> The people who want to fuck us out of our freedom are people we keep electing

A big part of the problem is that, no, they aren't elected. Not a single position in the TSA is elected. Nor the EPA, or OSHA, or IRS, or any of twelve dozen other agencies who heap mounds and mounds of their own productivity-sapping laws on everybody. Who votes for that garbage? I didn't and nobody else did.

Electing Congressional representatives is too far indirectly removed from this process. Each vote for a representative is the amalgamation of dozens or hundreds of other issues. Congress functionally has free rein to do anything it wants with the TSA and all the other bureaucracies, because they just aren't important enough to cast your precious single vote compared to hotter-button and directly life-relevant issues (abortion, Social Security, immigration, take your pick.)

How can we vote down a TSA action like this with such an indirectly removed vote? What if I like the rest of my representative's opinions but abhor the TSA, how can that be expressed in a single vote? It's a frickin year until the next election, do you think even 1%, never mind 50%, of voters in my district will remember and care about this then?

In some sense, representatives are obsolete. The technology certainly exists now for a much more direct form of interactive democratic government, where we could individually vote on things like the TSA. But how would the current system of elected representatives ever yield to direct democracy? How would even one, never mind 220, representatives ever be in favor of eliminating their own power and positions? Remember that the districts themselves are drawn by the two parties in power (there's no difference) to keep those two parties in power. It's 1984, the governmental structure has created and warped the system to keep itself in power for perpetuity. Overturning it is literally not possible. The system itself, like Newspeak, prevents even the expression of doing so: How do I vote to not have a Congress anymore?

(Dang, I hope this isn't one of pg's honeypot karma-eating politics threads.)

(Edited a few times to phrase myself better, especially about those indirect votes.)

I think you don't need to go to the level of individually voted items - even though the technology would actually make it reasonably simple.

Just having recall elections on all elected representatives and recall referendums on specific issue should be enough. I realise some states like California have something like this.

Case in point : my local representative just switched political sides because the current government threw them some inducements to do so. This ends up so I voted for a person who now supports the people I explicitly didn't want in power. There is nothing I can do about this except wait for the next election. If I had a recall vote I could organise a recall election - but, more importantly, it's unlikely they would have even contemplated the move if they knew a recall was a possibility.

Similarly for the TSA if sufficient opposition was found via petition (say, 10% of registered voters) then an online referendum could be undertaken - ie Disband TSA, yes/no.

This type of thing is dangerous because you could easily end up with deadlock and inertia, but hopefully the mere threat of being overridden or recalled would prompt more representatives to think about representing and listen more.

But I think the key is to lower the cost of voting. But then I'm also very wary of electronic voting systems, so it would have to be extremely secure. Probably two-factor authentication secure.

While the U.S. doesn't have a form of direct democracy at the federal level, many states (mostly western) do have voter-led referendums and/or initiatives[1]. I believe the states with medicinal marijuana laws have them _because_ these processes are in place.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiatives_and_referendums_in_...

Agreed, wholeheartedly. And the media isn't helping, enforcing the idea that there are two parties in America: Republicans and Democrats. Countries are not divided like that anymore, and perhaps never have been. Government will always be about the powerful versus the powerless. And the politically-influenced media renders most of us ignorant (I consider myself pretty aware, but who knows what I haven't found out yet; I learn new, shocking things every day!).

Forgot who, perhaps Chomsky, said that the rich in this country are actually veritable Marxists. The poor are not, they don't believe in class struggle, they fancy themselves as pre-rich, by being carefully groomed via propaganda. The rich on the other hand are Marxists because they understand very well how the class system works, and they are actively engaged in making sure their class survives and dominates the working class.

EDIT: The bit about rich being Marxists is apparently Chomsky

"""I think he would take it for granted that elites are basically Marxist - they believe in class analysis, they believe in class struggle, and in a really business-run society like the United States, the business elites are deeply committed to class struggle and are engaged in it all the time. And they understand. They’re instinctive Marxists; they don't have to read it."""

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires

-John Steinbeck