Preface:
You know those games where we ask each other questions like: "If you could
talk to any person, alive or dead, who would it be and why?" Well, my answer
has always been Benjamin Franklin. He is, hands down, the coolest person I
can imagine: patriot, scientist, humanitarian, maven, author, and ambassador.
What I find most inspirational about him was his unceasing efforts to improve
people's lives. Ben started writing the Old Farmers Almanac in 1792 to help
the average American (then a rural farmer) and the publication is still going
strong. That's not the only institution he founded that's alive and well
continuing to help people: he was instrumental in creating fire stations and
public libraries as we know them. And, of course, Franklin was a pivotal
figure during the both the American Revolution and the Constitutional
Convention. This one man was personally responsible for building much of our
country. He deserves the title Founding Father, because he earned it.
A Conversation with Ben
Franklin
When I was younger I looked forward to bumping into Ben in heaven and having a grand old chat with him. There was so much that I wanted to ask him about. What was he feeling when he was flying that kite in the lightning storm? Was he scared? Was it a rush? Ben was also reportedly very good with the ladies. I wanted to compare notes with him about the elusive thing we call charm, and see whether the elements of attraction then were the same as today or completely different. I've read Ben's autobiography and it is clear that he's a genuine, sincere fellow. I'm very excited at the thought of having a conversation with him, even an imaginary one.
However, there is one part of the conversation that I dread. Eventually the topic will turn onto the state of the nation today, and quite honestly I feel shame at the prospect of telling him what has happened to the country that he worked so hard to build. "How is my dear country doing, Kim? Is freedom alive and well?" Ben might ask. And I would have to reluctantly respond: "I am very sorry to have to tell you this, sir. America is in serious trouble. We've taken the liberties you fought so hard to give us for granted. You and the other Founding Fathers freed us from the tyranny of aristocracy, from being peasants with no rights under the absolute rule of capricious nobles. But we have allowed ourselves to be sold into financial slavery. The United States is easily the most properous nation on the earth... but the average American works their fingers to the bone just to pay their bills. It doesn't matter how much money we make, either, the bills take it all and there is little left for us at the end of the month. Big money is the new ruling class: banks, corporations, credit cards, insurance, media conglomerates, and the very wealthy. Those in our working class are forced to be 'wage slaves', scraping by paycheck to paycheck. Their lives are like the indentured servants of your own time, except we call them 'disposable employees' now and they work their entire lives with little opportunity for advancement. Our corporations are engaged in economic imperialism across the globe, exploiting the workers in other nations the same way that King George did to the colonies. We are literally letting money rule our world. We aren't free anymore; we are peasant Slaves to Money."
"But surely the people wouldn't let that happen!" Ben would protest. "What about democracy? Why don't the people just elect better representatives to change things?" And my honest reply would have to be: "Our elections today are too big, and are consequently all but rigged. The only choices we are given are between one wealthy politician and another wealthy politician, and no matter which one we choose, someone rich is always in power. So our votes basically mean nothing. The average American no longer has a voice in their own government anymore. A typical citizen can't even talk to their own representative; if you try, you reach their 'staff' and get an impersonal form letter as a reply. In order to lobby before Congress you need to be what's called a wealthy special interest group. The saddest part is that it's not even the fault of our representatives. In order to be elected at all, a politician needs enormous amounts of campaign funds to advertise in this new thing called the 'sponsored media'. You don't really exist in a big election unless you have a strong media image. So, even our good-intentioned leaders have to kowtow to the Money, otherwise they won't get elected. And the system is, in fact, too big for them to give the personal touch to their own constituency."
"This is a dire situation that you portray," Ben says, looking concerned. "And it must be changed. My compatriots and I intended that the Union should have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Democracy was supposed to be personal and under the control of citizens. We learned bitterly in our day how a ruling class would readily abuse the common man, and it sounds like that is precisely what Money is doing in your time to your fellows."
"Well, what do we do?" I ask plaintively. "I would change it if I could, and most Americans I know feel the same. But something else that has happened in modern times is that we are starved for leadership that we can believe in. We've been disillusioned with our politicians because of many affronts and scandals. We literally don't know what to do to change the situation, and we don't know who we can trust to lead us out of it."
"What you must do is simple. You must find the leaders of your communities, common men and women like yourself, and follow them. Find good people you know and trust, and charge them with the responsibility to improve your lot."
"Ah... that's another big difference between our two times, sir. Local community as you knew it has all but disappeared in the United States. Back in your day, people lived on rural farms and everyone knew one another. People died not ten miles from where they were born. Today most of us live in this thing called an urban jungle, in vast cities with hundreds of thousands of people in them, often millions. We live in neighborhoods of strangers. Americans are 'upwardly mobile', moving around a lot, usually to follow high-paying jobs. And many of us feel very lonely and isolated because of it. When we are young we attend schools where we are surrounded by classmates and have a strong community. But then when we live in the real world it is very difficult to comfortably meet people. The change is drastic. In our youth, we are drowned in our peers, and as adults, we thirst for company. This, too, is something I would change if I could. People are unhappy with their lives, because they are effectively alone, even in a teeming city crowd. I lived in New York City for awhile and was more isolated there among its jam-packed twelve million denizens than I ever was in the sparse little town of Dracut where I grew up."
"Hmmm... " Ben says in thought. "Let me see if I understand you then. As I see it, there are three essential Problems of your modern era. There is the unfettered Rule of Money. The faulty system of Mass Election. And the Unhappy Isolation of the people." Ben liked capitalizing things for emphasis, and you could hear it in his voice. "Is this so?"
"Yes. We have a number of other concerns..." How could I even begin to explain 9/11 to him? "but those are the biggest, and just fixing them would be a huge thing."
"Well, it appears to me that your trio of Problems all have the selfsame Solution."
"Really?"
"Indeed. But only if things haven't changed so much. Tell me, do people in your era still have friends?" Ben asks keenly.
"Well, of course," I reply. "For all that has happened, people still have family and friends. Sometimes our jobs take up so much of our time and energy that there is little left over, but essentially our private lives are still are own."
"Excellent!" Ben exclaims. "Then that is where we shall start, with our friends. You have done a fine job at explaining the Problems. You have clearly stated them, and it shows you have given them much thought. But identifying the Problem is just the first step. Now we must turn our minds to a Solution. Every Problem has a Solution. If we constantly think to ourselves of all the reasons why we can't do something, then we will never do anything. Instead, we must think hard about what we can actually do. We must be very practical and formulate plans that any person could follow. And then we must do it. Can you do that for me? Could you turn your mind toward finding Solutions?"
"I think so. What would these Solutions look like?"
"Well, here's the gist of it. Gather with your friends and tell them about your concerns. A small and cozy group is most desirable, say ten people. Meet with them regularly. That immediately addresses the third Problem of Unhappy Isolation with the Solution of Friendly Companionship. People are happy when they spend quality time with friends, and when our social engagements are at an appointed time we can look forward to them with anticipation."
"I completely agree. Actually, I'm something of a social instigator myself. I create series of themed parties that I throw every week. Some have been Healthy Organic Potluck Specials, others have been Murder Mysteries. My friends and I always have fun and we feel closer afterwards, more alive."
"Very good," Ben affirms. "However, these weekly meetings with our friends will have another purpose in addition to building friendship. To wit, at these gatherings we shall elect one of our peers as our personal Representative. That replaces the Problem of Mass Election with the Solution of Personal Selection."
"Whoa! What do you mean, elect one of our peers as our own personal Representative?" I ask, confused.
"Just what I said. If Mass Elections do not work, then make elections smaller. Remove Money and Media from the process of election entirely. If you don't want to vote for a wealthy politician that you don't know and have no relationship with, instead vote for your friend, whom you've known for years and trust completely. Your friend represents you and your group of ten, personally."
"Can we do that?"
"Of course you can. In the very first Amendment of the Bill of Rights, we wrote that 'Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to peaceably assemble'. In fact, that's what we'll call these gatherings: Assemblies. Unless, of course," he said with a feral gleam in his eyes, "America no longer follows her Constitution. In which case I shall be wroth with anger."
"Rest assured, Mr. Franklin, the Constitution is a revered document in my day. We still follow it as best we can." I said, trying to assuage his concern. "But that's wasn't my question. I meant more like, do we have the authority to elect our own Representatives?"
"My dear boy," Ben said, his face assuming kinder features, "of course you have the authority. All authority in the Union flows from its citizens. The only reason why the very President of the United States has any authority whatsoever is because the American citizens have decided to vest the office with their own personal power. The Office of the President didn't exist before we, as a people, created it. Governments rule by consent of the governed, and have no other charter. The only reason why your Representatives rule you because you as a citizen have given them your power to do so. But ultimately, it is your power, and your authority."
"With great power comes great responsibility. Because you, as a citizen, are the ultimate authority in determining the shape of your own government, that means that you are also solely responsible for making sure that it represents you fairly. If it doesn't, and you do nothing, then you are fully accountable and no one else, not even those cads who might take advantage of your apathy to exploit the system. Thus, it is your civic duty to improve your system of representation to be more just and fair. If you feel that you don't want to elect any of these distant politicians that you don't even know, then you must provide an alternate way to represent yourself. Elect your friends."
"I'm not sure," I say hesitantly, "that seems highly... revolutionary. It seems risky."
"Those who would give up an essential liberty for a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security," Ben said firmly. Then more softly. "But I see your point. Others have told me of the great Civil War that wracked our nation, pitting brother against brother. And a Revolution of this sort would do much the same. Instead, we want a Reformation. A slow and gradual change from the system of Mass Election to the system of Personal Selection. And we must never set brother against brother, or indeed put any two people in contention at all, if it can be avoided."
"I think it could be done," I say tentatively.
"What would you propose?" Ben asks.
"Well, we can still vote, right?" And then it all came out in a jumble. "Suppose we could find a way to organize all these groups of people, with all their personal Representatives? Then we could get people to vote for one of their own friends into a public office, playing by the rules of the current game of mass election. After all, why can't we confer with our friends on how we are going to vote? Nothing says we can't. Initially we could treat these Assemblies as just little voter caucauses, and then have them band together into larger voting blocks. Why couldn't we elect one of our friends as our Representatives instead of a wealthy politician? Isn't that what democracy is all about?"
It kept pouring out. "You know, one of the big reasons why all our politicians are wealthy is that they are the only ones with the free time to run for office! The average working fellow can't afford to take time off work, they've got mouths to feed and those damnable bills to pay. So the candidates are all rich. What if we could find a way to support our own Representatives? Like, pay them a salary? Then we could elect anyone into office, rich or poor. Our friends could become viable, because we'd pay them just like a job would pay them."
"Well I am greatly heartened to hear this," Ben say, bemused. "You are starting to think of Solutions now. Let's take it one step further while still playing by the rules, as it were. Once our Assemblies have elected enough Representatives to Congress, then have them write Amendments to the Constitution changing the way elections are held. Legitimize the entire process entirely within the current framework. That is, after all, exactly the reason why we Constitional Delegates created Amendments. To account for changes in the society that we couldn't foresee."
"Wowsers! That seems like a pretty big goal, sir. I'm not so certain people would feel comfortable with that."
"What? What about getting together with your friends is too big?" Ben asked disarmingly.
"No. I meant the changing the Constitution. Officially changing the way elections are held. It seems so big... maybe too big."
Ben was silent in thought for awhile. "I have heard tell that every city and town across our nation now has a public library. It is, in your time, a 'big thing', as you put it. Would you like to know how I started it?"
"I'd love to, sir!" I said enthusiastically.
"In my day I had a group of friends that I met with regularly, and we called ourselves the Junto. We would get together and discuss the issues of our times, share pleasantries with one another, and otherwise conduct ourselves as friends. Perhaps most importantly, our agreed-upon charter was that we should help each other out. We helped advance one another in the community, introduced Junto members to other friends to their mutual benefit, and even found one another wives." Ben had a smirk on his face with that last bit. I'm certain there was a juicy story behind it, but he continued on.
"Anyway, at one of our Junto meetings I proposed that it would be advantageous to us all were we to pool our personal libraries and make them generally available. The idea met with approval, and some valid concerns. We must take great care with the books, since we were dealing with one another's treasured property. And we would want to keep meticulous track of what book belonged to whom and who had it at any given moment. And no person should keep any one book for too long, should others want for reading it."
Ben looked at me with wise eyes. "The public library wasn't magically brought into being all at once. It wasn't decreed one day, and then everyone had one. The very 'big thing' was very small when it was first born, and it grew at its own pace. As we found benefit in our plan of sharing books, we told others about it, and they followed a similar course. Then at a certain point enough people derived benefit in it that it became obviously something everyone should have. Then we got a lot more organized and it became a formal institution. But the big public library originally began as a small agreement among friends. That's where social conventions are truly born. Among friends who meet regularly."
"I think I understand, sir." I said wonderingly. "We should focus on the small, on what we can accomplish with our friends, and the rest will follow. If we think about changing the Constitution, it is too daunting, and we'll never do anything. But if we focus on getting together with our friends and choosing a new way to represent ourselves, then that is something we could easily do today."
"Exactly!" Ben slapped me on the back. "Always keep your mind on the Solution, on something practical that you can right now, at this very moment. Do not delay doing that which you know to be good and just."
At this point, I was quite taken with the idea of the Assembly and wanted to hear more. "What about the Rule of Money, then? What are we going to do about that?" I asked eagerly.
"Well, the Solution to the Rule of Money is the Public Good. The quality of our lives comes first, and the Public Good is paramount. We are free humans, not slaves to money. In fact, that's what you should call this whole thing: the Human Assembly. Let people know right from the very name what this stands for."
"How do we make the Public Good come first?" I persisted.
"That is really a task for the newly elected Representatives of the Human Assembly. You all know your own modern time better than I do. You must replace the Rule of Money with Rule of Humans, the just leadership of the common man." Ben must have seen that I was looking for more, because he followed up with, "But I can tell you how you must do it. Money is our Servant, not our Master. If need be, change the economy, change the law, change whatever is needed in order to ensure that Money serves the people and not the other way around. You must seek Solutions that will result in the Public Good, and you must employ all your sincerity and ingenuity to do it. Your Solutions must be fair and just to all, including the wealthy."
"Okay," I said. "Actually, just the Human Assembly looks like enough to get started on for right now. And I've had some ideas kicking around on how we can change Money and our economy to be both more fair and also more efficient."
"Good, good." Ben smiled. "And for you, my young little patriot, I also have a task."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. You must go forth and talk the people of the nation we both love. You must remind them that America is still their land. The people own the Union, not the wealthy special interests groups. And you must devise a plan for citizens to reclaim their own government. Get the people to create democracy the way we Founding Fathers intended, a personal democracy in their living room. You must inspire them to act."
"How... I've never..." I was at a loss. "How do I do that?"
"Speak from your heart. Tell the people how you feel, in plain language. Share stories from your life. Vividly show them your hopes and fears about America. Bare your soul; it is the only way to touch the soul of another. In all things, be genuine, and be yourself."
Benjamin Franklin stared me directly in the eyes. "But there is one small thing that you have to change about yourself. You must let go of your timid reservation. You speak reasonably, Kim, but you must needs be bolder. Use provocative words that shake people up. You seem like a man of reason that would try to convince another by showing them how something is in their own best interest. Instead, you must incite people to action. You must rouse the ire of your countrymen." His voice rose. "Let the words thunder forth about the Injustice of the Rule of Money. Ask your nation: Are we nothing but consumer sheep? Were we born free or were we born wage slaves? Prod them with: Do you want to vote for distant politicians that you don't even know, or do you want to elect your friends? Do you want your cast your worthless vote in a rigged Mass Election, or do you want your vote to count in the Human Assembly? Proclaim to them: Humans were ordained to live in communities! We can choose to live alone and alienated, or we can choose to connect ourselves to family and friends! Cast down the guantlet before your peers. Empower them with the truth: The Power to shape your Destiny is yours! The Authority to Represent yourselves is your own! It has always been so, and let no one tell you otherwise! Choose! Choose your Destiny! Choose your Own Representation!"
Ben returned to a more moderate tone. "Then, and only then, will your audience even be interested in what you have to say. Grab their attention first, connect with their hearts next, and finally convince their mind."
"Mr. Franklin, sir." I said, humbled and sober. "I do not know whether I am up to this task, but I accept it wholeheartedly. I will do my best. I will write a book called the Human Assembly that will describe in greater detail the Solutions that we've talked about here. I will outline a plan called the Human-Scale Reformation designed to topple the impersonal Rule of Money and restore human judgment to the Public Good. I will go on a civic speaking tour called This is Your Land! to remind our people that this is their land. I will share my private life with others and try my best to genuinely connect with them."
My gaze was steady as I faced Benjamin Franklin, the man I most respect in all of history. "And I will not rest until every American can once again claim the Representation with Participation that is their due."
Introduction:
In 1992 my mom, then aged 53, started saving seriously for her retirement.
My mom is a registered nurse that does hemodialysis, helping patients with
blood problems stay alive. She's a hard-working citizen that follows the law
and wants little more than to live a happy and productive life, sentiments I
believe we can all identify with. My mom did some research about how to
invest her savings and followed the conservative advice of respectable
sources. They basically told her to invest in low-risk mutual funds. She
wasn't looking to "make a killing" in the stock market; she just wanted to
save her money so that she could retire in safety and security.
We Can Improve Our World
In 2002 the stock market crashed and my mother lost over half her retirement fund. Now, some of that was money that she had made off interest from her investments, but most of it was from the sweat off her brow, earned by helping other people. That is money that, quite honestly, I feel she didn't deserve to lose. And now that it is gone, the quality of the rest of her life has been seriously impacted. She can no longer retire even in modest comfort; the remainder of her days will be spent in frugal husbanding of what little she has left.
My mom stoically accepted this turn of events, but I am wroth over it. I am by any measure a pretty easy-going guy, but her misfortune has filled me with righteous anger. Why? Why the hell should someone who has worked honestly her entire life lose half her life savings in one fell swoop? My mom wasn't trying to exploit anyone; she wasn't playing the craps table at Vegas; she wasn't even making high-risk investments. She just did what she was told to do by trustworthy financial planners, and the result was that she lost years of her savings overnight. Why should my mom suffer for the next thirty years of her life because one day the made-up numbers on a stupid stock ticker went down?
I went through a pretty bad period after this. Who was to blame for this outrage? Did brokers rip off my mother? No, no, they're guys just like you and me who are only trying to make a living doing what they know. Were corporations responsible with their bloody stock market? No, no, it's not their fault either; no corporation wants their stock price to plummet. After considerable soul searching I concluded that no one, really, was to blame. My mom lost her retirement money because that's just the way things work in our world today.
So the only solution is to change the way the world works.
0a: Despite burying my Head in the
Sand I have felt growing Concern
For most of my life I have been apolitical. I haven't followed politics,
don't know who my representatives are, and avoid subscribing to partisan
positions. I've tried to live my life by listening to real people and making
decisions based on the merits of their proposals, instead of playing the
political game. I've never voted, and I'm not even registered to vote. Even
when I was a kid it seemed pretty pointless: almost randomly replacing one
set of people that I don't know with another set of people I don't know. And
if voting turnout is any indicator, a lot of us feel the same way: what
difference would our one vote make anyway? In our current mass election
system, it doesn't make any.
In recent years I have become concerned. My wake up call was my mom losing her retirement money; suddenly the problems of the world became very personal. And once I lifted my head up out of the sand, I was staggered at the enormity of what was going on around us. 9/11. Social security breaking down. Health care becoming unaffordable. A ballooning deficit and once prosperous states like California losing money hand over fist. We have entered an energy crisis, with massive brownouts and rising gas prices, and the environment is still being polluted. And perhaps most striking of all: "start a war" is now a viable option on our foreign policy strategy list. Whoa, I don't want to get into an argument about the validity of our recent wars. I'm just trying to say: I am damn concerned about the whole state of affairs. Not just the wars, but also the situations that made us feel like we had to launch wars in the first place. It's almost like we've become so frightened that we feel the need to strike out at something, anything.
I can tell you quite candidly that I still wanted to cling to isolationism. I wanted the problems to go away, and I wanted "someone else" to make that happen for me. But then I recalled the words of John F. Kennedy:
If I do not love my country enough to act, why should I expect anyone else to improve things for me?
Even as I type this there are tears in my eyes. I believe in America. I really, truly, honestly believe in all that stuff we are taught as kids: about freedom, justice, equality, and a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I want America to be a beacon of goodness to people everywhere that liberty is important: that democracy works.
Unfortunately, our democracy is not working anymore. Money is buying our elections and our laws. Let me tell you, I have felt more than a little outrage at that. Not against the rich, mind you, but that we have a system where that is even possible. Government exists to serve the needs of the people, and to promote the Public Good. It shouldn't be a flunky of wealthy special interests groups. Is this what our forefathers shed their blood for in the American Revolution? We need a new form of democracy that places the Public Good over special interests, that restores our right to actively participate in our own government once again.
0b: We must Get Involved in order to
Promote Change
My good friend Vlad Gluzman had a fortune cookie fortune on the dashboard of
his car for many years that read:
I feel like the United States is reaching a watershed. We have clear and present problems that need immediate addressing. So, do we just go on business as usual? 2004 is an election year. Do we go out and vote and hope for the best like we've done so many times in the past? I believe that if we do the same things we've always done, we're going to get the same results we've always gotten. The results that have led us to the sorry state the we are in now. It is time to make a change.
Now, for some readers this message is inspiring: "Finally," you think excitedly, "someone who feels the same way I do!" Involvement is precisely what you've been looking for; you've felt frustrated at how difficult it is to participate in modern government. However, for other readers, this message could also be frightening. "It sounds like," you think cautiously, "this man is talking about launching a second American Revolution". And for these more conservative people involvement carries with it an aspect of risk and uncertainty. To both of these readers, I want to let you know up front that what I am proposing is democracy in your living room. We're going to talk about a lot of seemingly big, weighty things on this page, but in the end, what we're going to suggest is that we all spend some more time with our friends. To the activists: this is something you could act on today, go get to it! And to the reserved: building a community network of friends is without risk; your time is well spent enjoying the company of friends. If we're starting a revolution, it's a mighty friendly one. ;-)
However, nothing will happen at all unless we get involved. Many of you are where I was four years ago: wanting nothing more than to just live out your life in peace, with your head in the sand hoping it will all blow over. Maybe you are gunshy; perhaps you've tried to get involved before, but you got burned by a big waste of time where nothing actually got done. Or maybe you don't see what you could do that would make a difference in these big issues. Of maybe you feel too busy in your life already, distracted by work and your other obligations. Whatever the cause for your reservation, I'm sure you've got good reasons; I hear where you are coming from. I just want to let you know that there is a new alternative available called the Human Assembly. It is a detailed, sure-fire plan to restore American Democracy. All it asks from each of us is just two hours and $1 per week; we'll spend both the time and money with our friends. I have been uncertain about the best course to navigate our troubled waters for awhile now, but once I conceived of the Human Assembly I have been inspired to set sail and act. I no longer feel paralyzed: I know what to do. I no longer feel uncertain: I know I make a difference. I no longer feel powerless: I feel empowered to change our world. And I feel good because of it. If you are isolated like I was, then there is a good chance that participating in the Human Assembly can make you feel the same way I feel now.
Thank you for listening to how I feel. I guess that's a big part of what we really want: just to be heard. Now let's clarify our overall approach: namely, to incrementally change our systems of organization in a peaceful and fair way.
0c: We humans can Improve our Systems
of Organization
Three hundred years ago in Europe feudalism was a way of life. It was
simply assumed that there would always be nobles and peasants, with peasants
owing nobles the fruits of their labor and nobles obliged to rule the
peasants. Medieval Europeans further assumed that any future system of
organization would have to be built upon this fundamental division. It is
difficult for modern Americans to imagine what it was like living back then.
Feudalism was more than just the way things were, it was the way people felt
things should be.
Then American colonists made a Declaration that all men were created Equal, and devised an entirely new system of organization, one in which each person was free and was entitled to receive the benefit from their own hard work. Consider how crazy it would seem at the time, to move from the known comfort of feudalism to the preposterous "civil liberties" thing. "Pah!", medieval people scoffed. "What an idealistic pipe dream. They just don't understand how the world is. This 'equality' thing will never work." If our forefathers had resisted change, doubted that they could improve their lot, then we wouldn't have the freedoms that we have today.
And what happened with that crazy idea, that bold break from feudalism? The system predicated on equality, which defended civil liberties without regard to class, unlocked the latent productivity in every citizen and propelled the United States into unparallelled economic affluence. The people all over the world are really no different than the people in America, and yet the US holds a domineering economic position. Why? It is our well-considered system of capitalistic freedom that has powered the dramatic improvement in our standard of living. Our economic system harnesses our individual inclinations to "get ahead" and thereby collectively increase our standard of living.
Well, mass elections are the feudalism of our era. The unconscious assumption we've made is that the vote has to be exercised in mass elections with millions of people... why couldn't the vote be exercised in groups of ten?
I know the idea seems crazy. How can we elect our friends, in this modern world of ours run by money and media? It seems just as crazy as the idea of equality did to those peasants. How could they believe they were the equals of nobles, in that feudal world of theirs run by the aristocracy? Our friends are the equal of our politicians. More importantly, our friends would be better than wealthy politicians at promoting the Public Good. Democracy works when our personal representatives are people like us that we have a relationship with, which we have with our friends but not with distant politicians. A Human Assembly based on a community network of friends is just plain better than our flawed system of mass election.
Moreover, I want to show you that this bold leap into personal democracy will
reap the same reward as the bold leap into equality. Namely, that we will
harness the natural inclination of every citizen to improve their own quality
of life and convert it into a force for the Public Good that benefits us all.
The Human Assembly is a well considered system of human relationships
that restores the personal touch to our democracy. Just by making that one
small change, by slightly altering the way we play the election game, we can
fuel a profound improvement in the quality of human living.
0d: We want Just Reformation not Rash
Revolution
Despite Ben's exhortation that I use bolder words, I feel the need to temper
what I have said. I am firmly against revolutionary tactics: sharp or
violent changes are a method of last resort only. Our current systems are
mighty good despite their numerous flaws, and we hardly need to overthrow
them in order to enact positive change. It is high time for a serious
Reformation: working slow but sure to transform the current system
into a new and better one. The concerned citizens of the world must unite to
create a better system of organization that more fairly represents our needs.
It is our right and responsibility to do so. But we can do so peacefully
and justly.
More specifically, we want our Reformation to be organic and fair. We want to grow our new solutions slowly within the framework of the current systems, and then have a smooth transition from old to the new. We are looking for guaranteed evolution, not rash revolution. That gives us time to get used to the new system and refine it while still having a working backup. This entire migration process must also be fair. Sure, we could redistribute wealth by robbing the rich like the Communists did in China, but that's not who we are as a people. Americans are just, and fair, and we defend the sanctity of civil liberties. Our programs should be voluntary and rely on the fact that they are a genuine improvement to get support, instead of employing force. No one should be penalized for having succeeded in our current systems. Wherever the Human-Scale Reformation changes fundamental aspects of our systems of organization, we must ensure that anyone impacted during the transition receives fair compensation.
Now, many of you might be looking for someone to blame for the state of our world, much like I did when tragedy befell my mom. I believe that we have been looking in the wrong place: our foe is not a someone, it's a something. We waste a lot of time fighting each another in "us vs. them" scenarios, Hatfields and McCoys engaged in pointless feuds. Whenever the fight is phrased "the poor vs. the rich", "citizens vs. politicians", or "Republicans vs. Democrats" then real live people always lose. Our true "enemy" is our broken systems of organization, and that's where we should focus our efforts. Wealthy politicians are not the enemy: a faulty system of Mass Election is. Rich corporations are not the enemy: the systematic Rule of Money is. If we change the contest to "all us humans vs. them flawed systems", then it is possible for everyone to win. Humans, with the right system, can make a world worth living in; humans, with the wrong system, become little more than cogs in a machine. Some of us need a foe to fight in order to focus our energies; if you need to fight, then fight the system, not other people.
I don't want what happened to my mother to happen to anyone else ever again: not to you, not to me, and not to future generations. That's just one of the many things that I want for our country. Let me share some other wants with you.
0e: I want to feel proud talking to Ben Franklin
I want America to once again be a paragon among nations. Somewhere along the
way, I think we lost our clarity of focus about what this whole life thing is
about. We've let money become the ultimate driving force in our society...
instead of the quality of human life. I also feel like we've let fear cloud
our moral integrity. We've launched a lot of foreign wars lately... where we
have been the aggressor. Make no mistake, I love America and wouldn't live
any other place. But I want every American to be able to pursue their own
unique dream, and be more than just a wage slave to their bills. And I want
every American to live safe and secure free from the fear of terrorism. I
want us to live in strong communities where privacy and solitude are
respected, but no one is ever forced to live isolated and alone. I want so
much for this great country of ours.
We've already seen the conversation that I fear having with Ben Franklin. Now let me share with you the one I hope to have with him afterwards.
"Well, Mr. Franklin, it was a near thing," I would begin. "At the start of 2004 things looked bleak at home and abroad. I didn't know whether I could make a difference, but I tried anyway, and I wrote that book I promised you I would. And then I started talking to people about the Human Assembly and how we could restore American democracy the way you Founding Fathers intended."
"I started in my hometown of Dracut, MA. First I got my friends together just like you suggested. And we talked about our concerns and I discovered that we shared a great many of them. Lots of people felt the same way I did, about a number of things. I was pleasantly relieved to find that many people felt as passionate about democracy as I did. I guess I had feared that I would be too preachy, or that people wouldn't care. What I found was that I had struck a nerve. The desire for a true democracy of the people, it appears, still beats strong in the heart of Americans."
"And then an amazing thing happened. People started helping out. They introduced me to their friends, and I spoke with them. They presented me before their local groups, and I spoke with them, too. Before I knew it the word was spreading. People were forming Assemblies. And they were electing their friends as their personal Representatives. And that election season was the craziest we've seen in decades. Citizens just like me were being elected to public office; in one state, we even got a Senator elected."
"Well, after that, the idea was proven. Over the next year I toured the country spreading the message about the Human Assembly, showing people how it had worked in New England and it could work in their state, too. And it caught on wildfire. The Human Assembly was everywhere, and overnight we had this really effective public organization comprised entirely of citizens. It became a real force for the Public Good, and we ended up abolishing the Rule of Money in a fair and equitable way. And then we went on to solve many of the other ills of our society..."
That's the conversation I want to have with Ben Franklin. I want to be able to tell him that when times looked darkest, the American people rose up and met the challenge of their day. That citizens like you and I became heroes, restoring a working democracy in America, and defending the Public Good. That we pulled together and overcame.
But only you can help me make this dream come true. It is in your power to reclaim your own representation... yours and no one else's. I can show you how to do so, but ultimately you, and only you, decide how you are going to live your own life. What will you choose? Will you choose the safe road of doing nothing, the status quo? Or will you choose the courageous road of action, of improving your world?
Let's talk in more depth about what the Human Assembly is, so that you can make an informed decision.
The Human Assembly is a return to American Democracy as our Founding Fathers intended. It replaces the money-driven bureaucracy of politicians with a community network of friends. Specifically, it changes the mass election of distant politicians that we don't even know to the peer promotion of trusted leaders as our personal representatives. This change from large-scale popular election to human-scale personal selection restores the vital relationship between the represented and the Representative. In the Human Assembly, we personally know and trust our representatives, have regular face-to-face contact with them, and they are directly accountable to us. The community network is designed specifically to further the interests of the Public Good, without being unduly influenced by wealthy special interest groups or mass media. The Human Assembly is representation with participation, which our forefathers assumed we'd always have but has been lost in modern government.
In the Introduction we began with some stories about the events in my life that prompted me to write about how we citizens can reclaim our world. I have buried my head in the sand for many years, hoping that "someone else" will solve the clear and present problems in our government. In recent years I have become concerned, felt outrage, been stunned, and felt paralyzed at the enormity of how much needs fixing. If you have felt anything similar, then you'll want to know about the solution of the Human Assembly. Today I feel galvanized because I have a plan that is guaranteed to work, and I see a sequence of steps that I personally can take that will make a difference. I'd like for you to feel that way, too: confident and empowered.
In Chapter 1 we take a long look at what we currently have and what we really want in our government. What we have is representation without participation, wealthy special interest groups, distant politicians we don't even know, politics and mass media, ineffective bureaucracy, no accountability, and no recourse. What we want is representation with participation, for the public good to take precendence over special interests, ongoing relationships with leaders like us, leaders we know and trust, who get things done, and who are personally accountable to us. Along the way we discuss the crucial size assumptions made by the Constitutional Delegates in the design of our government
Chapter 2 is an in-depth description of the nuts and bolts of the Human Assembly, a system where we make a difference and our one vote counts. We describe how things would actually work, with specific recommendations for customary term lengths, replacement vs. removing vs. impeaching, vice representatives, citizen funding, expected commitment, etc. We'll consider many novel benefits of the network and how to leverage them effectively; foremost among these is fast idea and concern propagation because every voice is heard. We'll then discuss how to integrate the Human Assembly into the Legislative and Executive branches of the United States Government.
The Human-Scale Reformation is based on citizen activism, and this participatory activism is completely unlike politics or anything we normally associate with political movements. The Human Assembly is focused on building personal community. Since fusing friendship with government is an unfamiliar idea nowadays, we'll want explicit instructions on what to do; so we flesh out a detailed step-by-step guide in Chapter 3. In the initial stages, the goal will be to grow the Human Assembly to a large enough size to get our friends elected to legislature. In the middle stages, we'll want to focus on implementing Reformation goals. And after that, we'll follow the wise direction of leaders that we trust.
We then address your hesitant concerns in a heart-to-heart conversation filled with real stories in Chapter 4. Citizens like you and me can construct the Human Assembly easily, quickly, and agreeably. Unlike our current political system, it won't require huge momentum of life-crushing commitment, or a constantly annoying missionary zeal. The Human Assembly can be created with only two (2) hours per week of commitment from each Citizen, where one hour is spent amiably among friends, and the other in casual promotion to other friends. The cost of Citizen Funding is only $1 per week. Taken together, we can restore American democracy if we all watched one less movie a week and instead spent the time with our friends.
The Human Assembly offers more advantages than just making our elections process personal once again. In Chapter 5 we examine several of these benefits. Minorities are better represented, because minority representatives no longer need mass viability, just local viability. The small size and abundant relations works better for our representatives as well as for we citizens. The short, weekly feedback cycle leads to a rapid evolution of the quality of government. The community network is a sound investment of effort that can be leveraged for other purposes. And the Human Assembly also decreases factioning, an express goal of the Constitutional Delegates.
We'll wrap up in Chapter 6 by exploring a somewhat philosophical view of what's going wrong in our world and how to reverse it. Decisions are now being made for us by non-human entities, and these entities are concerned more with efficiency that with the quality of human life. These entities include such things like the law, the economy, corporations, and the workplace. We need a working symbiosis with these entities in order to flourish, but we don't want them making our lives inhuman. So, we propose a division of labor: humans as decision makers, and non-human entities as process automators.
Lastly, there are some addenda on various topics worthy of mention.
Enjoy!
P.S. The Human Assembly is the first crucial phase of a larger plan called the Human-Scale Reformation. If you find these ideas interesting, you may also want to check out the Reformation.
Chapter 1:
What We Have and What We Want
As our government has grown larger, it has drifted inexorably away from the vision of democracy intended by our Founding Fathers. The essential problem is that the entire system has grown too big. Things that work fine on the human-scale (like voting) break down when applied to a large-scale, because it becomes too impersonal, political, and bureaucratic. Making elections a personal process once again rectifies the major problems with our government.
Let's take a look at what we currently have in modern government and in particular, how it differs from what we really want. Along the way, we'll consider the history of our customs; it's very illuminating to see how they once worked, when the world was a smaller place. What we'll discover is that personal human relationships are the magic ingredient that makes organizations work, and good friendships are far more important than rules and regulations.
Here's a summary table of what we'll discuss in this section and the next:
| What We Have | What We Want | The Solution |
| Representation without Participation | Representation with Participation | Personal Selection of Representatives |
| Wealthy Special Interests Buying Our Government | Public Good over Special Interests | Citizen Funding |
| Distant Politicians We Don't Even Know | Ongoing Relationships with Leaders Like Us | Peer Promotion |
| Politics and Mass Media | Leaders We Know and Trust | Community Network of Friends |
| Ineffective Bureaucracy | To Get Things Done | Real Time Checks and Balances |
| No Accountability Nor Recourse | Direct Personal Accountability | Active Partnership with Leaders |
1a: Large Popular Elections favor
Wealth, Celebrity, and Conformity
Most representative democracies nowadays (the United States included) elect
by a method called the popular vote. Each person has one Vote, which
they then use to choose between two or more Candidates for a particular
Office. The candidate elected is ostensibly the one with the most votes; in
some cases, a majority is needed. The implicit assumption is that more votes
corresponds to a more accurate representation of the actual will of the
people, which is reasonable when we are allowed to choose among all
alternatives. Popular voting is a dramatic improvement over the previous
forms of "election", e.g. royal primogeniture, in which the first-born son of
the King rules next. Popular election is also a good method when the groups
of people are small and everyone knows one another. However, popular voting
breaks down when the voting pool gets too large and beyond human-scale.
Let's examine how large popular elections work in modern America. In order to be elected president, one needs campaign funding, media exposure, free time, and the desire to be a career politician. Thus, the primary qualities our current system selects for are the capability to generate wealth, possession of celebrity, freedom from obligation (free time usually follows from being wealthy), and political disposition. Moreover, because of the influence of the party system, we are only allowed to choose among pre-selected candidates. More often than not we are choosing the "lesser of two evils" instead of the "best candidate for the job". Popular elections force politicians to become sensitive to the party line (otherwise, they aren't supported at caucuses) and their viability (how to garner the maximum number of votes). The current system breeds politicians that know how to suck up to money, put on a good face for the camera, stay wealthy, cut deals, become a staunch party advocate, and have a saccharine pacifier for the masses. Our current political system makes it difficult for them to remain successful otherwise, irrespective of the personal inclinations of our leaders. Note that nowhere is it required that the politician be wise, capable, or benevolent; furthermore, a relationship with their constituency after election is conspicuously absent (or any equivalent way to build trust). The mass election of our public officials is fraught with numerous problems.
How did the good idea of the popular vote go so wrong? The critical flaw is size. The method of popular election only operates effectively at human-scale. That means a small community of people, who all know each other, have regular contact with one another, and in the best case have existing relationships they can build upon. All the vote does is guarantee a fair outcome, but the vote by itself doesn't ensure a good outcome. The way we get a good outcome (i.e. the best qualified person representing us) is to exercise our own human judgment about people we personally know. Human-scale systems are time-honored because they are known to work; we are rudely discovering in our times that impersonal large-scale systems don't work. Let's consider point-by-point what is wrong with our large-scale political system, of which several points will be about mass elections alone.
1b: We Citizens are Barred From
Participating in Our Own Government
In a broad sense, the purpose of government is to serve the needs of the
people. The whole reason why we gather together, pool our resources, and
vest authority into officials is because we've found that we all receive a
net benefit from being part of such a system. In smaller communities, that
"being part of" also meant participation; every citizen's voice was
heard. In fact, going all the way back to the origin of democracy in Ancient
Greece, that was how polis meetings were held. Anyone could stand up and
speak their mind on what they felt to be an important public issue, and then
everyone voted on it according to their own best judgment. The entire
process was human-scale: you saw everyone in a large room, and everyone
already knew one another. This tradition continued in the United States in
the form of town meetings, which were in an integral part of early
American government.
However, in the large-scale popular elections of today, we have lost that vital component; we now have representation without participation. We are allowed to vote for politicians in flashy mass elections, and then are discouraged from participating in the decision-making process after that. This discouragement is not explicit; it is implicit in the practical barriers to citizen participation in our current government. Few citizens have the free time, disposable income, media presence, and lobbying power that it takes to influence government today. It has become apparent that wealthy special interest groups have a more direct influence into government legislation than we citizens do. Special Interests are overriding the Public Good, because wealthy lobbying groups can participate in our current government in ways that we can't.
1c: We want Representation with
Participation
There is a growing groundswell of citizens like you and me who want to be
included in the governmental process. Most of us don't care for or care
about politics, what we really care about is
participation in the decision making that affects our lives and the
future of our families. We each have our own concerns, and we all want our
voice to be heard. Unfortunately, our current system forces us to become
political zealots in order to be heard, because there is no direct
communications channel between us and our leaders. And sometimes we
scream loudly but politicians don't listen. Our participatory enthusiasm is
squelched without an outlet, and we are frustrated because we want to make a
positive difference, but don't know how in our current political system.
Representation through voting alone is not enough: democracy requires
the active participation of citizens in order to work properly. We
have more than the right to vote; we have the right to participate in
our own government.
Moreover, participatory citizen activism is the only way our current system can change. It is a remarkable insight into how much we have been discouraged from participating in our own government that the word "activism" now has a negative connotation. "Activism" today connotes "political activism", which is an oft distasteful process of annoying mass advertisement usually doomed to failure from the start (like intrusive petitioning). That's a pretty paralyzing thing, when people are dissuaded from taking action that improves their own situation. We will need to untarnish the name of "activism" by offering a reasonable alternative to politics to citizens. We might call this "participatory activism" or "citizen activism" or whatever we like. But the point is clear: we citizens must act to reclaim our representation in government. It is our right, and our responsibility to do so. If we don't act, nothing will change, and it will be no one's fault but our own.
1d: Money is Buying our Elections and
our Laws
Let's look at another major point of discontent of the American people: our
government is now run by money. In the world of politics
fueled by large popular elections, politicians must get election funding and
cater to wealthy special interests groups in order to succeed. The clear and
direct influence of money on our elections is well-documented in
The Buying of the President series released by the
Center for Public Integrity.
As the lead author Charles Lewis quips: "Racecar drivers are more honest than
politicians; at least they publicly advertise their sponsors. Maybe we
should get politicians to wear patches, too."
The influence of money on elections has been folklore for ages; let's back up that belief with some facts. The year prior to a presidential election year there is a "pre-election" held by the top 0.1% most wealthy people and corporations in the United States; they "vote" by making donations to the campaign funds for different candidates. Over 98% of all campaign funds come from this "pre-election", which means the money people like you and I contribute makes no difference. In modern times we can track the statistics of presidential campaign funds, which confirm that the candidate that raises the most money wins the election. They win because they can spend huge amounts of money on media publicity; in fact, paid election funding has become the number one source of advertising revenue for many major media networks today. Campaign funding for a single candidate has reached $10s of millions of dollars; not surprisingly, their primary supporters are media organizations. Public support no longer wins elections; in fact, we now have presidents elected against a majority vote. Citizens liked McCain's reform platform, but the rich didn't, so his party supported someone else. The people liked Howard Dean, but corporations didn't, so he loses to more accomodating nominees. Money buys our elections, and it is that top 0.1% deciding who our next president will be, not citizens like us.
Moreover, the influence of money on government isn't limited to just elections. The only candidates that we are allowed to vote on are the ones chosen by our party system; these candidates are always wealthy, with personal portfolios in the $10s of millions of dollars; many have $100s of millions of dollars of assets. Lobbying groups spend $10s of millions of dollars a year in order to influence government legislations. And, of course, there is the ever-present shaping of public perception on key issues through mass media in advertising campaigns that cost millions of dollars. Altogether, our modern government has become a breeding ground of wealthy special interests groups, who promote their rich peers in all-but-rigged elections and then buy the laws favorable to their industries. "Intolerable" is not too strong a word to describe the pervasive influence of wealth on modern politics; nor is "disgraceful" or "infuriating". It is distasteful to free citizens everywhere.
1e: We want the Public Good to Take
Precedence over Special Interests
What is the Public Good? The Public Good is anything that improves the
quality of human life. That includes not only our measurable
standard of living but also the more intangible conditions under which we all
live. The Public Good is about addressing the real concerns of citizens like
you and me. Now, we often think of the Public Good as this abstract
collective thing, like "cleaning the environment" or "creating world peace";
and it is true, the Public Good encompasses those concerns. However, the
Public Good is based upon the lives of we citizens and our personal,
individual concerns. Helping people find fulfilling jobs is a Public Good;
reducing the burden of your bills is a Public Good; making your neighborhood
safe for your children to play in is a Public Good. Ultimately, the reason
why we act on the global concerns like a clean environment is because
individual people like you and me want to be able to eat healthy fruit,
breathe clean air, and be free from disease. The Public Good is
personal, it's about you and me acting to make our lives better.
Now, sometimes the Public Good and Special Interests coincide. We are not proposing to eliminate the input of special interests entirely; that would be ill-advised as well as unfair. What we are proposing is that wealthy special interests groups should have to convince legislators on the basis of how much their proposals actually improve the Public Good, instead of how much money they can slap down to buy lobbying power or media influence. The quality of our lives come first, before money, before economy, and before politics. In all cases, the first consideration of government should be the effect on the lives of real people: not how much money can be made, nor how big a market can be captured, nor how good a deal can be cut. The Public Good is paramount.
1f: We elect Distant Politicians that
We Don't Even Know
Mass election has more problems than just too little participation and too
much money. We no longer have a relationship with our elected officials,
because they are not like us anymore. Politicians are drawn from the
wealthiest segment of our society; the concerns they face are completely
different than the ones we face. The average citizen struggles to make ends
meet every month, while the rich jetset around the globe. While we battle
with the health care system, they receive the best medical attention; many
have personal doctors. To us taxes impact whether we can take a family
vacation next year; to the wealthy it is a big game to see how much they can
avoid paying. Let's not hold the benefits of wealth against the wealthy,
because truth to be told many of us wouldn't mind having their problems. The
point is that the rich don't even live in the same world that we do. How can
we expect our wealthy politicians to act in our best interests when
they've never lived the lives we do? How can they really know our
concerns, when they are so unlike us?
Let's consider what life was like back in the day when elections actually worked. A typical city-state in ancient Greece would have several hundred free citizens that could participate in polis meetings. All the citizens lived in the city, kept their businesses there, and had estates inside the city walls (as well as outside). The citizens all knew one another (or had close mutual friends), they shared the same concerns, and they could all visit one another whenever they pleased. Early American society worked much the same way, and on the same scale. Agrarian communities would number in the low thousands; some were much smaller. People saw one another regularly at church, at festivals, and at town meetings. They married within the town, making many related by blood. When our forefathers elected someone, it was someone they personally knew, had regular dealings with, and who they could visit at any time.
Elections back then were done with a ballot, which means "little ball". There would be a ballot box for each representative, and people would vote by dropping a small stone into the appropriate box. At the end of the voting, the little balls were counted up and the person with the <ahem> most balls got elected. The unconsidered assumption that we've made is that the Vote using Ballots is what makes democracy work, and it's the reason why we now have an entire industry devoted to making ballot machines. However, the vote was only one part of an overall system of election, which also included a personal relationship with the candidates. When the ancient Greeks voted, it was between people they had personally known for years. This is the conspicuous piece missing from our modern government, and we are now seeing that it is by far the more important piece. How can we be expected to make an informed vote when we don't even know who these people are? At best all we can do is choose between different media images, because that is the only relationship we have with our candidates today. We need to restore the personal relationship between the representative and the represented in order to make our democracy work once again. The vote is important because it is fair, but by itself it is not enough.
We can now see the crucial spot where our government has broken down, as the human-scale was the implicit assumption made in its design. Election was always intended to be of people that we knew like us, who shared our concerns because they lived similar lives. In fact, it would be inconceivable to our forefathers that we would ever elect people we don't even know, but that has become the norm in modern society. As much as some of us might like to turn back the clock to agrarian societies, we can't. The world is, in truth, much different than it was two centuries ago. The towns of today (with 50,000 people) were the cities of yesterday; we are operating on a scale unseen and unforeseen by our predecessors. In fact, we can quantify what our forefathers meant by "small". Hamilton pushed for Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, which explicitly states apportionment: "The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand"; elsewhere, he mentions that he would prefer an even smaller constituency, but Hamilton had to raise that number in response to the method proposed by Jefferson. In the year 2004, there were 435 seats in the House and each representative represented 572,000 people. That's 19 times larger than the expressly stated upper bound written directly into our Constitution. Our modern systems have clearly exceeded their original design parameters, and we need to return to smaller voting communities. So, we must seek a new solution that fuses both past and future: a human-scale network based on personal relations, that can effectively address the needs of a global community of billions.
1g: We want Ongoing Relationships
with Leaders Like Us
According to John Campbell in his essay "Constitution for Utopia", the most
important part of the political process is "selecting rulers that are wise,
benevolent, and competent". If you get good leaders, then they will use
whatever system they have as best they can (of course, we want to provide
them with as good a system as possible). If you get bad leaders, it doesn't
matter what safeguards you have in place, they will find a way to circumvent
them and corrupt the system. The ancient Greeks believed much the same: the
leaders were of primary importance, and the form of government only mattered
insofar as it supported the leaders. The Greeks originated the idea of
democracy, but what is little known is that they also created and endorsed
dictatorship. In times of crisis, they would appoint an absolute dictator
and charge them with the responsibility to lead them to safety: to "dictate"
means to tell someone what to do. And even though they were free men, the
Greeks would follow their dictator even unto death, because they only
chose leaders they trusted. So, they too believed that the selection of
the right people was important, in particular more important than rules and
exact governmental structure.
In addition to having qualified leaders, the Founding Fathers of the United States also felt it vital that leaders have a close relationship to their constituency. They designed the House of Representatives explicitly to be "sensitive to the needs of the represented" and "reliant on the goodwill of the constituency for continued election". (Recall that the Senate was a compromise between the smaller states and larger states; in a population-based system like the House the smaller states felt they were receiving short shrift.) In this relationship, personal contact and the size of the constituency was crucial, and the Founding Fathers knew it. Jefferson once wrote to Madison "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural" but that "when they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt." Small communities and personal relationships were paramount in his mind as moderators of government, and the best examples in his time were agricultural communities.
So, we want a system that naturally elects qualified leaders like us with whom we have close contact and a vital relationship. Moreover, the two go hand in hand. Trust is a human feeling that we extend in varying degrees to people that we know, and we get to know people over time by having a personal relationship with them. We also have an uncanny knack for realistically assessing the strengths and weaknesses of those close to us (as well as a stereotypical characterization of those distant from us, and an idealization of celebrities). We should select leaders who we already personally know and trust, with whom we can have an active partnership to ensure that our real needs are met. The specific qualities that we look for in our leaders may change over time; wise, capable, and benevolent is a good first approximation of what we are looking for. Most importantly, we want leaders like us, who share our concerns because they live similar lives.
1h: Distant Relationships are formed through Media and Politics
Consider the relationship that we do have with our officials nowadays. Our
knowledge of politicians is almost completely secondhand through mass
media. We read about politicians in the newspaper, we hear about them on
the radio, and we see them on television. How many of us personally know our
own Senator? How often do we see the Mayor of our own city? How much time
do we hang out with our school superintendent? Our officials are both
literally and figuratively distant: we can't "drop by" and visit any of them
to have a chat like we could have back in the day. We have no personal
relationship with our officials anymore; voters don't even know
them, except through what we are fed in the media. The immense power of
the media on our elections becomes obvious once we realize that the media is
effectively the only source of information we have about our politicians.
Distant relationships are media relationships, a "he-said" "she-said" of
hearsay.
A direct consequence of this secondhand relationship is a lack of trust in our authority figures. After all, the media can manipulate public image however they want, independent of who people really are. That works both ways: both presenting a cad more virtuously, and besmirching the reputation of a truly upstanding individual. Consider what happened to Senator John McCain during the year 2000 presidential primaries. McCain is an honest-to-goodness reformer, the likes of which haven't been seen in Washington in many a year. He upset the Bush election machine by claiming the New Hampshire primaries through his sincere grass-roots campaigning. However, by leveraging a larger media presence fueled by an immense campaign fund, Bush was able to portray himself as a "real reformer" in the southern states and thereby take back the vote. This was despite the fact that McCain had a publicly declared platform of reform for many years, and Bush had never spoken on the topic of reform before that election. (It's abundantly clear what their positions really are, with McCain pushing for the landmark McCain-Feingold act on campaign reform and Bush deftly defusing it by miring it in FEC regulation.) We can't trust our politicians anymore because we have a system that encourages them to manipulate image, because it gets better results than honestly following through on campaign promises.
1i: We want Leaders we Know and Trust,
not Politicians nor Rulers
According to Merriam-Webster, politics is "competition between competing
interest groups or individuals for power (as in a government)". However, the
best definition I've seen of politics is "poli, from the Greek meaning
'many', and tics, which are bloodsucking creatures". 8^) Politics in our
modern world is this very unsavory thing dealing with competing influence
that employs widespread manipulation to achieve its ends. Only
politicians can get elected in governments with large popular votes; the
current bureaucracy forces officials to cut deals in order to secure and
maintain their support. The fault is with the political system, not
with the people who must become politicians in order to succeed. Similarly,
no one wants a government filled with rulers, either. Rulers are people
obsessed with power, enforcing their commands through laws and threats.
Americans rejected the premise of unfettered rulership a long time ago; if
anything, we have gone overboard in our fear of rulers by unduly limiting our
well-intentioned officials. We've seen both rulers and politicians, and we
don't want either of them in government. So whom do we want?
We want leaders.
Now, there are many types of leaders out there, so let's try to carefully distinguish the desirable attributes we want. There are highly charismatic leaders who make fine rock stars as well as warrior leaders who should be military commanders; however, cultish charm and fierce cunning aren't quite what we are looking for in our Representatives. What we want is more like a common sense leader in tune with their followers. These common sense leaders are gifted with clarity and can sort through all the obfuscating flak and see straight to the heart of any matter. Their wisdom constantly affirms the sense of what's truly important. This type of leader is a powerful catalyst of the will of their followers. They express clearly what their fellows have always felt but didn't quite know how to say. And most importantly, a leader is an inspiration to those around them. They have a solid conviction (separate from magnetic charisma) that lends to their followers both the motivation to act and the certainty that it is the right thing to do. Common sense leaders don't like politics; it compromises the integrity of their beliefs for the expediency of "playing the game". This type of leader doesn't need to rule; when they speak, what they say is obviously the best thing to do (it was in our hearts to begin with!) and it naturally inspires us to act. When we use the word "leader", we will mean the kind of common sense leader as described above; in particular, we'll mean a leader as distinctly different than the politicians and rulers we normally encounter in modern government.
Unfortunately, our current political system does not favor the creation of leaders; at best, it tolerates hybrid leader-politicians to survive. Citizens like you and I are starved for solid leadership that we can believe in, because leaders that we trust are becoming few and far between. We need a new system that naturally selects trustworthy leaders over politicians and rulers. Every one of us personally knows someone with leadership qualities. That person with quiet confidence that we trust implicitly is a leader; not the next Martin Luther King perhaps, but a common sense leader nonetheless. Our friend we've known for years who always seems to know the right thing to say, who genuinely touches us at times with their sincerity, and whom we admire for their honesty and integrity: they are a humble leader in our midst. Right now, people like that go unharnessed by our government, their talent for leadership wasted if not actually suppressed. We want a society that quickly identifies leaders wherever they may be found, actively promotes them, and encourages them to grow their leadership potential i