridges, and general infrastructure? The companies that get the contracts are WAY OVERCHARGING for their services, just because “hey its the government, they got the money” – they set a standard to the pricing, with a profit margin of 50 million percent!!! It doesn’t NEED to cost that much! Why are we not demanding that social services be provided by companies that give 100% transparency to their costs, with a proper profit margin fixed in? Do you realize how much of YOUR MONEY is wasted on over-spending?
Thats not even to get into all the things YOUR government is spending on things that YOU would NEVER agree to! Why are you not demanding 100% open books on ALL government spending? Why aren’t you demanding a voice in every dollar spent?
Could you imagine? What would happen if THE PEOPLE actually decided what the money was spent on, and what salaries the government jobs pay? Holy shit is all I can say – what a new world that would be! Suddenly we’d have a world being shaped FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE!
As it stands, major corporations driven by power and greed are controlling our governments. By their own purposeful actions, THEY have put the governments in debt (to whom is a whole other topic). By natural reasoning, it is the CORPORATIONS that can assume this debt since THEY have been calling the shots that created it. The people are hereby FREE of all previous debt generated by these corporations, and take back their government to be operated as it was originally intended, BY THE PEOPLE.
As the video above suggests, WE HAVE THE POWER!
I feel that the problem in the USA at least is that the political machines have really subverted the will of the people. I think back to the last few elections. Half of the folks do not vote, half of those are voting for the lesser of two evils, and some percentage of them are so uninformed by the media types that they are not making an informed choice (as if they ever had a choice to behind with). A functioning democracy cannot be run by a few partisan fanatics rigging the game in the primaries.In the end, everyone loses.
I am pissed about them wasting all my tax money on stupid stuff but my reasons are deeper than that even. I have no problem building bridges or libraries, what I do take some issue with is the initiation of force to build it. If I were not to pay my taxes for them to waste it away, men with guns would show up and force the issue. I can buy the old social contract spiel to a certain degree to build infrastructure but the system, as described above, is too corrupt and incompetent to manage such operations.
I know exactly what you mean. Could you imagine each individual being able to vote through a technology driven tax budget? With enough checks and balances in place that we do our best to prevent it from being rigged, a internet polling system that allows the people to vote what percent of their taxes gets spent on what departments/programs would radically change our governing structure. It is OUR money, and yet the major corporations have hijacked it. Follow the money that our governments spend and you’ll find some major corporation sitting at the end of the street – charging outrageous prices for things the people don’t even want. Its the people’s money, and its their right to decide how to spend it, and its even their right to withhold funding if their Government fails to spend it wisely, indeed beyond even their right, its their RESPONSIBILITY!
Last election cycle I was involved in a 3rd party primary that had interesting premise. People online could discuss and answer questions and nominate candidates for this presidential primary and then in the end we all vote online. Their party registration option popped up in all 50 but it ran into big problems. The candidates people wanted, (Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, ect.) were not going to come onto the ticket.
I like your idea of the people deciding where the money will go to. I don’t know who would watch the watchers in such a scenario. To run an operation of that size, to allow everyone to vote online, and vote only once, it is going to require infrastructure, the kind that you get from govt./corporation, but both of those, as we know, are too crooked and would likely rig the whole damn thing.
I like the idea of a fair tax that would be just a national sales tax, no more income tax at all, keep it simple ya know? I think the citizens should be able to vote on what that % should be, then they could vote on what that money goes towards like you were saying. The voters could only elect to spend up to the projected budget and not a dime over. Growing up, that’s a lot like what my family did in deciding things about family vacations.
It’s important that everyone who is voting about the budget has a little skin in game. The idea under the current system, where the half that receives the most government help, pays exactly nothing for it. They would vote every time to get more benefits for themselves and raise the taxes on the more well off because that’s simply their own self-interest. They would have skin in the game if they were deciding how much the national sales tax would be.
Anyways, here’s a short video link to the American’s elect video. It was a really neat idea, I wish it had worked. The basic idea of people voting online and deciding what is important to them was perfect, it just needed execution and enough people to jump onboard.
Holy smokes thats awesome! AmericansElect.org – fantastic! Thats EXACTLY the education that needs to get out there, EXACTLY what I’m talking about. The old bipartisan system is just not cutting it, never has, and this video eloquently explains it. Thanks much for sharing that!!
Sure there are always ways to corrupt things, watchers with watchers with watchers with corruption, but think about what corruption is based on too. Greed, Power, Fame, Occult, etc. A new kind of governing system where the people’s vote actually count is just the first step towards a new kind of economy and world where people are no longer whoring themselves for dollars, but rather learning their own interests and talents and seeking to contribute to the world discoveries and solutions.
Its hard to see how we get from where we are to an idealistic society, but its also hard to see how to get from NY to LA every step of the way. So what can we do? Know where we want to go, and put one foot in front of the other. One our way there we’ll figure out which detours to take, which roads need fixed, and maybe even realize new destinations are in order….
… One foot in front of the other!
I’m fairly optimistic about the future. The current system sucks but I think the human spirit and ingenuity will overcome it. They can only push the envelope so far and keep this up so long before people put their feet down and say enough.
I think the key to affecting this change is the Internet. It’s easily the most democratic medium and there is very little effective control of stopping ideas and movements on it. If cat videos and go viral and get tens of millions of views on youtube, it shouldn’t be a big stretch for them to put aside the partisan politics and just say “we’re as mad as hell and we’re not going to take this anymore!”
I think a more organized American’s Elect could be a force in 16 but they should work to get candidates all the way down the ballot. Have more local offices and presence to give choices in congressional districts. The local issues seem to effect me far more than the national ones we all hear about. It should be easy too, online voting. If we can get roving robots all the way to Mars, we can run an online election.
I tend to be optimistic because in my view of reality, others cannot bind me to an unwanted experience. So I am free to create the experience I seek from life. Thats entirely another topic.
When thinking more linear, this video will give pause to anyone’s optimism lol
They are so disengaged! When they need those rights they will get pissed. It will probably get a lot worse before it gets better.