What I'd like to see, Tom (I haven't thought through all the potential ramifications yet, but I'm quite sure that the *idea* would be good and useful for certain situations), is US national *referendums*, *propositions*, etc. Just like states and local jurisdictions do already. Our current method of using a handful of generally corporate-sponsored elected representatives (aka Congress) was the only way that made sense in older times (when our nation was founded, and continuing until fairly recently) when communications were not good, and most people had little or no education.

As just one example, in the '90s we had many newly-elected congress members saying they would always do the will of the people, and I'm sure their intentions started out fine, but you remember those pre-election pledges quite a few of them made on adhering to some unofficial term-limits, but when the time came for their unoffical term-limits to expire, most of them changed their minds and ran again anyway :-) (I'm not meaning to get into term-limits here, that's a whole 'nother topic, it's just an example of the "selling-out" that goes on regularly in politics.)

Anyway, "representative democracy" (which isn't the same as real democracy, as you all know, I'm sure) was just the only practical way to make our gov't work until recently. However, I think we are now ready for something a little closer to true democracy, as the communication and educational difficulties are gone. We'd still need a "version" of Congress for many technicalities, such as the many legal issues beyond the scope of voter understanding, arbitrating state-to-state differences, and ensuring that small-population states don't get under-represented, things like that...

But for nationwide topics, I think national "referendums" (that's as good a word as any I can conjure up now) are perfect for various issues. They needn't be legally-binding (but might be for certain issues, eventually). But they would gauge & reflect the will & wishes of the people in an "official" sort of way, much more than any polls do. Perhaps most such referendums would end up being near 50/50 in tally, but that's not bad, it merely shows there is no consensus.

The only current two measures of the will of the people we use, polls and elections, don't work very well in modern times. Media polls fluctuate day-to-day, are skewed by many factors, and everyone knows they are just polls, so they can answer any way they like without putting much thought into it, and there's no "outcome" of their opinion anyway (IOW, no matter how they answer, they're basically meaningless). And as for elections, well, we've already discussed the corporate controls through campaign contributions, the "cliques" that form among politicians, the pressure from higher-level politicians to swing votes of lower-levels in exchange for pork, a whole list of things wrong with the current system. We can and should fix some of them, like campaign contributions, but we need more direct voter contact.

If referendums went onto national ballots, voters would have fixed questions to deliberate on over a lengthy-enough period, and they would know their votes would be directly meaningful and not just a miniscule piece of some politician's agenda.

We'd have to get the technology in place so these referendums could be done fairly quickly (definitely not with 2-3 years of campaigning/debating about them, we'd need a voting process that could be done in a matter of months).

Some rough examples might be: "Do you think the US should invade Iraq, based on the possibility that Iraq might have serious WMDs?"

Or maybe: "Do you think marijuana should be de-criminalized for legitimate medical use?"

Or maybe: "Do you think Bill Clinton should leave office because of the Lewinsky affair?"

I could think of many other such questions, some I won't mention because they'll stir up controversy right here on the UT, let alone on national referendums, but maybe y'all can get the idea here...the point really is to capture the will of the voters much better and more directly than what is currently done in Washington, by all politicians, not just congress but the white house, the supreme court...all of which, despite the best intentions of our nation's founders, are not reflecting the will of the people nearly as accurately as we might like. This *can* be improved on, and it will be, sooner or later. You've all seen futuristic movies where voters vote *directly* on issues, not 2nd-hand through representatives. Well, maybe it's time to take that futuristic concept and give it more serious consideration.

Some might cling to the old line regarding bought-out politicians with, "well, that's what we have elections for." But any objective person can see this does not work well any longer due to corporate influence/interference, short voter memories on election days, the fact that even the Supreme Court has clearly become a political body - just read their opinions, if you doubt it, and note the way they are appointed by politicians based on the nominees' political positions. Not taking sides, the "left" is just as bad as the "right" on this.

And note that I'm only proposing *non-binding* national vote tallies for such issues (at least until deep into the future), but I think this idea would force congress to listen to the will of the people better, and it would most certainly boost eligibile-voter participation in elections, if they know their direct vote is on a specific *issue*, not some politician who waffles and hedges, and for whom the typical voter supports for *some* of the politician's positions, but not others (I think most of us "Middle-Americans" fall into this category, where we vote for the lesser of the evils, and are only partially happy when "our" candidate wins, since they also have some positions we don't like. So, I say, take out the middlemen (politicians) out of the equation for some of the less-confusing issues, where most all voters can understand and cast a vote on their own exact position.

Increasing voter-participation & interest *alone* might be one of the best parts of this "referendum* idea, actually. And these referendums should probably usually be done independently of regularly scheduled national elections, to a) get results quickly when needed, and b) avoid mixing them up with the whole corporate-sponsorship/political mess that's the underlying problem of anything & everything politically-related.

Cost in dollars for this idea? Yeah, that's certainly a big issue. But I think it's inevitable that something similar to this referendum-idea will happen, it's only a matter of "when" and not "if."

We *will* become much closer to a true democracy here in the US, at some point, I have no doubt at all. And it's *technology* that's brought us to the point where we can actually begin to discuss ideas like the above, whether one agrees or disagrees with the idea (or is just totally confused by what I've just typed :-)

Okay, I'll SET RAMBLE OFF now.

>This may be a conspiracy to turn the United States into a nation like the Greek state Sparta! You remember Sparta, an armed camp, brutal, culturally stagnant, economically stagnant, and politically stagnant?...

Hey, I hadn't even thought of Sparta in years, but good example!

>One day at a time – and keep a smile on your face! :)

Indeed - I (maybe I should make that a collective "we") may sound terribly serious all too often, but I do try to follow your advice: to not be too serious about too many things. Life's too short to do otherwise!