Failed Representative Government

The opinion that we need Representatives to give us laws , that government means Representative government is wrong. Government means laws. Laws mean voting.  We vote all the time, but not for laws. That is just wrong. We vote for lawmakers, not laws.

In an Actual Democracy the people vote directly for the laws under which they live.

It is our responsibility, privilege, and right to vote directly for the laws under which we live: to live in an Actual Democracy.

Your belief that you cannot do your job and have enough time and energy to understand the laws being proposed - or proposing laws yourself - and then voting on them, is wrong.

We spend time and energy listening to 15 second sound bites, 30 second political commercials, reading 140 character messages, telling each other how nice, smart, interesting, and interested we are.

We spend time on CNN, FOX, CBS, NBC, Comedy Central, etc. On Face-book, blogging, tweeting, but very little on thinking and listening, and speaking to each other. We don't spend enough time on governing but we spend plenty of time n being governed.  And we complain on how bad, or inefficient, or indifferent to us the government is. And we don't act to change it.  Well we try and get together and complain in groups: Occupy Wall-Street, Direct Democracy, ROAR, and other sincere but ineffective complaint groups. And they make no difference. They quickly become irrelevant. The power structure, the Representatives and their supporters, dismiss the honest efforts to hold them rediculous by assigning them  to the 'lunatic-fringe'.

Disgruntled citizens groups rarely get anywhere.  But some do. The ones that grab the hearts and minds: Slavery hit us, hurt us, in our moral gut. After many organizations and the underground railroad came the civil war. Six hundred thousand Americans died to free the slaves and put 3 Amendments on the Constitution -13, 14, and 15.

Woman's suffrage, the right to vote for women, took 50 or 60 years to get done. It got done and resulted in a Constitutional Amendment, number 19. So ideas espoused by a few grew to be supported by the many and changed the nation, made the nation "a more perfect union". It can happen again, it should happen again, and it will happen again. The people will accept their inherent responsibility to make and vote on the laws that direct their lives, that constitutes their very freedom, and secures them their political equality with each other. Technology now makes it possible, we must make it actual.

This nation collected 2.9 trillion dollars, 2.9 x 10 to the 12th power dollars, and spent 3.8 trillion dollars. Our 538 representatives decided how it should be spent. Of all the unreasonable things in life this has to be high on the list.

Outside of how to spend the tax dollars - and how many to collect - Congress spends very little time and effort. You've heard the expression: "It's all about the money". Our Congress is "all about the money". Of course how it is spent influences the course to the nation. And the philosophy behind the spending of the money influences the direction and status of the nation, internally and internationally, militarily, economically, trade wise, etc. And we all know these things. But we don't really think, thoroughly, about 500 people spending nearly 4 trillion of our dollars, and how crazy that is.  And they make the other laws. Banking laws, so that the old usury laws are gone and banks and credit card companies change 30% interest on many, many, of their cards. Congress permits it, makes a virtue of it, it's for "the good of the people".

If the people are the government - and I'm certain that they are - then why aren't we governing? Because of history and logistics and because we haven't spent time thinking about it.  You have to think about it now!

Five hundred and thirty eight representatives decide how to spend 1/3 of your earnings every year. And they have failure after failure after failure to show for it. Schools are failing, or have failed. Our bridges, roads, tunnels, railroads, post offices, airports are all falling apart.

The major banks and financial institutions, manufacturing, energy, farming, pharmaceutical,  and military-industrial complex all have laws passed for their benefit and as mentioned we pay 30% interest rates.

The last five wars have been fought without congress declaring war: unconstitutional.

We are not secure in our persons or our personal effects - our personal communications: unconstitutional - see the 4th Amendment.

We torture people in violation of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendments: unconstitutional.

Our representatives don't even try to follow, let alone honor, our founding documents.

Our prisons house 2 million of us and more every day. More than all the other nations combined. Why?

Congress is intent on framing and making public opinion, not on listening to it.

The Representative's personal aggrandizement, power base, television exposure time, is more important to them than us, their constituents -- And its always been this way!

We know the problems.  This rant just now is 200 years old. If we don't change it, now that we can, 200 years from now it will be the same rant for the same reasons -- if our representative governments haven't destroyed the planet - or at least all of life - by then.

Our entertainment time is spent on sex, sports, and man's inhumanities to man - called drama. We can't take two hours a week from this trained pablum to decide what or who we should be, now and in the future.

Do you want your children and grandchildren represented - just as you are??

The beginning of a more perfect union will be when we unite to govern ourselves - literally and actually.