25A034 DVOL by Jim Davies, 8/26/2025

That's Direct Voting On Line; an idea that would dispense with the need for any "representatives" at local, State and Federal levels and so produce a large and immediate saving. Does it have any other merit?

Not much; for it leaves in place the fatal fiction that somebody other than you is entitled to run part of your life; but it does have a bit.

The founders were eager to preserve the myth that while being taxed without representation was bad, being taxed with representation is just fine. It was a nicely done deflection; the looting continued, but the indignation was neutered.

So today in the House, 435 Congresscritters "represent" the interests and wishes of 330 million people, of whom about two thirds can vote. So, each Rep must inject into the decision-making process the desires of about 500,000 voters. No wonder they are so well paid! I would have extreme difficulty representing a hundred thousand times fewer than that. Quite obviously, their job is impossible; it's a fiction.

That fiction is only the beginning of the farce. Another face of it is the fact that if decisions have to be made for Collective America (and that, see below, is a massive "if"!) then for the last 30 years at least it has been completely unnecessary, for the Internet has arrived. Anyone is wired who wishes to be, and every day scores of millions among us transact remotely - to transfer money, to place orders, to trade stocks.... - so at a cost vastly lower than that of operating the House, each person could vote directly on each issue separately on a daily basis. No "Representatives" required.

A further face of the farce is that even if that were done, it would fast become abundantly clear to everyone that a vast majority of all "bills" are supported only by a tiny minority of voters - those with a direct "interest" in a proposal. Such lobbyists or pressure groups want power to be exercised in their behalf, at the expense of everyone else. So it is very probable that very few bills would pass with a clear majority vote, and that momentum would fast rise to abolish most programs already in place.

Isn't that a good thing, a way to reduce the size and scope of the FedGov (and for that matter State and Local governments, which could readily adopt the same system) in very short order? - yes, of course. Not the same thing as outright abolition, favored here in the ZGBlog, but a big step on the way. It would take us not to an anarchist society, but at least to a minarchist one. Hence today's Congresscritters oppose the idea bitterly. Some "Representatives"!

A final face of the farce is its innate impossibility; not just that Reps cannot possibly act for half a million individuals each, but that those voters hold a whole range of differing and often directly contradictory ideas! So much so, that if a good majority favor one side of Issue A, a wholly different mix of them might align for Issue B. There is no such thing as the will of the people. Collectivism is a myth.

There is, on the other hand, a very definite will of each of the people; that is, of you and me individually. After thinking about it, we each figure out what we want, and set out to get it. Since in a Zero Government Society we each recognize the self-ownership of everyone else, there's no possibility of "getting it" by trampling on the wishes of others, using the de facto power of "representatives", so we have to use persuasion. To obtain something we want, we must offer something else in exchange. Something we value less than the item or action we wish to acquire but which the other person values more than what he will let us have.

That's the market. That's freedom. And in a free, market society there is no place whatever for government or its pretense to be acting on behalf of the people whom it rules and exploits. It is in no way a Collective, so has no need for votes - whether via some complex system of representation, or by DVOL.