When you think of Democracy, you think about having a say in the affairs of our country by voting in the political candidates we believe are best suited to making the changes we most believe in based on the needs of the people at the time. Democracy is about empowering those with the public interest at heart and the desire to fight the battles necessary to make necessary changes.
It’s no secret that anymore, politics has been one big play for the public to provide the illusion of choice and the outcome of elections resulting in about the same outcomes. A Game Of Thrones like competition for power and wealth, but behind the scenes, to determine who the primary candidates will be as the plight of the people that ultimately put one of the two final candidates in office are soon after forgotten.
We have politicians enriching themselves through insider trading, legal bribery in the form of lobbying and an endless list of foundations established to squander millions in dirty money with a pretty face of philanthropy attached.
In 2022, election integrity is on the minds of every American regardless of political party as evidence of at least the potential for widespread fraud is blatantly obvious be it through the use of insecure and easily accessed and or manipulated voting machines, mail in ballots that became the new craze during the recent pandemic and a list of other potential holes for manipulation.
Every election herein will likely grow the doubts of both political sides as the means elected candidates achieved their win is constantly put into question as either side continues searching for ways to even the odds so to speak, moving further and further away from what true Democracy is all about in favor of what will best suit their party or their personal interests. It’s time for a drastic change in how we handle electoral affairs.
We look at the current administration and those of the past as they joke about the idea of being a dictator or admire the ease by which countries like China or Russia are able to get things done due to their lack of red tape and bureaucracy. We can look to Singapore, China which has one of the most dialed in Technocracies of any like Country or we can look at Switzerland that enjoys a true Democracy. Both have their benefits, but both also have flaws in their systems.
If we want to consider a Technocracy, one could argue we are already heading in that direction. With people like Dr. Fauci, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and other prominent figures in their respective fields such as Medicine, Science, Technology and we can throw in a couple of economists, some scientists with degrees in various other sciences related to Climate, Agriculture etc and we can let that group of people dictate to the rest of the country everything that is happening. We can rely on them to have our best interest in mind knowing they aren’t politicians but rather masters of their field looking to change the world for the better and be done with elected officials squandering everything, constantly in fighting and propagandizing and the like for their own popularity and gain. Sounds good in a way right? That is a Technocracy. However, who is to say that these individuals will act in the best interest of the people? If they aren’t elected, who will they report to? An oversight committee? Something about this setup just doesn’t seem right.
If there is a hot topic being debated by the country related to the price of gas and politicians aim to pass a bill about fuel prices and they sell the public on the benefits of such a Bill, why then does a Bill that should be 10 pages become 2,500 pages and pushed through in the middle of the night when few are looking? It’s rubbish and shady tactics used to push things into law that enrich those pushing them at the expense of tax payers and both sides do it. In my opinion, its misrepresentation and theft.
Now, how much money is wasted on campaigns? How much is absorbed by politicians from corporate lobbyists looking to change laws to benefit their bottom line? Instead of politicians getting this bribe money, why isn’t it used for the public good? How much money is wasted being sent to shell corporations or foundations, or greasing the political wheels of foreign entities in exchange for current or future political favors? There is simply too much corruption and it’s been going on for so long that not only is it rampant, but nobody even tries to hide it anymore. It’s become a part of politics like Peanut Butter is to Jelly. The public has been conditioned to accept the fact that all politicians lie, cheat and steal or to vote for someone knowing they wont be fulfilling their campaign promises but they do so with just a little hope that maybe, someday, someone will actually be honest. So the question is, how do we solve this perpetually growing issue? It’s simple. Let me explain.
In 2021, lobbyists spent 3.73 Billion Dollars and the amount goes up almost every year and has doubled since 1998 from 1.45 Billion.
Between 2017 and 2019, the US Government issued 2.3 Trillion dollars in grants towards programs such as Hookers For Jesus ($530,190); tai chi classes in senior centers ($671,251); creating outdoor gardens at schools ($1.6 million); and space alien detection ($7 million). Taxpayers funded story time at laundromats ($248,200); sex education for prostitutes in Ethiopia ($2.1 million); a social media war on tanning beds ($3.3 million); webcast-livestreamed eclipses ($3.7 million); and subsidized the airport on Martha’s Vineyard ($12 million).
In 2021 the total US population was approx. 331 million people. Remove approx. 20% who aren’t yet of legal voting age and a chunk who are too elderly to vote for various reasons, another chunk of convicted felons that aren’t eligible to vote and lets just say we had 250 million people.
The amount of wasteful spending in 2020-2022 alone is beyond astronomical, much of which went to fatten the pockets of the wealthy elites and corporate interests at the expense of inflation on the public, increased prices on just about everything across the board and more. The point is, there is too much corruption and wasted spending on things the public has no idea about while they are pillaged by the wealthy politicians caught up in a cycle of no accountability. Transparency and facts must make its way to the forefront of American politics over propaganda, lies and corruption at every turn and the only way to achieve this, is through blockchain technology applications.
Democracy in 2030
With technology advancing daily in the form of Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms and Decentralized Ledger Tech, we can now establish a system that not only empowers the people to make regular decisions on not only who is elected to act on our behalf but also what these elected officials are empowered to do while in office. It all begins with a decentralized blockchain and Digital ID’s.
While many may look at a digital ID and think it a form of tracking and control, they would be right. However, such a system used on a universal scale be it the general population as well as politicians, corporate America and the like means integrating the population into the decisions generally left to politicians behind closed doors or in the dead of night with no oversight. This changes with blockchain.
Lets look at the ongoing topic of gun violence and gun control in America. The democrats ultimately want to get rid of all guns which history has shown, when a government wants to rid a populace of their means of defending themselves, its never ended well for the people being disarmed. While their propaganda may tug at the heart strings of the people and stories of mass shootings are great for the media to steer people with no interest in guns in general to be vocally against them, the Republicans are generally in favor of guns and maintaining the 2nd Amendment which was put in place so that a society can defend itself against a tyrannical government or foreign invaders.
If you consider the history of the Democratic Party as one in favor of slavery and the very foundation for the establishment of the Republican party being to end slavery, which it did, we can assume that while also flawed, the Republic party interests are very much about maintaining freedoms the Democratic party are more interested in getting rid of. More and more I see the Left as an Anti-Life party while the republicans, fueled by religious fervor or not are Pro-life. However, even if all of this were true, should it matter? Should it matter in the sense that if political officials are elected into office by means of campaigns selling the public on promises, and the government is supposed to be for the people, by the people, then why is there no accountability of these officials after being elected?
Now, rather than leave things to the politicians to do as they wish, such as make campaign promises to get elected only to be bribed by lobbyists to change their minds and go the other way, why shouldn’t the public be empowered to vote on key issues directly and the outcomes be as voted in a transparent system?
A public vote for gun control is issued on the date of January 30th, 2022 with a 30 day lead time, a 15 day presentation period and a 15 day voting period. A bill of no more than 10 pages is proposed on the issue and is sent out via the blockchain where it is saved on a decentralized database, immutable, locked. Over the next 30 days, the public can discuss the Bill via social media, news pundits can spread their fear or support as politicians who were voted into office in a similar fashion which we will get to later, speak their piece on the issue which is also stored on the blockchain forever and easily accessed from within the Block Party Voting App. Everyone is given 30 days to finalize their vote on the Bill within the app. The app maintains every American in a profile which is tied to their Digital ID as well as their Blockchain ID.
Lets use the Cardano blockchain as an example. The application is built on Cardano which provided the means of every Bill, Election, Vote cast and any other metric, document, video and the like is stored in blocks on the chain and distributed to nodes across the world, never to be changed or tampered with. As users download the app, they are assigned a Cardano Wallet ID which is linked to their Digital ID, all of which is encrypted and stored on the blockchain.
The wallet is used for making transactions on the blockchain while storing the users data which is all linked to the users Digital ID. You are assigned a digital ID as a legal resident of the United States. The use case for such a system is far beyond just voting, but we will get to that.
It’s been 30 days and the voting has concluded. The public has spoken and the votes have been tallied in real time as every block has been processed. Instead of a group of government officials voting on a Bill pushed through in the dead of night, 72 million people voted on the Bill and the will of the people has been accepted. The outcome has been determined to decline the Bill and every vote cast is trackable on the blockchain to a real, living and legal user.
The same mechanics can work for actually voting people into office, though, the dynamics of elected officials would change dramatically as without the lobbying to pass bills into law or other incentives enjoyed by political officials, we would be voting candidates to come up with, write and execute the Bills that are passed by the people. It’s no longer their job to work shady deals or tit for tat relationships but rather write Bills that would be favored by the most people and their salary is then based on the popularity of their proposed Bills every term. The lower the number of Bills they are able to draft and get passed by the people, the less likely they are to remain in office.
So what happens with the lobbyists inflow to the government? Well, to incentivize the public to take notice or interest in a new Bill, they can put their money to use in projects that benefit the people, or save that money and lower costs to consumers or distribute funds to everyone that votes on a Bill they are particularly interested in getting more votes on. Government grants can be voted on by the public easily. Want $2 million to teach prostitutes in another country how to pray? Submit the application for approval by the people. If the argument is made in a way to inspires the people to support it, it will pass. If not, we move on.
By the time such a blockchain democratic system is in place, corporations will have already tokenized their stocks and instead of buying stocks through brokers, people will be buying shares of public companies as Tokenized assets. There is myriad of potential avenues companies can take to distribute shares to DAO’s or users to gain favor in the issues of interest to the companies while benefiting the public overall. Companies can incentivize voters to take interest in their causes or efforts with systems that reward engagement. Vote on x number of items related to your favorite corporation and be rewarded in tokenized shares, regardless of which way you vote, though some sort of ratio would likely need to be implemented.
The point is, there are ways to address the abundance of issues associated with our Democracy that would not only strengthen it, but further empower the public to participate on a regular basis. Anyone opposed to such systems obviously fear the loss of something they know they would never get back, power over others, and no politician should be in office to begin with that fear giving power to the people that put them there.
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