Submitted by: John Butler
Direct Democracy – Why the American People must disband Congress
Monday, November 09, 2009 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Those people are called members of Congress. And as you’ll read here, they are essentially obsolete. Society no longer has any need for them. Here’s why…
Why Congress was created
Consider why the U.S. Congress was created in the first place: Back in the 1700s, there was no internet. There weren’t even telephones. Heck, this was pre-telegraph! Long-distance communication was simply impossible, so the people had a very practical need to send a representative to Washington to represent their wishes on the legislative front.
And so the idea of the U.S. Congress was born. Senators and Congresspeople would be representatives of the People from their home states and districts, and they would vote according to the wishes, desires and best interests of the people back home. They would essentially be proxy voters. Sounds good in theory, right?
Fast forward 230 years or so…
Now, instant communication is available to almost everyone. A new law being proposed in Washington could be instantly read — and voted on — by the People all across America. The internet has made the whole purpose behind the U.S. Congress obsolete… irrelevant. Why do Americans need someone else to represent them when we can all just read and vote on the bills ourselves? In an age of instant communications, Congress is no longer needed.
But of course, the current members of Congress would heartily disagree with that assessment. If there’s one rule about power, it’s that those in power always seek more power. And because only members of Congress can vote federal laws into existence — not the actual citizens of the country — they hold a tremendous amount of concentrated power… and they’re not about to let it go.
Corporations love the current system, too, because they can simply bypass the People and lobby Congress to pass the laws that favor their own interests. This is how the U.S. Congress has become a legislative auction house where new laws are passed to appease whoever raises more money for reelection campaigns. Meanwhile, the People have been abandoned in this equation, and the interests of the People that were supposed to be “represented” in Washington have been long forgotten.
Did you realize that 237 members of Congress are millionaires? (http://www.politico.com/news/storie…) And seven of them have a net worth greater than $100 million. When lawmakers are rolling in that kind of cash, how can they possibly represent the interests of the People, of which 99% earn far less?
Further demonstrating detachment from the people they claim to represent, one new Congressman — just sworn in yesterday — managed to break four campaign promises in his first hour of office (http://www.gouverneurtimes.com/inde…).
It’s time for Direct Democracy
In a Direct Democracy, the People directly participate in the debate and passage of new laws. All laws are publicly published for debate and discussion — unlike the current situation where 1,000-page laws like the Patriot Act or the new health care reform bill are covertly written, then often deposited in the federal register just minutes before a scheduled vote.
Comments:
Direct democracy is a path to failure. It is little different than mob rule. What we really need is to return to the constitution of the United States. We need to remove the laws and government programs and agencies that are contrary to the constitution. The United States is a republic. It was designed this way to protect the rights of the individual from being overruled by the majority. In mob rule (or direct democracy), you cannot protect the right to private property or individual liberty.
The U.S. government was never meant to have this kind of power. What we need is to get back to the original governing document of this country: The U.S.Constitution. It is the law by which the Congress is supposed to be constrained. The founders of this country knew that people in power would want more power, and they took steps to keep that from happening by setting down limits for the federal government. The Constitution grants very few powers to the federal government and specifically states that the government is not allowed to take any powers other than those specified by the Constitution. Everything else is in the power of each state. That would go far toward bringing the government closer to the people, as Mike is suggesting, without coming to complete anarchy. The Congress is not supposed to be above the law (Constitution). It must obey the laws of this country. They are not doing that. The Constitution does not grant power to the federal government to provide either health care or education for the whole country. Those powers are meant to be localized in states and counties and cities.. Everything the federal government takes over that should be handled locally is only made worse. The education in this country has got worse since Carter set up a federal department of education. When these things are handled locally there is less cost, less paperwork, less opportunity for fraud, etc. We need to constrain the federal government by insisting that they obey the highest law of our land, the U.S. Constitution. Did you know that Congress has been getting “pink slips” warning them of being fired? So many of these papers have been sent to them that the pile is higher than the Sears tower. See the work of WorldNetDaily (www.WND.com) online to send your pink slips to Senators and Representatives
November 27th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Anyone who does not uphold our constitution needs to be fired!! That goes for all so called high officials!! All of these power hungry congress people and senators need to be fired!! We need to get back to the basics of what this country was built on!! Anyone who takes an oath to uphold the constitution should do so, if not they should be removed from office!! This excessive spending by the gov. has got to stop, if not our country will go broke in a matter of years. We must never allow ourselves to become dependent on the gov. We must go through the bad times the way our forefathers did!!!