Pods...

The following post comes from a reader of the blog and can be read in the comments section. I will respond in future post:

Anonymous said...

Ok... so I’m not really a revolutionary, my mortgage is too high. However, I do have thoughts about what will happen after the revolution. What kind of government do we want? I talk to a lot of people about the American Government and one consistent message that people agree upon is there is something seriously wrong with the system. It isn’t a party or a person but this form of institutionalized bribery that we have somehow developed. I know our founding fathers didn’t intend this mess of government contracts running political agendas or special interest groups funding campaigns to control our representatives. Basic point is that our representatives don’t represent the citizens anymore. The debt the US owes is off the charts and no plan in sight to even stop going in debt much less pay off what we owe. I could go on about all the issues today but it really is pretty obvious that we are heading towards a bankrupting state on monetary and ideological basis. By the way, I’m not address State Governments at this point. Not that they don’t have their problems but nothing like the screwed up Federal system.

When the revolution comes and I’m asked what we should do I’m proposing a new flavor of democracy. I’m calling it “Group Democracy”. Our current system had 200+ years and this is where it got us. It is time for Democracy 2.0. Here is the basic premise:

· The more people you add to a group the dumber they get. Take a look at our congress. We need to keep groups small and conversations relevant in those groups to the real issues in the world today.
· Representation creates a level of abstraction that allows our congress/president/supreme court make decisions that are not fiscally responsible (I would even go so far to say ‘evil’ at times). To fix this problem the only way forward is citizens taking back our country.

Group Democracy:

· Create voting pods of 10 citizens each that vote on every issue/bill/resolution on Federal issues. Each pod gets to cast one vote. If there is a deadlock in the pod then a vote isn’t cast for that Pod.
· Federal Government is relegated to preparations for weekly Pod voting on issues.
· Bills are created by anyone from any Pod. Even special interest groups (which are pod members) can introduce bill/legislation into their Pod. The point is that a Pod has to introduce a bill. Your Pod needs 100% consensus on any bill submitted to your timezone for review.
· Pods are organized by time zone – Pod members can live out of that timezone (for instance if they move out of the timezone during their Pod tenure) but when Pod assignments happen it happens within that timezone. This allows for ease of Pod meetings and other organizational issues.
· Bills/Legislation are reviewed and voted on to move forward to National voting by all pods in the timezone that bill was introduced. This puts structure in place to stop final votes on issues happening without a review process at the timezone level.
· Pods are selected at random by people’s social security number. They are not tied to any location, race, age or any other traditional grouping other that at original assignment (every 2 years) they are assigned within a timezone.
· When people turn 18 years old they are assigned to their first Pod.
· Pods are changed up every two years.
· Pods communicate via whatever means required. Suggestion to meet once a week for 2 hours to cast votes.
· Random selection of pod members means that lobbying has to be done by pod members to convince other pod members to vote on their issue.
· Special interest groups are then forced to lobby to Pods.


There is a lot more to this and I’m sure there are issues I haven’t envisioned but really how much worse can it be than what we have?

Now there is an alterative all we need to do is wait for the revolution!!!!

peace
b.