Eliminating disenfranchisement through the Web.
Peer pressure amongst politicians perpetuates the status quo. I can see it happening and I've never been to Capital Hill. But there is a way to keep them working for us instead of the special interest. The cure is for us to compete directly with the lobbyists and other movers.
Forget letters to your elected officials. Forget public opinion polls; the fat cats cannot be trusted with our future. The only way to keep them honest is to keep them on their toes every step of the way. When this site is implemented, the politician will be guided to do our will, not his own. Notice that I said guided; the politician will always be allowed to vote his conscience. This is necessary because he/she is privy to a large amount of so-called classified information that may work against our wishes. This roadblock however only affects decisions regarding national security. No other area of our society is off limits to our will.
Here’s how our web site will work:
From the very start the website must belong to all. Ordinary people place issues on the website (absolutely without constraints of any kind); issues like these: Eliminate additions to bills where the addition is not pertinent; don't let a soldier go to war without bulletproof vests; tell us everything you know about Roswell, NM in 1947; nationalize the health insurance industry. ANYTHING else you could possibly take issue with. But do keep in mind that although “anything goes,” not everything will reach general voting. This is to ensure that frivolous issues do not dilute the important issues.
Citizens offer to join a committee to discuss, elaborate, and fine-tune the issue as first proposed. No member is refused membership in a committee but only a limited number of positions will be filled.
The refined/reformulated issue is posted on the web site for first round voting. This first round of voting determines whether there is enough interest. The issue goes to general voting if the first round shows that 5% (for example) of the members are in favor of a general vote. If so, all members are notified that an issue is up for general voting and that they should vote within one week (as an example. The actual deadline may be determined by committe).
The results of the general vote are forwarded to elected officials. The officials now can either take action to give us what we want or ignore us because he has information that we don’t have or he really feels that it would be wrong for the country. This is fine. Now, you may ask, aren’t we back to where we started? The answer is a resounding NO because he/she risks losing the next election by showing utter disregard for our wishes. If we voted 5 million to one million on an issue, our elected officials better provide us with a good reason why they chose to ignore us. Their actions/inactions on our issues will be sent to all our members.
Some may argue: Aren’t politicians professionals who have our best interests at heart? Yes but, so what, nothing gets done anyway with the present system. Nothing, that is, unless big business and their lobbyists give it their blessing. But what about rule by the masses? Don’t the politicians tend to be more level-headed? Yes, but our website will, because of its success, attract the best minds in the country who will provide guidance to our committees; probably joining the committees (alas, even lobbyists will be allowed to join. In fact, I would like every single blessed resident of our great country to join us--bring the children, the infirm, the homeless).
The most important thing about the website is this: THE WAY THE WEBSITE LOOKS AND FUNCTIONS WILL BE DETERMINED BY ITS MEMBERS AND WILL NEVER BE AS HARD TO CHANGE AS THE CONSTITUTION!
Health Care
I am 56 years old and I have been to many doctors. Very few of those visits required the expertise of a highly paid medical professional.
This is the alternative: All citizens are issued a smart card with their entire medical history on it. When you have a medical problem, you will go not to your general practitioner but to a diagnostician (Initially, this person may be a medical doctor but, later, it could be a computer program run by a trained professional). The diagnostician enters all your symptoms into an A.I. program that diagnoses your problem or orders more tests when it is unsure. The software is created by a government agency that updates it with the newest information. Only when a diagnosis is not made do you visit a regular MD/OD. ,
Once a diagnoses is obtained (BTW, a degree of confidence in the diagnosis can be expressed as a percent certainty), you would go to the pharmacist if it is a common ailment like sore throat, earache, rash, High Blood Pressure, high cholesterol, etc. You go to a specialist if the diagnosis requires it: surgeon for possible tumor, psychiatrist for schizophrenia, immunologist for white blood cell abnormalities, etc. At no time will anyone be denied access to a medial professional if they have the money to pay out of their own pockets or if they petition an arbiter about their concerns.
Medical science is, more often than not, a guessing game but the more specialized and/or successful you are as a doctor, the more likely you are to guess correctly. The diagnostics program (software) ensures that the best guess is always made. Don't let doctors tell you about their so-called "clinical eye" that mysteriously allows them to come up with some inspired diagnosis. They come up with it because they know how to correctly diagnose an illness and this skill can be programmed into a computer.
Just think, your treatment will always be dictated by a consensus of opinion from hundreds, if not thousands of experts who have nothing but your best interests at heart. Your treatment will be tailored to your particular case as documented on your smart. By the way, I can't tell you how happy I would be just to know that I would not need to fill out another doctor's medical history form--it would all be on my smart card!
There are many advantages to this new medical system but what appeals to me the most is that those presently without medical insurance would be covered at minimal cost. Those with insurance would pay far less premiums because the high cost of an MD/OD would not be incurred and you would not undergo any treatments based on misdiagnosis.
Education
How the U.S. educational system can be improved.
We start by setting up a big screen TV in every classroom and we give the student headphones. These videos will instruct them in thousands of subjects and, here's the best part, the teaching will have been created by the best educational minds in the world. That's right, students will be taught Physics by a Harvard professor. If that professor has no charisma, then the subject matter is delivered by almost anyone whom the student may like: a rap star, a famous author, a fictitious idealized teacher, anyone capable of keeping their attention.
Once they view the video, they are tested by computer and given a choice of repeating the video or going for one-on-one instruction with a professional tutor (real or virtual) or even fellow students who understand the material and need a little extra cash. The professional tutors could come from the ranks of present teachers who no longer have to deliver the same material year after year.
With some slight modifications this system can be made to work for college level courses. Videos are now being sold with talented professors teaching courses like Philosophy and Literature. Let's make an entire Harvard/Yale curriculum available online. Who reads and grades the term papers? Students in their senior year are a possibility as are all the professors who now don't have to deliver the lectures in person.
This is a paradigm shift that is easier to do than you might think. Already, online courses are becoming very common. Why not have the best minds teach the material. Think how you might better understand Physics if a Richard Feynman taught the course. Or, Biology, if an E.O. Wilson taught it.
I think this is a win-win situation for everyone but the teacher's union (expect a furious lobbying effort from them). However, the number of teachers could be lowered by attrition--there need not be any massive layoffs because early on we would employ them as one-on-one tutors and graders.
