Our new Collaborative Democracy

Our new web-based democratic process would allow us Citizens to govern our country and rule ourselves. Therefore, we would have a form of true democracy. Ancient democracies and the modern democratic processes of referendums, citizens' initiatives, and recalls are all based on yea or nay voting. They divide citizens, asking them to express their biases. Voting is easily manipulated by charismatic leaders, political parties, and persuasive propaganda. For that reason, political scientists emphasize that discussion is key to any truly democratic process. Democratic discussion is normally defined as debating or publishing information, not as collaborative problem solving.

In contrast, our new democratic process is solution-driven, guiding citizens step-by-step to develop solutions collaboratively reaching a clear consensus rather than using a simple majority vote. It transforms independent, individual perspectives into a collective solution. The process design suppresses people's biases, fears, and passions while using the collective intelligence of the entire group to find the best solution possible.

I call our new distinct style of democracy a "Collaborative Democracy" to differentiate it from all previous forms of democracy. Our solution process will establish the only truly democratic federal government in the world today.

Citizens are both customers and owners of government

Notice that the Citizens in the revised processes in Figure 7-3 are the owners, the suppliers, and the customers of the processes. Therefore, the processes should serve our needs and benefit us, not a tiny, very wealthy class of citizens, not political parties, not politicians, and not special interests.

The Constitution of the United States begins with, "We the People of the United States…establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Although the elite wrote the Constitution to give them power and control over us using representation, they claimed to be acting as "the people of the United States." Therefore, it is clear that We The People are the rightful owners of government. We have the right to decide how our country works without political parties telling us how it should work, what we should think, what we should believe, and what we agree to.

As the people are the owners, Federal Councils would only be administrators, stewards of our national wealth and wellbeing. Because our new processes conflict with the Constitution, we must amend it to represent what we want now. It is time for a serious constitutional update.

"You never change things by
fighting the existing reality.

To change something, build a new model
that makes the existing model obsolete."

― Buckminster Fuller [1]

Political evolution, not revolution

These changes must be put into effect through our current government structure and laws as an amendment to the Constitution. I am NOT advocating a revolution of any type. I am proposing an evolution of our government's processes through legal constitutional reform.

To be effective, our Collaborative Democracy requires that all proposed changes be made at the same time. Trying to apply one or two ideas from this book while leaving the current power structure of political parties in place would defeat the solution and the implementation. The root cause would remain.

Trusting the political parties and elites in control to make any beneficial changes in this regard would be foolish. In the final chapter, I will lay out an implementation plan for obtaining the legislative power to amend the Constitution.