This is still just an experiment.

[SongOfTheRayne]

Democracy in America is still just an experiment. Because it's what we were born knowing, we tend to think of it as something permanent. But it's not. Before this, we had only known rule by a foriegn monarchy. That wasn't working, so we decided to try something different. Such a thing had never been attempted before, and we had no way of knowing whether such a government would succeed. It was a social experiment. And it still is a social experiment. It is still a government based on something that had never been done before. And maybe we didn't get it right. We don't know. Our government was started by something untested, with the idea that it might need to be changed. But it seemed to be working. Now, it turns out that maybe an election system isn't sufficient for maintaining freedom. The power gets further and further removed from the people. So keeping in mind that this is still an experiment, we may need to go back and change something at the very root of our government.

One possibility would be to take away the electoral college. This would be a good idea, but wouldn't solve the problem of the lack of true representation. Another idea- as radical as democracy once seemed- would be to allow the people to ELECT LAWS. To vote, as a whole, to BE the legislature. It could be workable, on a smaller non-national level, as a means of passing state laws. And then, a grassroots movement of direct legislation could spread throughout the nation.

Thoughts?

[PVK]

1. Start over. Revolution. n/t

[SongOfTheRayne]

3. we need a revolution?

i was kind of hoping that reform would work...i mean, really, violence isn't the....wait. What did Bush just say? Okay. Rally the insurgents and get the WMD's that we never had. This man must die.

[liberal N proud]

2. It was a good experiment for nearly 200 years

Some threw in the wrong ingredients. Religion and puritanism

[Amaryllis]

4. And electronic voting and vote counting.

[Stevepol]

6. Democracy can't even exist if the vote counting isn't fair.

This should be, and is, the most obvious proposition around. Democracy rests on fair vote counting, a transparent system that truly counts the votes.

In my opinion, this is the only thing that is seriously wrong with our system at present. Unless you can vote in people to make needed changes, everything else will go to pot, and that's what has happened. Ever since 2002, major elections have been rigged not just nationally but in GA, MN, CO, and all over the country. This has given us the present crop of leaders who are pillaging the government and burning down the whole elaborate system that has developed over 200 years.

If you want to cure the disease, you have to go to the cause, not spend so much money and time on alleviation of the symptoms.

If we could have fair elections again, the problems we see would be very quickly cured or set on the road to recovery in every other area of the body politic.

There are a lot of hopeful things happening but it's going to have to be a firestorm everywhere and that may take a little while longer.

[Kurovski]

5. It's a fact: the founders left it up to us.

Change is good, especially when some of what we have is such a bloody, sorrowful mess.