Why should you or I have to wait until enough Republicans or Democrats join us in a majority for us to get done anything we think wise? Why don't we just get together with like-minded people and do it ourselves in the private sector?
It is 2015, not 1015. We have the Internet, we are able to be in easy communication with people around the world, many of us have the safety of the developed nations, and we are now good at self-organizing.
Could it be that the next major social phenomenon is the emergence of nations defined by agreement rather than geography? Nations anyone can join or leave at anytime? That is a good thing: it fully honors and builds on individual freedom. Nations without taxation? That is something many will like: things get done through voluntary fees or donations.
I am a citizen of my town government. I am a citizen of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I am a citizen of the United States. Through it I am a citizen of the United Nations. Why can't I also be a citizen of a chosen nation by agreement of like-minded people? We would only do things that are either not being done well or at all by one of our other governments?
For instance, I am aware that half the people on Earth are in poverty: they live on less than $2 a day. Yet when we lived in tribes and villages, no one lived in poverty. Everyone contributed as best they could and all had food, clothing, and shelter. I am not advocating that we go back to the jungle. I like my Starbucks coffee in the morning and all the rest of modern life. However, I could choose to be a citizen of a voluntary nation of people who also choose to give a high priority to setting something in motion that uses our modern systems to eventually put a permanent end to extreme poverty on Earth. We could set up an organization in the private for-profit or non-profit sector to do it as one of the activities of our new nation by agreement? There is a way to do this now that uses crowd funding and taps some of the profits of our multinational corporations to do it. (It is called "Trusts for All Children" and will soon be launched.) This could be one of the projects of a new nation by agreement because its citizens feel strongly about ending extreme poverty on Earth.
Here is another one. If I have a clear understanding of the layers of maturity a child goes through on the way to becoming a fully mature human being, why don't I join with like-minded people to re-village my life in a modern context such that my children are part of a community of people who are bringing up their children, and each other, to be fully mature human beings before they reach their twenties? This is not something that has been embraced by any of my other governments. Why don't we just do this on our own in the private sector rather than lobby for it in our school systems and churches as if those are the only ways to get it done?
Here is another one. Why wait for Wall Street to mature to where it gives priority to the common good and second priority to profit? Why don't we join with like-minded people and have part of our new nation by agreement do this? We can organize businesses to join us in a "common good capitalism movement" and just start doing it ourselves as a movement in the private sectors of the nations around the world. (A website to encourage this is also about to be launched: "Common Good Capitalism Movement.")
We can now do these projects and others in the private sector by creating a non-profit organization that has a constitution and is a voluntary nation by agreement. We can then have the above projects, and all the others our citizens choose to create, emerge as for-profit or non-profit organizations within the private sector others can join or leave at anytime. This way like-minded people can do what they want to do without waiting for a majority of the people living on the same piece of dirt to agree to do them. In addition we will know we share the same worldview, values and priorities and will love being supportive of each other's projects to bring about the world we would like to see.
This new nation by agreement can also be transnational: people in geographically defined nations around the world organized as democracies, communist nations, dictatorships, or anything else can join and participate. Who knows? Maybe someday these nations by agreement will totally support their geographically defined nations while at the same time their citizens give priority to their nations defined by agreement. Then the conflicts between and among geographically defined nations may fade away. Maybe this is the way we very non-violently mature beyond having the geographically defined nations be the dominant organizations on Earth.
As we all know, there is another problem with our current democratic nations. They are being gamed by a few wealthy people on both sides. This is occurring because you get power by getting a majority of the voters to vote in your favor. So the main activity is trying through whatever legal means possible to get a majority of voters to vote for your candidates. As a result, currently Republicans have done a good job of getting control of state legislators. This has given them the power to draw the lines defining Congressional Districts. They have done this in a way - for instance by putting the liberal areas in one district and structuring the other districts so the conservatives will consistently win them - so they control the majority of the seats in Congress from these states. The Democrats have done the same thing when they controlled the state legislators.
In my judgment what should be happening is that a third group should be appointed that is responsible for drawing the districts so as much as possible there is a balance of liberal and conservative citizens in each so those running for office have to win based on responding to a majority of what the citizens want. (This is an idea for a future Presidential Candidate under the banner "A Return to Democracy!") In addition, wealthy people on both sides are putting huge amounts of money into campaigns to run ads where the priority is to win the election not win the discussions.
The system is being gamed from all sides because the name of the game is to get enough political power to run the nation one way rather than another way.
In a nation by agreement the priority is to live our lives according to our chosen constitution or leave that nation and join another one where there is agreement with its constitution. Each nation is a nation of like-minded people focused on getting their lives organized the way they want them to be organized rather than first getting enough power to force everyone to do it their way. It also fully and clearly builds on honoring and respecting individual freedom. I think nearly all would agree that is a very good thing!
So the next major social phenomenon just may be the emergence of nations by agreement.