>From: "Ross A. Finlayson" <raf@tiki-lounge.com>
>In this age of modern technology, we should use some of it to enable
>cyber-grassroots mobilization. What has come to mind is a web interface
>to a wwide variety of proposed legislation, a clearinghouse for it, as
>it were. Say that as a U.S. citizen you can write suggested legislation
>on any of a variety of topics that are legislatable. Then, legislation
>is organized so that different topics and causes will have compromises
>hammered, or separate proposals if they are incompatible. Then, as
>legislation is developed in this virtual town hall federally and for
>each region, separately or as one, then as legislation passes through a
>public peer-review process and reaches the point where credible
>volunteers vouch for its Consitutionality and value depending on other
>merits, then the legislation is fast-tracked into the requisite forms
>for each jurisdiction, ie, from electronic community, communication,
>discussion, review, and mobilization, then the real world requirements
>for placement in the processes of legislation are fulfilled, and the
>virtual communities' mobilization is used locally and extra-locally to
>satisfy any requirements, where some of the first legislation might be
>to enable electronic satisfaction of the requirements.
Ahh, sweet Utopia, once again you raise your pretty little head.
I think the tech underlying your suggestion is definitely doable. After
all, its not all that much different from what sites like vote.com are
doing. Problem is it would take a supreme amount of "social engineering" to
bring about. Primarily because the lawyers and politicians are calling the
shots, and they are not likely to legislate themselves out of business
anytime soon.
But such democratizing alternatives to the creation of law should be
pursued. One thing I'll be watching with great interest, for instance, is
to see how the "Engines of Creation 2000" Project comes out.
http://www.foresight.org/engines/index.html
If they can get a book written by an entire community, I don't see it as
much of a stretch to get some legislation written the same way. But if you
really want to see something as revolutionary as your proposal put to use in
real life anytime soon, you'd better take the advice of Dick The Butcher,
and kill all the lawyers first.
-Zero
"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
--Thomas Jefferson
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:12:46 MDT