Mike Gravel: please donate to help fund a direct democracy documentary

[rossl]

You can donate and learn more at http://film.ni4d.us - thanks!

YouTube - Mike Gravel: Please donate to support NI4D on November 10th (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWUep1A-aYQ)

This is Mike Gravel, the chairman of The Democracy Foundation. On November 10th, we are going to be organizing a money bomb to try and raise money à la Ron Paul. We’re not deluding ourselves that we’re raising the millions, but we need to raise enough money to pay some videographers to be able to do a documentary on the National Initiative and how it will empower the American people to be able to vote on the policy issues that affect their lives, once it’s in place.

The National Initiative is very different from the initiative process that we have in the twenty four states around the country. Those states – you just qualify, everybody throws money at it, and the people vote. That is not a good way to make law. Law requires a deliberative process where you have hearings, markups, proper communications, and the like. And in that way, the people can make laws and properly deliberate the policy issues that affect their lives. And that’s what the National Initiative will be – it’s a meta-tool which we put in the hands of the people, so they will be able to then have an affect on how they are governed. It will be the first time that people will have a government “by the people,” because the people will become lawmakers.

The definition of freedom is the participation in power. Power in representative government is lawmaking. If you don’t make the laws, all you can do is obey the law or go to jail. And so if you really want to have freedom, what we have to do is to make ourselves lawmakers. And the only tool available to do that is the National Initiative. And this is a tool that will not be enacted by representative government, because it dilutes their power and they’re not about to empower the people.

And that’s the reason why we have been struggling with an organization called The National Initiative for Democracy, sponsored by The Democracy Foundation. And so that’s the reason why we’re making an appeal now for your help, to donate whatever you can afford so that we can pay for this documentary and then use this documentary as a device to inform people so that they’ll be aware of the potential of the National Initiative as a tool to empower them to have a more meaningful role in the governing of their lives.

I hope that you will be generous and give whatever you can. Thank you – thank you very, very much.

[cswake]

While I am happy to see the effort to do something other than what's already been done, Direct Democracy ^= Constitutional Republic and I unfortunately cannot support it. (Nor could the Founding Fathers.) Good luck!

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

I like Gravel, but I dont support any of his political positions.

You wont find much support for a direct democracy initiative around here. Try the Daily Kos.

[rossl]

Some founding fathers were supportive of direct democracy, although not all. And I did post it to Daily Kos, too! This is not an ideological issue.

[Original_Intent]

National initiative is a terrible idea although I like Gravel and think he is well-intentioned.

[Kotin]

Some founding fathers were supportive of direct democracy, although not all. And I did post it to Daily Kos, too! This is not an ideological issue.

we don't blindly follow the founding fathers..

[specsaregood]

This is not an ideological issue.

Uhm, thats exactly what it is. How could it not be an ideological issue?

[rossl]

It's not ideological because there's no ideology behind it. I work with a few groups of people promoting this idea and there are libertarians, progressives, conservatives, conspiracy theorists, mainstream Democrats, centrists, mainstream Republicans, and everything in between who are interested in this idea.

As for the founding fathers, I never said anyone follows them blindly. I was just pointing out that, despite what another commenter said, there actually were some founding fathers that supported direct democracy.

[Reason]

no

[Reason]

I will also say, you must not have a job that involves talking to many random members of the public if you support a direct democracy...

I would say about 8.5 out of 10 strangers I talk to on any given day are complete idiots or choose to live completely uninformed/apathetic lives and yet still vote...

[krazy kaju]

A direct democracy is a rather stupid idea. The majority should never rule. I think Hoppe hit the nail on the head in DGTF (http://mises.org/hoppeintro.asp).


It's not ideological because there's no ideology behind it.

Yeah there is. If you support direct democracy, then your position is backed up by an ideology of direct democracy.

[RSLudlum]

Not for me. I am not qualified to tell other's what they may and may not do to better their own lives.

It just so happens that I was just thumbing through Felix Morley's "Freedom and Federalism" (for a post on FB) and noted one of my highlights on this subject (which the book is chock full of):

"It is small consolidation to think that if we should adopt Communism we would never call it that, but something comforting, like 'participatory democracy.'"
-Introduction (1981 edition)

"there is cause for concern in the fact that so many Americans have come to regard their Federal Republic as a centralized democracy. And this concern is not lessened by noting that the communists describe their system as 'democratic centralism,' operated through the medium of 'People's Democracies.'
-p.14

Just some fodder for thought. ;)

[youngbuck]

Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

-James Madison

[cswake]

Some founding fathers were supportive of direct democracy, although not all. And I did post it to Daily Kos, too! This is not an ideological issue.

Which of the Founding Fathers argued for direct democracy after they had their debate and agreed on a republic? Or was it prior? (Just curious to learn my history correctly)

[Grimnir Wotansvolk]

If democracy is government by the consent of the governed, then the society of unanimous consent free market libertarians describe as a stateless free market is also the libertarian socialist ideal of participatory democracy. It’s not thesis vs antithesis, but yin and yang or skeleton and muscle.


The difference between anarchism and democracy, at least when the latter is taken to its logical conclusion, isn’t all that great. Arguably, anarchism is the ultimate development of the Jeffersonian democratic principle, in the same sense that Thoreau’s government that governs not at all is the ultimate example of the best government governing least. The heart of the Jeffersonian/anglo-republican understanding of democracy was government by consent. And the smaller the unit of government, the closer that consent approached to unanimity, the better. Majority rule was not the defining feature–majority rule was just a proxy for consent, an imperfect way to simulate it when genuinely unanimous consent was impossible. So devolving all government to direct democratic town meetings and neighborhood assemblies is a big step in the right direction. And going a step further, depriving the town meetings of the power to collect payment for services from unwilling clients and allowing competing service providers, takes us the rest of the way: we’re at the point where anarchism and radical democracy coincide.

Direct democracy (although the National Initiative isn't nearly radical enough) would essentially be a fast-track to voluntary society.

While I understand the worries about "tyranny of the majority", I think we have a fantastic opportunity to link up with those who are pro-democracy, and continually remind them that participatory politics are precisely that: participatory. Anything which you do not consent to is null and void.

Compare that to "representative" democracy/republicanism, where you still have to deal with hegemonic power cloaked in suits and badges, and I think I know where I'd rather be.

[Oyate]

Gravel is a good man and it's a shame he got assed out of any forum we had during the campaigns. However this idea on this board is a non-starter.

[Grimnir Wotansvolk]

Where Mike fucked up was endeavoring to empower the citizenry with the ability to make laws. This essentially loops us right back into violent statism, as every Joe Blow who thinks he has some grand idea can potentially erect an apparatus to force you to comply with his wishes.

Real democracy involves the power to secede from such a lawful apparatus, to reduce a law to nothing more than a crazy guy on the street wearing a sandwich board over his shoulders.

[evilfunnystuff]

direct democracy
my aim is not to create laws but to repeal them

YouTube - Boo This Man (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76p_ncbffCE)

[LibertyEagle]

Originally Posted by rossl
Some founding fathers were supportive of direct democracy, although not all. And I did post it to Daily Kos, too! This is not an ideological issue.

Who?

Our Founders were very much AGAINST democracy. Which is why they established our country as a constitutional REPUBLIC.

[purplechoe]

http://www.beacon.org/client/client_pages/images/image3.jpg

He was also great during Democratic presidential debates last time around. He called out the rest of the candidates on their BS.

[NYgs23]

The old classical liberals were supportive of democratic/republican representation of some sort, which is understandable. In those days, all states were controlled by kings. The idea was that the populace could check the power of the state from tyrannizing them. Unfortunately, by giving the people power in government, this arguably made the people more inclined to use the power of state in their own favor. So instead of one tyrant, you had a million mini-tyrants, all fighting for control of the aggressive apparatus of the state to benefit themselves and their interests. This is why partisan politics, special interest politics, the culture war, etc is so hopped up in our culture: each group wants to grab the state to impose its will on all the other groups and to prevent all the other groups from imposing their will on it. I'm not as hard-line against it as the Hoppeans, but there are big problems with democracy of any sort. Perhaps it makes people more willing and able to defend their rights, but it also makes them more willing and able to strip rights from others.

I think, maybe, instead of representative democracy, you could have a democratic veto power. For instance, what if all the laws passed by the legislature would them be subject to a referendum. Or at least certain types of legislation, such as those raising taxes or authorizing the use of military force, would be subject to an automatic referendum. This would allow the populace to block legislative tyranny without giving them the ability to use grab hold of the power of government themselves.

But giving the populace the power to actually write the laws? That's barking up the wrong tree.

[nobody's_hero]

Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution


The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union, a republican form of government [. . .]

[specsaregood]

I think, maybe, instead of representative democracy, you could have a democratic veto power. For instance, what if all the laws passed by the legislature would them be subject to a referendum. Or at least certain types of legislation, such as those raising taxes or authorizing the use of military force, would be subject to an automatic referendum. This would allow the populace to block legislative tyranny without giving them the ability to use grab hold of the power of government themselves.

Now that is an idea I could potentially get behind! But for all legislation.

[LibertyEagle]

Originally Posted by NYgs23
I think, maybe, instead of representative democracy, you could have a democratic veto power. For instance, what if all the laws passed by the legislature would them be subject to a referendum. Or at least certain types of legislation, such as those raising taxes or authorizing the use of military force, would be subject to an automatic referendum. This would allow the populace to block legislative tyranny without giving them the ability to use grab hold of the power of government themselves.

Well, that is the reason why all appropriations of money were to be done in the House and that the House reps could be thrown out every 2 years.

What I would like is an interim eject button for them, and that the election of Senators go back to the state legislations. Because then, these SOBs could all be thrown out BETWEEN elections.

[fgd]

Direct democracy = mob rule and tyranny. Peddle that BS somewhere else.