Open Source Government

From Wikipedia:

"Open source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open source and open content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is democratically opened to the general citizenry in this way, allowing policy development to benefit from the collected wisdom of the people as a whole."

For those of you who have not heard the term "Open Source" or never really understood what it meant, it is well described by Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia is also a good example of an open source system, anyone can access and/or add to the content, disagree with or correct errors. At first it seemed too vulnerable to manipulation, if someone can simply change the facts they don't agree with the whole reference system may break down into chaos. But that didn't happen. Will you find inaccuracies and biased content? Sure, but you and millions of other people will be there to correct it, so the long term consistency is much more true to reality. When I look through an old dictionary, or encyclopedia I get frustrated when I see old, outdated information that has obvious biased, sometimes even lending to or undermining the validity of certain ideas and agendas. There's nothing we the people can do to change that, those old books are almost fascist in their final judgement, the dictionary is the dictator of language. Open source returns power back to the people.

Open source governance is also well described on Wikipedia, but you could think of it as Wikigovernment. Nothing could be more democratic than to give everyone administrative powers with zero compensation. The way our governments are now structured a great deal of power is in the hands of the covert players in the secret core of influence and espionage, we'll never know just how much power as long as they operate behind this veil. Americas' idealistic beginnings gave promise of a right to privacy and an open form of government, opaque people and transparent state. In our modern world of electronic communications our governments (with the help of the communications corporations) can, and often do access our private information. Before the turn of the century the idea of the government listening in on our phone conversations seemed unlikely and yet very draconian if it were true. We never knew for sure, but now we know that we're being spied on for a fact, and by act of congress. Somehow that american promise went from "opaque people/transparent state" to "opaque state/transparent people.

Why should we have such unrestrained access to government policy? Corporations do. What is referred to as "lobbying" in Washington DC, is a process of accessing and manipulating policy. Anyone (in theory) is allowed to walk up to a congress member and express his or her ideas and opinions, so when's the last time you flew to DC to make sure your voice was being heard? You can call your representatives, just a few, and they may even make a sticky note just for you, but they have a lot of sticky notes and they don't work a lot of over time. Either way, it effectively acts as a filtration system, creating unnecessary barriers for the average person to present a new idea, or challenge an outdated one. There are many non-profit organizations who use their influence to lobby for some of these changes, but they also act as a layer of this filtration system because the average person has no influence over their agendas either. Why must we join together in groups to express ourselves in mutual consensus? Are we somehow less valid as unique individuals? Shouldn't the merit of a single idea, be able to attract those who can appreciate it, without a context associating it with a group or agenda?

A little over a year ago the supreme court decided in the citizens united case that corporations are "people" with all of the rights of people, they can't vote but if you had the money would you rather vote for a candidate, or fund their campaign? Corporations now have the "right" to do just that, they already have their corporate puppets sitting in the peoples' seats of power all over the country. And no surprise they're attacking the unions, the only thorn left in their side. Of course corporations aren't "people", they can't be arrested and put in jail, and they've tinkered with the legal system making it harder to sue them for compensation when they cause negligent harm. They can cheat on their taxes and still walk away with multi-million dollar bonuses. If they were "people" they would walk as giants among us, with super human strength and no natural predators. We are mere ants under their feet, we merely bother them with our cries for justice, peace, and true equality. We as individuals and even in large groups have little hope of countering the agendas' of this league of super people. Many of us real people have awakened from the american dream and it's getting harder and harder to deny the corporate coup d'etat that has claimed the power we the people are not using.

Imagine the majority of people who disagree with the citizens united ruling actually being able to access that decision and cite it's many flaws and over time with majority consensus overturn this obvious giveaway of our democracy. Perhaps you prefer the odds you have now to change this legislation, if you believe it can be done through the same system that implemented and enforced it, by all means prove it. But I'd prefer we the people all have a hand on the wheel, even if it's a struggle to guide the ship of state, at least we know that no one giant has it's finger on the scale. There is no need for politicians, there's really no need for nations or corporations. We the people can be the government we wish to create, and a true pursuit of democracy will lead us to this more perfect form of government. But we must put down the american dream, the attachment to patriarchal idolatry, the need to have a big father figure directing us from above. Democracy is not hierarchal but lateral, this is expressly implied by the concept of "one person, one vote". But in a world where our votes are undermined and channeled through a few non-choices, the time has come to upgrade democracy to be more modern, more responsive, more true.

We the people are ready to govern, do it yourself politics!