Toward a Government "By The People"

[erisian]

This is an effort started by Mike Gravel, the former Senator and presidential candidate. It doesn't matter what you think of him or his campaign platform. This is an effort to empower the People directly. From their homepage, http://www.ni4d.us/:

The National Initiative for Democracy is a proposed law developed by The Democracy Foundation, over the past decade, along with a plan to get it enacted by the people (not by the government) creating, for the first time, a government "by you, the people."

The National Initiative includes a constitutional amendment and a federal statute that equips the people with the central power of government, lawmaking. As lawmakers, the people in every government jurisdiction of the United States  become a new Check in our system of Checks and Balances designed to control the abuses of government.  Representative government remains unaltered except for the partnership established between the people and their elected legislators.

And all we have to do to make it happen is to get 60,000,000 people to vote for it.

[dalebert]

I'm afraid the poorly chosen name is going to doom them with most of this crowd. Democracy is organized violence.

[dan_sayers]

That's right. We live in a Constitutional Republic.

"for the first time"? "The National Initiative includes a constitutional amendment and a federal statute that equips the people with the central power of government, lawmaking."? That whole paragraph sounds like what this Constitutional Republic was founded on. If they try to take that from us when the foundation limits them from doing so, what good will another Constitutional Amendment and federal statute do? Except maybe confuse "the people" that much more in an attempt to further shift power away from them.

[javieranton]

Hi I had heard of this site and of the project but never bothered to look it up online (so its my first time here).
I am a legal immigrant in this country and a citizen of Spain. However, that's just how the system would identify me, as I refuse to "be owned" by any criminal organization i.e. government.
Indeed I am an anarchist and find I have many believes in common with the libertarians. However Ive seen many libertarians participate in the democratic process which does nothing but empower the oppressive state and oppressive majority. Particularly during this campaign Ive heard many of Dr. Paul's statements which I consider to be exactly what he supposedly despises (about immigration).
So I agree with virtually all libertarian ideals, and that's why I moved to this country (at least here there used be more freedom, not so much lately), but even the libertarians (who are pretty much all hope theres left for this country) tend to show nationalistic traits that ultimately would lead to an oppressive state.
Bottomline: liberty and freedom for all except for foreigners? For people that detest regulations and government control that sounds really contradictory (or selfish).
I'll apreciate any responses

[javieranton]

Oops I meant to post this message on a different thread. My apologies