Breaking Out of the Box
Although this article is being written by an American citizen, it actually applies to every human being in every country around the world.
We are not necessarily bound to the established governments that exert power over us. Just because they say “you’re a(n) ___________ citizen, so therefore you must do as we say” doesn’t mean we actually have to do as they say.
This isn’t a call to ignore laws as they currently stand wherever you are. There is a way to get to a point where their laws no longer have any teeth behind them, which means they really don’t have any power over anybody. At that point, a new government can stand up and take the place of the ones who think they can control everything.
Let’s first take a look at what is really going on, at least in Western “democracies”, and then we can move on to discussing how we can move beyond them.
We are told that we are “free” in Western democracies. There are no monarchs (at least none with any real power anymore) to rule over us without our consent. Magna carta, baby! We can choose who makes decisions on our behalf because they “represent” us in congress/parliament. We elect them, and they represent our interests in a national assembly, where all the laws and rules are made.
If you truly believe that one person *can* represent the interests of every one of their “constituents” in any effective manner, or that they — in general — actually *care* to represent the interests of their constituents, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. For every Katy Porter, there are 1,000 Kevin McCarthys (estimated).
Our so-called “representatives” (at least in the United States) have zero incentive to actually care about your interests. In fact, they appear to think they have the ability to tell you what your interests are. Instead of focusing on the things that actually affect your day-to-day life, they (with the help of the established media) do everything in their power to distract you from those issues by keeping you focused on culture war nonsense instead.
Our representatives are better referred to as the representatives of massive, multinational, corporate conglomerations. They send in their lobbyists to wine and dine the politicians, and the politicians pass laws written by the corporations which make sure that the corporations win and everybody else loses.
We all know this, but we act like we have no power to do anything about it. We shout at our screens in vain. We complain to our friends, family, and coworkers. We even sometimes go to visit our “representatives”, hoping that the few minutes we spend with them, as they smile and nod and reassure us that they’re fighting hard for us, will actually get them to actually do something for us for a change.
None of our efforts have worked. They never will. We don’t have the kind of money the corporations do. We don’t discuss policy with our representatives in the nicest restaurant in town and pick up the tab. We don’t make massive contributions to their reelection campaigns. We don’t fly them to a tropical resort on a private jet to discuss the issues that matter to us. “But muh campaign finance laws!” you say? Who wrote/writes those laws? How is it in their interests to force corporations to play fair?
In the US, we have three branches of government, each of which is supposedly a check on the power of the others: the executive, the judicial, and the legislative. The executive is the President, who is in charge of federal law enforcement and all the wonderful agencies of the federal government like HUD, FAA, FDA, and so on. The judicial branch is headed by SCOTUS, who oversee all the federal appellate and district courts. The legislative branch is congress — the house of representatives and the senate. They make the laws and have some other, more obscure powers.
Federal law enforcement includes the NSA, whose director recently decided to press congress to make sure they renew the FISA act, the DEA, the FBI, the CIA, the border patrol, and the ATF. Although you don’t hear much about what the people in these agencies do, we know that they can and do act with virtually zero accountability. We saw this during the black lives matter protests, when men in vans started riding around, grabbing citizens off the street while wearing plain clothes and refusing to identify themselves, handcuffing them, tossing them into the vans, and riding off to who-knows-where.
The judiciary is no better. They make the rules that govern their own courtrooms. Judges act like gods among men. They give themselves and prosecutors “absolute immunity” for their actions. They even run the attorney discipline committees, so if your attorney screws you over, you have to complain to members of the same club about it. How do you think that usually goes?
Essentially, we live in a society where those in power act as if they answer to no one. They demand accountability for the people, but laugh when we suggest that they should also be held accountable for their actions.
There’s another way. Direct democracy is possible. Modern technology has presented us with opportunities that we never had before. We are no longer stuck hoping that one person can effectively represent the interests of tens, hundreds, thousands, or millions of people. We can take our lives into our own hands, and become a true democracy.
With ubiquitous access to the internet, biometrics, and blockchain technology, we can develop apps that allow us all to participate in our own governance, directly. Gone are the days when most of us were illiterate and had to rely on educated men to tell us what was best for us. With a more responsible media and a more transparent system, we could all decide for ourselves how we want to structure our society.
We could even incentivize participation by utilizing the same psychological tricks that mobile game app companies use to get us addicted to their games. Every day you log in to the app, you get free points towards some benefit. Every time you vote, you get more points. Every time you participate in virtual city hall meetings, you get points. And so on.
Eventually, we can stop wasting our money paying the salaries of these clowns who claim to be representing our interests when in reality they’re just gorging themselves on fame and power. We can decide what rules govern our institutions, instead of the people we pay to run them for us. We can decide whether or not the police should have guns, and make sure they are held accountable for their actions.
If you’re interested in helping bring this reality about, please feel free to follow me here on Medium. I’ll continue to write about ways in which we can effectively fight back against those who abuse their power in our governments. Once I have a substantial enough following here, I will create a website for our community. I’m currently studying web development and hope to be a competent webdev expert within a few months.
