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Voluntary Democracy – Part 1

Iain Davis

I propose a new sociopolitical model that I call Voluntary Democracy. You may reasonably ask how I became arrogant enough to even contemplate doing such a thing.

I am no one or everyone, depending on your perspective. I am a very average bloke with some limited life experience, a modicum of knowledge, and sufficient interest to talk and write about the topic we are about to discuss.

I do not profess to have all the answers or even know what most of the questions are. I am just about as flaky as it is possible for a man to be and am undeserving of your trust which is among the reasons I ask you not to place any in me.

I am merely proposing an idea. My only hope is that you consider it. If I’m lucky perhaps you will question it and, if I’m very fortunate, start expanding on it.

We are going discuss some of the problems with representative democracy which is the political model of state preferred by most people I will refer to a statists. I’ll call this model simply the state.

I was born and live in the the state called the United Kingdom (UK). Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to be ruled by a king or his government, but that is the nature of the state. It’s not a choice to be a subject of the state. Though statists claim it is.

Therefore, I will use the current alleged constitutional monarchy, the claimed basis for the UK state, as my test case.

What Democracy Is and What It Is Not

Democracy is a political system first formally established in ancient Greece by Cleisthenes (c. 570–500 BCE). Cleisthenes introduced “sortition”—which is the random selection of citizens drawn by lot. Under his reforms, the Boule (executive) proposed legislation, and the Ecclesia (legislature) would then debate the proposed statute laws and vote on their enactment.

The citizen members of the Boule and the Ecclesia were selected by sortition. Once their work was done, the Boule and the Ecclesia were disbanded. The people would return to their everyday lives. The next time the Boule and the Ecclesia were needed, sortition would again be used and a different group of people selected.

Sortition was also used to form juries, whose citizen members sat in the Dikasteria (courts). The jury in the Dikasteria represented the highest law in the land. Any Dikasteria could overturn the enactments of the Ecclesia. This political system enabled the people to create legislation (statute law) as well as law derived from precedent (case law).

Crucially, Cleisthenes empowered the Dikasteria (the law courts) to overrule (annul) any law that was found to be unjust in a jury-led trial. There were no judges. Magistrates were merely administrators for the court. If the defendant was found guilty, both the judgement (ruling) and the nature of the punishment (sentence) were decided by the citizen jurors.

If the full application of the law (including legislation) did not serve justice, the jury could annul it. The defendant may have technically contravened the law but could still be found not guilty if the jury believed the defendant had acted honourably, without any intent to cause harm or loss (mens rea).

In such a circumstance, it was the law, not the accused, that would be found at fault. Any flawed legislation would be wiped from the statute scrolls and the Boule and the Ecclesia would have to amend or abolish it in light of the Dikasteria’s ruling.

The word “democracy” (demokratia) derives from “demos” (people) and “kratos” (power). Literally translated, it means “people power.” Cleisthenes proposed a governance system whereby the people were sovereign by virtue of exercising the rule of law through jury-led trials. This, and only this, is “democracy” and it has nothing to do with voting or electing anyone.

So-called “representative democracy” is not democracy. In representative democracies the people are permitted to select representatives who make all decisions for them for the next few years. During their rule, the representatives enforce their collective will upon the people.

Representative democracy is based upon the people handing all their decision making power over to a tiny clique of privileged rulers. It is the antithesis of democracy.

We are allowed to elect the legislature, which we call Parliament (Ecclesia). The dominant faction, usually formed from the most popular mob—chosen by those who bothered to vote—then forms the executive. We call this the government (Boule).

Depending on how dominant the ruling mob is—determined by their relative number of parliamentary seats—the executive (Boule or government) can either easily compel the legislature (Ecclesia) to adopt its desired policies (legislation) or engage in some horsetrading with their “opposition” to amend their legislation (policy diktat) prior to its almost inevitable adoption. “Opposition” is a misleading term because the people who actually rule control both the government and the so-called opposition.

The current British government, despite only securing votes from a small minority of the population, enjoys a massive parliamentary majority. The government (Boule) can “whip” its own representative members of Parliament (MP’s) to push through pretty much any policy it likes without bothering to consult anybody.

In the UK’s representative democracy, while statists think they are electing people who will represent their views and prioritise addressing their concerns, Parliament declares itself sovereign over all of the people. Statists actually select their own rulers—of sorts.

Parliament’s claim to sovereignty is false. The British have a codified, written constitution that makes the people sovereign. That doesn’t matter, however, to government as long as the population continues to assume Parliament’s claim is valid.

The advantage of “representative democracy,” from the perspective of the oligarchs who actually rule, is that it allows them to rule in perpetuity. Through lobbying, political party and campaign funding, government partnerships, corruption, coercion and orders issued to puppet MP’s, the vast bulk of parliamentarians represent only oligarchs’ views and prioritise oligarchs’ concerns. Oligarchs aren’t overly concerned about who wins elections.

In the UK’s representative democracy the courts (Dikestaria) are led by the Judiciary. As a Common Law jurisdiction, juries in the UK can still technically “annul” legislation. The judiciary “instructs” juries but never informs them they can annul. Consequently, British juries remain oblivious of their own rights and powers. The judiciary really doesn’t like jury trials in any event, and is working with the government to do away with them if they can.

The state supposedly operates on the comically misnamed separation of powers model. Everyone who lives and works in the UK knows this is total bunk.

The three branches of government comprise of the executive (government or Boule) and the legislature (Parliament or Ecclesia) which together form a single, oligarch controlled rule-making institution. The third branch, the judiciary (courts or Dikesteria), forces the people to comply with the rules and punishes those who don’t. It rarely, if ever, rules against the oligarchs’ rule-making institution and is completely divorced from anything the rest of us might consider justice. The only people who don’t have to obey dictatorial rule are the oligarchs who are above all the rules they impose on everyone else, often because they can buy themselves out of having to comply with any.

This, then, is the state.

Introducing Voluntary Democracy

The problem with “representative democracies” is that they always resolve in kakistocracies ruled by oligarchs. In other words, dictatorships. The people are merely given the illusion of choice through anointment ceremonies called elections where they are invited to crown the next gaggle of kakistocrats who will rule them on behalf of the oligarchs.

I suggest the solution to this is Voluntary Democracy.

Voluntary democracy wouldn’t necessitate reinventing the wheel. The three branches of governance would remain and the process of proposing, enacting, and ruling on legislation would continue.

The executive would be replaced with a body formed of citizens who would be randomly selected by sortition from the whole population and would serve on a temporary or perhaps issue by issue basis. We could call this the Boule or something else. How about “voluntary-executive” perhaps? Let’s use “the Volexec.”

The legislature would be a larger body—selected and serving in the same way—who would then deliberate on and enact legislation proposed by the executive. Again, we could stick with Ecclesia, but let’s use “the Volegis.”

The biggest procedural difference in a voluntary democracy, other than the selection process, would be the abolition of bench trials. All justice would be dispensed by jurors in jury led trials and judges would be replaced by conveners whose only role would be to facilitate proceedings.

The most important difference would be that all juries would be sovereign. Juries and only juries would represent the supreme rule of law in the whole jurisdiction and their only concern would be to ensure justice was served. We shall call these voluntary Dikasteria “the Volcourts.”

Through jury-led trials, these sortition selected groups of citizens—jurors— sitting in Volcourts across the land, would have the united and annexed power to annul any and all legislation and set case precedents wherever they deemed it necessary. In the event of annulment, the Volexec and the Volegis would need to either amend or abolish the faulty legislation accordingly.

There would be no government and no resultant state in a voluntary democracy. Voluntary societies would be jurisdictions without rulers, not jurisdictions without rules. Nor would voluntary democracy necessitate the existence of nations, though people could form them voluntarily and call themselves whatever they liked. Therefore, as we proceed to Part 2 and move away from the UK based example to broader considerations, I won’t reference the concept of nations but rather use “jurisdictions.”

Voluntary democratic jurisdiction won’t be perfect and they won’t solve all our problems. Nonetheless, I think they could resolve many of the injustices we currently suffer. Not least of all by effectively removing oligarchs’ political power.

To realise the promise of a voluntary democracy we would all need to work through a major philosophical shift. Our fundamental belief and value systems would need to change. For example, obedience would no longer be a virtue but rather a failing. Initially, individuals would have to start by learning to think differently. Ultimately, if we wanted to operate voluntary democracies at the macro scale, all of us would need to develop and adopt a new political philosophy. Statists, who form the majority, all currently share essentially one political philosophy so there is no reason why voluntaryists couldn’t do the same and become the majority themselves. We’ll expand on this in Part 3.

So I hope some will be sufficiently intrigued to read Part 2. If not, thanks for voluntarily reading this article.

Iain Davis is an independent journalist a researcher from the UK. You can read more of Iain’s work at his blog IainDavis.com (Formerly InThisTogether) or follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his SubStack. His book Pseudopandemic, is now available, in both in kindle and paperback, from Amazon and other sellers. You can claim a free copy of his new book “The Manchester Attack” by subscribing to his newsletter.

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Captain Birdheart
Captain Birdheart
Dec 11, 2024 11:17 PM

Time for a tune, it’s apt, Apt !

Adam & The Ants – Prince Charming

True ants got the first album, I was late, only getting the second when it came out, this is from the third, final album.

Johnny
Johnny
Dec 11, 2024 11:12 PM

Anarchism, in other words.
• Rules WITHOUT Rulers.
• A voluntary non hierarchical society.

There are four mountains to cross first.
• The authoritarians who rule now.
• Their Forces; the military and police Forces.
• The rigged monetary system.
• The trained and taught ignorance of the masses.

Everest looks easy.

p.s.
p.s.
Dec 11, 2024 11:06 PM

Just had a quick look (too late) and heard that Duke considers Syrians to be “Aryans” (possibly a serious consequence of his chemotherapy?).

https://odysee.com/@MarkCollett:6/PWR292:2

If Syrians are Aryans, why not Egyptians? If Egyptians are Aryans, why not Sudanese, etc. Mark, in his diplomatic way, unfortunately did not even deign to reply.

Doctor Doctor, this is (even more than) a full-blown culture shock!

Rodrigo
Rodrigo
Dec 11, 2024 10:33 PM

«A fabric like SingularityNET could be used to help nudge humans into a global brain mindplex that concurrently achieves human fulfilment and porting of human values into the “seed AGI” (that will grow into unpredictable new things but starting from the seed of human culture/values). AI’s/AGI’s on a DLT fabric like SingularityNET would allow for the creation of an AGI mindplex on the collective level, granted the necessary technical requirements. Advancements in neuroscience, novel forms of cognitive communications can be discovered through sophisticated brain-computer interfaces (BCI’s). With further technological advancements, it may eventually be possible to code aggregate sets of neural signals into DLT, thus connecting them with decentralized AI fabrics such as SingularityNET, and enabling partitioning, recombination, crowdsourcing and creative democratic evolution of cognition (Swan 2016, 2015), uncovering hitherto unfathomable and unknown aspects of human and transhuman neural and mental function.»
Mindplexes, Non-Ordinary Consciousness, and Artificial General Intelligence.
Gabriel Axel Montes & Ben Goertzel

Captain Birdheart
Captain Birdheart
Dec 11, 2024 9:26 PM

Here’s what the smartest guy in the world thinks, if you got 2 hours spare.

I don’t agree with everything he says, one never does.

Chris Langan – The Interview THEY Didn’t Want You To See – CTMU [Full Version; Timestamps]

David McBain
David McBain
Dec 11, 2024 9:11 PM

“Initially, individuals would have to start by learning to think differently.”. Therein lies the problem: Most individuals I know can’t be bothered to think at all. They seem to think that thinking is ingesting and regurgitating BBC propaganda.

Sean Veeda
Sean Veeda
Dec 11, 2024 9:10 PM

Given the current obsession with diversity, you can be sure that any sortition would be unrepresentative.

Veri Tas
Veri Tas
Dec 11, 2024 9:10 PM

How quickly can we institute jury-led trials before a “volcourt”, given that whole countries can be toppled in a matter of a few days? I’m all for it, and I’ll give up my time to sit on such a proceeding free of charge. We must hold the ‘Covid’ era crims to account at last.

And if obedience could finally be done away with as the most high virtue, we could also put an end to offensive armed forces (the Orwellian “defence” forces). In other words, stop warfare.

Sounds good, let’s do it.

Clutching at straws
Clutching at straws
Dec 11, 2024 8:29 PM

The thing I don’t understand is that Iain is a good bloke who sees the big picture, as is Kit, Catte and all of us on here who see what’s going on.

The rest of the world are obviously fucking idiots.

Can anyone explain?

jubal hershaw
jubal hershaw
Dec 11, 2024 9:10 PM

We’re delusional ?

Veri Tas
Veri Tas
Dec 11, 2024 9:11 PM

Self-interest for many, and stupidity for many others.

sandy
sandy
Dec 11, 2024 7:08 PM

It will take time to discuss, vet and install. And people will have to readjust to a participatory reality of less work for compensation, more work to enable a democracy of the self-governing and a resultant Public Commons. Authority must be in held and overseen by the People. No positions of leader-authorities. It’s all about the design, configuration and initiating consent based participation. And a fully repressed People for once in their lives experiencing authority-to-decide as an actual, socially enabled, feature of human existence.

sandy
sandy
Dec 11, 2024 6:54 PM

Yes, let’s brainstorm a new true direct democracy self rule with complete transparency and voluntary participation and consent and no authority based ruler-leaders.

Pardon me, tho, just now i am watching today’s Dec 11 ABC show The View with Whoopi Goldberg and 4 women who represent the US liberal establishment talk for about 8 minutes about Mangione’s call out to the public as being arrested. Its clear now that Mangione is a political prisoner. The View crew of 5, while acknowledging public outrage of support against corporate health mis-care, plead however that no one should ever be killed. The US health care system is the worst in the world causing death and bankruptcy (500,000/yr). United Health Care denies 32% of claims, highest in the industry. The short discussion that proceeds is an archetypal example of DENIAL. Mind blowing, obvious and revealing. The unspoken message is corporations (and it’s State and Military) can kill at will, but human beings, all sovereign, cannot, and cannot bring about redress. The Establishment is an abject destructive failure for the People and we are angry and want redress, which does not exist in any form in this representative oligarchy.

Establishment denials like Whoopi says, “we know what’s right [make the health care system serve it’s purpose of serving Humanity equally] but we don’t do it”. I underlined the we here, because what she refers to is NOT we. It is the oligarchy which refuses to respond, instead perpetually protecting it’s class privilege, wealth and authority.

Right after the commercial break, Bill Clinton makes an appearance to discuss Trump’s potential actions at taking office. He is 79 and in not good shape, having a bit of difficulty. But he bears the torch of Establishment excuses that have existed since since the Civil War, trying to justify privileged 1% oligarchy and corporate governing. A very sad display. An archetypal example of why we need the People to rule ourselves. Some way, some how, we need to figure this out and implement. Imho, it is doable. We have the technology and the mind-trust to make it work. And certainly the will among the working classes to make it so.

Lost in a dark wood
Lost in a dark wood
Dec 11, 2024 4:53 PM

Ctrl+F: “Liberty” / “Freedom”

Nada!

Try here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Tom Larsen
Tom Larsen
Dec 11, 2024 3:17 PM

I wonder what research Iain Davis did on this subject, what precedents he looked at? Just off the top of my head, there’s the Utopian Socialists (Robert Owen, Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier etc.) of the 19th century, they actually tested their ideas in real communities. Did Davis study them, their successes and failures? There’s the coop movement discussed at length in Rosa Luxemberg’s Reform and Revolution. Programmatically, (not tested in real life), there’s participatory economics or Parecon, a project by anarchists Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, did Iain look at their work? What did he like about it, what did he reject? This is a well-trod path…

esure
esure
Dec 11, 2024 6:29 PM
Reply to  Tom Larsen

I wonder what research Iain Davis did on this subject

Iain is very closely tied with (lack) of Intelligence GCHQ outfit U.K colon.
And they sell the U.K constitution as a form of governance dating back to olden time if you if your dumb enough to believe the fake back story’s.

Iain is just shilling another re-branded lead the lost a stray who either have forgotten the 1 2 3 4 5 6 120000000000000 times we have heard this all before or the newly half awake after BS19 is the market targeted audience.

Wont be long April May that videos will appear and reposted around the alt media circus talking about this new form of different governance or democracy or Voluntary democracy !!!!

the fact it is governance of democracy shows how lost they are from the get go but hey they got to do the job of there backers.

remember it is a great system just the wrong people running it hopium SCAM

Erik Nielsen.
Erik Nielsen.
Dec 11, 2024 7:42 PM
Reply to  esure

Yes, as Georg Carlin said it: “Where are all the good people who could just jump in and do everything better than those we have now??”.
“No folks, this is the best America can offer, this is the best we can do, garbage in, garbage out”.