“Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.” - Thomas Jefferson
1) Citizens Assemblies aka sortition, (the original form of democracy, as you pointed out) can and should replace the "clown car" (using term from your piece) that is "representative" (actually, oligarchic) "democracy." We the People need to come together and make this change--with the sense of urgency it deserves--before the country breaks. Regular peoples' voices need to be heard. Regular people, chosen randomly, need to come together to deliberate and make policy.
2) Our 2001 Toyota minivan and our 2004 Toyota Prius are the 2 best purchase we ever made for our family. Hopefully the quality of your 2014 is as good as the 2001?
Aug 3, 2022·edited Aug 3, 2022Liked by Nathan Jack
I love this analogy! I agree - we’ve outgrown the system. But I think for a lot of us, we feel helpless - like we can’t do anything about it. It’s time for a minivan. It’s time for Democracy+!
My perspective on Congress is that it is doing exactly what it should ... nothing! I'm not convinced that we need more federal laws, so one approach to keep the peace and also keep there from being more laws is make people think that Congress is important and then jam up the system with so many rules and battling opinions that you can't actually do anything.
I'm all for making local and state governments work better. I've lived in many different places, Boston, DC Metro, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Utah and Costa Rica. Every place that I have lived is different. The culture in each place values different things. I'd love to pull out more of the teeth from the Federal Government and implement something like Democracy+ at the local level, where there is a higher probability of consensus between factions and groups.
Let Boston and San Francisco push forward their social policy agendas, but leave San Diego and Salt Lake out of it.
Two comments:
1) Citizens Assemblies aka sortition, (the original form of democracy, as you pointed out) can and should replace the "clown car" (using term from your piece) that is "representative" (actually, oligarchic) "democracy." We the People need to come together and make this change--with the sense of urgency it deserves--before the country breaks. Regular peoples' voices need to be heard. Regular people, chosen randomly, need to come together to deliberate and make policy.
Democracy Without Elections is one such organization that is working on this: democracywithoutelections.org Paris is the first major city of our time to institutionalize a Citizens Assembly--here's a great podcast that can be used as a road map for that: https://realdemocracynow.libsyn.com/the-paris-citizens-assembly-0
2) Our 2001 Toyota minivan and our 2004 Toyota Prius are the 2 best purchase we ever made for our family. Hopefully the quality of your 2014 is as good as the 2001?
I love this analogy! I agree - we’ve outgrown the system. But I think for a lot of us, we feel helpless - like we can’t do anything about it. It’s time for a minivan. It’s time for Democracy+!
My perspective on Congress is that it is doing exactly what it should ... nothing! I'm not convinced that we need more federal laws, so one approach to keep the peace and also keep there from being more laws is make people think that Congress is important and then jam up the system with so many rules and battling opinions that you can't actually do anything.
I'm all for making local and state governments work better. I've lived in many different places, Boston, DC Metro, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Edinburgh, Utah and Costa Rica. Every place that I have lived is different. The culture in each place values different things. I'd love to pull out more of the teeth from the Federal Government and implement something like Democracy+ at the local level, where there is a higher probability of consensus between factions and groups.
Let Boston and San Francisco push forward their social policy agendas, but leave San Diego and Salt Lake out of it.
I can relate to this analogy!