The Last, Lost Empire: 3rd Edition 2012
by Ted Becker
What follows is a fair presentation of a wide variety of well proved practices—both in the United States and throughout the world—that are ways to engage and empower the citizenry to make critical decisions about the direction they want the nation to go and about pressing policy matters, including budget priorities.
Many have lots of Google pages. I am not trying to write the definitive package. However, any several of these would have the desired effect of making America’s national government responsive to its citizens wishes. In addition, and this opinion is based on decades of personal and professional experience in testing and practicing several of them, THE CITIZENS ALWAYS AMAZE!!
If nothing else: any, several or all would transform Americans into active public spirited citizens instead of passive, ill-informed spectators of candidate horse races. The only way to (a) maximize social justice; (b) rebuild a sustainable capitalist infrastructure; and (c) create a dynamic political marketplace of ideas truly representative of the vast diversity of the American people is to radically democratize America’s constitution through the amendment process.
The Democracy Amendments
Citizens Initiative – Citizens Veto – Referendum
(Switzerland, NZ, California, Maine + Many More)
End the Fed
(North Dakota State Bank Model)
Repeal Electoral College
(Direct Election Of U.S. President, One Person = One Vote)
Limit US Supreme Court Appointments to 6 years.
One House of Congress
(Sweden, Norway, Turkey, + Many More)
Congress Selected Randomly
(Citizens Assembly, British Columbia, Canada)
Recall of Congresspersons
(Articles of Confederation, USA 1776)
United States Broadcasting Company
(BBC, CBC, Australian Broadcasting Company)
United States National University
(Australia National University, Seoul National University)
Participatory Budgeting at National Level
(Brazil, Argentina, England, Chicago, New York City + More)
Tags: "Occupy Movement", Occupy the Constitution, Occupy Wall Street, The Last Lost Empire 3rd Edition 2012
Hey Savannah:
Thank you for your very thoughtful post. I just read it in late January…and don’t know if you checked back. But if so, the “Founding Fathers” do not mention God or the Bible in the Constitution. And it was not delivered by Moses as the word of God. It is made by “men”…and is therefore fallible, as all of them were. It is a form of government that has NOT been copied elsewhere–for good reason. And it leaves room for “amending” it, thus even The Founding Fathers realized that times change and sometimes their handiwork might need some alteration. You are correct, though, that they disliked “democracy”….but they were the rich minority and had seen what the Revolutionaries did to the rich Loyalists. So they were afraid of “the people,” yes. But should we? Look at all the places where some democracy exists and the people can veto what the legilatures say, i.e., Arizona, Maine, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, France, Sweden, Canada…to name a few. It works….and if ever we needed it, it is NOW. Thanks again for your input. You are a very bright young lady who will do well in this life. TB
Dr. Becker, I appreciate and resonate with this post. I have great respect for your desire to get American voters involved in the political process. One of the ideas I love the most is ending the Fed. Obviously we can both agree that the Fed is comprised of a bunch of liars who manipulate the American economy. When I think about the American Fed, I believe there is a severe lack of economic knowledge within the Fed – which is why we continue to have so many problems such as borrowing endless amounts of money and loaning it to people who should not be trusted with it. If ending the Fed is impossible (as it is sometimes said), then Ron Paul’s idea of auditing the Fed would certainly be an improvement! I also appreciate your perspective on democracy, even if I disagree with it. I think citizens should definitely play a part in the political process and there should be accountability to the people in any political system. However, there are great dangers in operating by a “majority rules and makes laws” mindset. As one can see in our Constitution, our Founding Fathers believed that there were certain “rights” or laws endowed by man’s Creator. The Founding Fathers believed that governments should be based on the truths of the Bible and they believed the Bible supports certain rights or laws that should remain in place – regardless of public “opinion”. The difference is where the Founding Fathers would have said “…because God said so”, a democracy says “…because the people said so.” The people aren’t always right. In fact, from the Founding Fathers’ perspectives, people are normally wrong because of sinful/evil nature in us all. They set up a republic with firm, unchangeable laws because they believed democracy was, essentially, something that needed to be restrained. So, those are just a few of my thoughts on my a democracy is inferior to republics. Thanks for the post! I enjoyed reading it.
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