So what exactly is so wrong with our current system?  It’s not exactly that there is something wrong, evil, or bad with the current system, but that the current system is just simply flawed.  For the last 235 years, American government has operated via the system of representative democracy, aided by elections, political parties and the tyranny of the majority.  It is quite true that our American system of government has worked correctly up till recent times, but until about the mid 2000’s, only the wealthy, powerful and wise had their opinions heard by the masses, but the invention of and mass availability of the internet has now given anyone and everyone a voice.  The internet has effectively rendered representative democracy, elections and political parties as relics of an idolized past America and replaced it with a world where corporations are people and one where candidates can spend unlimited amounts of their supporter’s money in their attempts to get elected to public office.  The internet, however, has not hindered the tyranny of the majority, if anything in recent years the court of public opinion has become even more influential in our system of government and politics.  The speed, of which information can reach the masses, means that now more than any other time in human history, everyone can and often does have an opinion about everything and the internet is an ideal place for anyone to voice their opinion.  The problems are though that it can be very hard to defuse the more learned opinions with those who don’t know a whole lot and there is no guarantee that anyone will even read about your opinion in the first place.  As a result of these problems, real, substantial and effective change is very hard to come by.  Progress, not only in the political realm, but in the social realm is plagued by gridlock caused by unlimited debate by those who do not have the authority to create change.  American society is more divisive now than ever in the past, and this is due to the increases in population and the diversity of the population.  Divisiveness, diversity and unlimited debate are perfectly fine, but we need an outlet for anyone and everyone to speak their mind and have the reasonable expectation of having a listening audience who is willing and ready to listen. 

Are You There?

Do it youself rules for the 21st Century

In July 1846, poet Henry David Thoreau spent a single night in a jail after refusing to pay poll taxes, which he had not paid for the previous 6 years.  After spending this single night in jail Thoreau wrote his famous essay, Resistance to Civil Government, also called Civil Disobedience, which is about his argument for individual non-violent civil resistance against an un-just government.  In the essay, Thoreau states that “if a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent blood”.  This radical statement of defiance was not unheard of in Thoreau’s time and has been heard from the mouth of humans since nearly the dawn of civilization.  The problem is, though while many people sympathize with the sentiment spoken by Thoreau, few have the foolhardiness or the guts to act upon it.  Very few people refuse to pay their taxes; mostly out of fear, whether it is out of fear of jail, loss of property or of public ridicule.  I say, however, that it only takes a single fool to change the world; it only takes a single fool to end war, or end poverty or to end the conservation of ignorance.  The “majority of one” can change; through the use of tax resistance, voting to abstain and Gandhigiri protests, the government can be changed for the better and can and will finally allow people to decide for themselves and be truly free.