Lance Dettweiler writes:
cypherfolks, do you have any idea what these efforts are the faint glimmers of? Imagine a future society where *anyone* can propose laws, not just the elite few called Legislators and identified in an
Actually, this is my worst nightmare of what this country could become: a direct democracy of the most populist sort. Prices too high at the grocery store? Quick, pass a law lowering them. Too many bums downtown? I'm sure a majority can be quickly gotten together to pass a new law. Much of what we are seeing in America today is the result not of venal and corrupt government folks, but of them simply doing what they perceive the people want. The people want drugs outlawed, so they are. The people want jobs, so imports are restricted. And so on, just as de Tocqueville warned 150 years ago (something like: "America's grand experiment in democracy will last only until its citizens discover they can use the democracy to pick the pockets of their neighbors"...he said it more elegantly!). I certainly am not implying that Lance is in favor of this. But there are some mighty good reasons, outlined in "The Federalist Papers," why a direct democracy is undesirable. In today's terms, we might speak of it as having undesirable feedback relationships, with too much tendency toward wild oscillations (mirroring the oscillations of public opinion). The Founders wisely adopted a _representative_ democracy, with more dampers on the results a direct democracy often gives. (I would be less fearful if fewer things came up for voting, if a Constitution truly protected basic property rights. This would eliminate things like most drug laws, the motorcycle helmet laws, "No smoking" laws (which, naturally, are wildly popular to the "majority," even if the rights of airlines and restaurants to set whatever policies they wish are completely trampled), minimum wage laws, and so on. I won't cite the usual libertarian points here.
exceedingly time-consuming, tedious, and troublesome process. Imagine that everyone has complete access and full understanding of all the laws that affect one's life, and the ability to propose and *pass* superior modifications. It would be a sort of Legislative Free Enterprise, a competition in the marketplace of laws such that superior ones would prosper and inferior, archaic, and absurd laws would be rooted out and expunged by the citizenry itself, in a very dynamic, interactive, and responsive process! Far from this bureacratic nightmare we lumber in daily! Write that small letter to set in motion this grandiose cyberspatial karma!
I am not as hopeful as Lance is. "Electronic democracy" could easily be the most totalitarian thing the planet has ever seen. Imagine this on CNN: "This just in to CNN. Todays's popular vote on whether citizens can use strong cryptography has gone 72% to 16% in favor of the ban , with 12% either abstaining or generally clueless. To remind our listeners, under this new law, effective tomorrow, unauthorized use of a cryptographic system can result in forfeiture of all assets, plus a 5-year jail sentance. People we interviewed expressed the opinion that only drug dealers and tax cheats would want to use these hacker systems. President Reno expressed satisfaction, saying "This plebiscite will make America free."" We certainly don't need more laws, more restrictions, however popular they may be. Besides, as Milton Friedman points out so cogently, in a free market we are in fact free to choose. Anything that makes even more laws possible is _not_ a good thing, in my opinion. Having said this, the proposal Jim Warren is pushing sounds fair enough. But not because it'll turn ordinary citizens into proposers of new laws. Rather, it will allow groups to spot legislation early on (this is one of the main motivations, the NRA tells me--yes, "I am the NRA," to no one's surprise) and then marshal their forces to defeat the legislation. Things like tax increases, new regulations, etc. Just this Cypherpunk's opinion. -Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.