Then it's Tyranny or Anarchy? The above seems to assume the operative

applies to everybody. It doesn't. If it did, Marx would have been right, and the state would have "withered away." Is a "liberty" guy, responsible for his own actions, going to charge himself with murder? Where also is the forum for honest, legal disputes? Pistols at dawn (provided both consenting parties agreed to it)?

I'm extraordinarily against the govt taking what it wants, but crap, do we not need highways and interstate travel? Cell towers, utilities, and all of the infrastructure that government installs and maintains (til it sells out to monopolistic PI at least)?

I'm also there with you on the 'less number of stupid restrictive laws,' but we just haven't reached Roddenberry-an Utopia-ism just yet.

Exactly. As the Astronaut Farmer said, "...We've got laws that protects us from other laws. We've got more laws telling us what we can't do than what we can." Hopefully this open system might cut some of that crap down. Additionally, you are so right about SIGs that it makes me sick. To extend your example: I hate cruelty to animals more than the next guy, but should ASPCA 'officers' really be carrying guns around, and have broad, discretionary, executive powers?

I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said, "Govt. is necessary because men are not angels" (or close). As long as governments are run by people, it'll always be this way. But real democracy (rather than representative) might help to minimize, or at least curtail that. "Ask the Audience" on Millionaire is right, what, like 60-70% of them time?

We had one, William Natcher. Missed like two votes in 41 years, one was while he was on his deathbed. He 'claimed' to have always voted conscience, and probably almost always did. He was so respected, that we temporarily lifted the "contiguous and compact" restrictions on districts so he could represent his hometown, as well as the district he served for so long.

but it's moot anyway, as anything that was inflammatory or weakened the regime of the wealthy would be deem state-secret, or ongoing investigation. Or some other danged loophole.

PS: Not everyone who agrees with the second amendment and owns a firearm is a hillbilly. I don't disagree that we'd lose. But it's been misread as 'right.' It is not 'right,' it is 'duty.'

I was saying this just the other day. It sort of makes me a hypocrite, since I'm such an advocate of privacy, but crap. It was recommended to me that it's a great idea, as long as it's only the "workday" that is bugged, and not their private lives. But then the backdoor deals would be taking place during someone's birthday party.

oh, and bots could ruin it...

The solution I was thinking of a few years back seems even better. Not a law history type of law wiki, but a bill wiki.

Picture It: Any number of proposed bills, weighted by community voting, then split directly in half for dissent. The dissent would take the form of comments... lolcats and flamers would be suspended, but not forever. Comments would also be weighted by community voting. We would need some impartial moderators to summarize. That would be very hard to get, but I think people would be willing, if it meant a more effective, efficient, transparent means of legislation.

So the important bills are discussed, split, combined, perhaps dumped all together, discussed again, *condensed* and finally approved (by some vote margin), all by the community. Then forwarded on to Washington (or your capital of choice) with the digital signature of all the participants. They can't necessarily ignore us (the people) forever, not if we have a forum that reaches a wide enough audience. I don't, obviously, suggest this as the sole method of legislation, but as a supplement to a laboriously slow and innefficient system that we have in place. Plus by the end, it would not be lawyer speak, but human speak. I'm a smart dude, but I cannot slog through most of it, heck neither can politicians. They pay advisers to summarize. We shouldn't have to, not if we are a government of the people.

This would also help us scream "absolutely not" loud enough for someone to hear. Not sure about other places, but Washington seems to laugh off absolutely nots (the system was designed to prevent this, but the people have short memories). Additionally, this could be done for all levels of government, from city through national (or international maybe?)

Several weaknesses that I see: People tend to polarize 50-50. I don't know why that is, maybe its worthy of a psych experiment, but it would be tough to get anything done.

An online legal discussion proposition forum would, by definition, exclude vast segments of the population. Perhaps newspaper posting in the final stages might help, but vote counting there would take a massive infrastructure. Additionally, it would be a certain demographic (tech/geeks) that had a disproportionate weight for this forum. What is rule by the 'smart?' Oligarchy? Or something... I don't recall, but I'm against it.

Websites that can rally vast numbers of people could offset disporportionatly on single issues (like the Colbert toilet). I can't see any way to get around it. Maybe we shouldn't even try, I guess.

Non Participation. Just like voting, people would biznitch about what was done, but not take the few minutes to participate on the bills they care about. Emailing Washington does not work, but no one writes letters. A five hundred page letter (mit abstract), with 60,000 signatures, though should garner some attention.

Any thought/suggestions/criticisms would be most welcome... that's what this whole comment was about.

I think it is possible using the widely believed resonance (or "Doomsday") Device that Tesla may have built, if he really did. But off the top of my head... If a year is 31 million seconds, and an earthquake lasts maybe 3 minutes, and you need to do 1,000,000 mag 4's to relieve the stress that an 8 would... Is that 6 years of a constant earthquake? To avoid a mag 8 event every 40-60 years? It seems more temporally unsound than financially unsound.

Exactly. I won't believe any made up statistic unless it is 9 digits of precision.

Volcanoes? Oh wait... ummm, hmmm, aha! Glaciers. It isn't too likely that we'll be covered by extreme glacial creep (again). Nobody panic.

The Toys 'R' Us in my town stored their pallet of 40 wiis in the wrong spot in their warehouse... the spot where rain fell on and ruined them the day before launch. /Stood in line two hours, played for six or seven. //3 generations, all played bowling together. ///my brother wondered how many people have accidentally punched each other yet.