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An experiment in democracy. How would it work?
If 2024 taught us anything, maybe it was: Democracy is weird stuff.
In that year, everyone seemed to know exactly what democracy was, but few people agreed on what it was. Daily, the Washington Post reminded readers, “Democracy dies in the dark”. But then if you actually read the paper, you saw that the leftists (such as the people in Washington and at the Washington Post) were the ones trying to kill democracy, it seemed.
What about us? What about Rightful Freedom and you, our readers?
As our name suggests, we want to support what is right. And we have always been interested in systems. The government is a system. A nation is a system. A society is a system. And democracy is a system. (And they aren't all the same system.) Even the Rightful Freedom substack is a system of sorts, and Substack is a system too, perhaps a kind of society.
If Rightful Freedom is a system, what kind of system is it? Right now it's an autocracy. A kind of dictatorship. The editor makes every decision about what Rightful Freedom should be or do.
But what if the Rightful Freedom substack was, instead, a democracy? An experiment in democracy, as a kind of system. Is that even possible? What might we learn about the system that we call “democracy” from that experiment? Let's have a look.
The laws/rules of a Rightful Freedom Democracy
The Substack Poll feature allows subscribers (and only subscribers) of Rightful Freedom to vote, in a kind of election.
Your Suffrage, If You Want It
If Rightful Freedom became a democracy, then every subscriber to Rightful Freedom would become a citizen in the Rightful Freedom Society, and have the right to vote. All citizens could vote in the Rightful Freedom democracy.
Like all democracies (in fact, like all systems), the Rightful Freedom Society would operate by rules.
The rules would be enacted as a result of the votes of the citizens. In other words, a rule becomes a rule because a majority (or other required proportion, such two-thirds) of the citizens of the Rightful Freedom Society vote to make it a rule.
So let's get started, and first vote on whether Rightful Freedom should become a democracy.
Vote #1
Vote #2
What should the purpose of the Rightful Freedom Society be? I.e. Its reason for being. As we said above, Rightful Freedom should support what is right.
The 2024 “Season of giving” is over. We're not going to ask you to give anything to any righteous cause. Instead, we're going to give a little something to one, and ask you to vote on which cause will get the money.
Each of the organizations listed below is devoted to high-priority, right and righteous causes, and each needs as much funding as much as possible. These organizations get little or no money from leftists or the government, they depend upon donations from people in the right.
Those Christian organizations do things such as free Christian slaves owned by Muslims in South Asia.
Here are some photos of Christian families released from Muslim slavery and given aid in December 2024, by the Independent Church in India. (How happy would you be if you were freed from suffering as a slave and given Christmas presents?)
These Organizations Provide Legal Help for Americans
These four organizations come to the aid of people who are being victimized by the US government. One of them defends David Daleiden who is being persecuted by the state of California (Kamala Harris began the actions against him) for his investigation into Planned Parenthood selling the body parts of aborted babies. And it defends Lauren Handey, who was sentenced to 57 months in prison because she literally peacefully protested against abortion in 2020. Another of these legal foundations defends the property rights of Americans against the depredations of the US government.
For this election, we have narrowed the choice down to four. Which of these four organizations should the Rightful Freedom Society donate $250 to?
Vote #2
The final day for voting is January 15. If a majority have voted to make Rightful Freedom a democracy, then Rightful Freedom will donate the $250 on January 16 to one of the organizations.
If Rightful Freedom becomes a democracy, then in the future we will have more votes, of course. Those votes will decide what Rightful Freedom does. Probably some votes will be about contributing money to rightist organizations. Others may propose new laws/rules. And so on. For example, if Rightful Freedom becomes a democracy, then the next two elections will be:
Vote #3
Should the Rightful Freedom Society now donate $1500 to the Independent Church in India?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
Vote #4
Which of these should be the most important activity of the Rightful Freedom Society?
[ ] Produce rightist content.
[ ] Support rightist organizations with money.
[ ] Support rightist organizations by publicizing them.
[ ] Support rightist Substackers with money.
[ ] Support rightist Substackers by publicizing them.
What might be learned from this experiment in democracy?
The Rightful Freedom substack can be thought of as a sub-system of the Substack system. The Substack system has its own rules. How those rules can enable or constrain the interaction of the citizens of the Rightful Freedom Society might be interesting to observe. Can a democracy exist as a sub-system of a system that is not a democracy?
Our experiment in democracy could tell us some interesting things about democracy itself, and how it really works and what it really is, because, as we said, there seems to be a lot of disagreement about that at the present time.
Why is (or was) the US designed to be a republic rather than a democracy? Was making it a republic a mistake? Would it work better if it were more like ancient Athens than like a parliamentary monarchy, such as Britain was when the United States was formed? Athens was a very successful system for a long, long time. Do we really need a layer of U.S. government politicians above the American people? Given the technologies available to us, the American people, here in 2025, do we really need a group of overseeing politicians in Washington, DC to make decisions for us, or could we make the decisions ourselves somehow?
Maybe later, we could vote on whether Rightful Freedom Society should become a republic, and some citizens (subscribers) could run for office.
Who decides what issues Rightful Freedom citizens vote on?
Obviously, the editor of Rightful Freedom can propose issues to be voted on. Such as, “Should rightful freedom be a democracy?”
But just as obviously, citizens could propose the issues to be voted on. The citizens might do that in the Comments section. In fact, the “LIKE” feature in the Substack comment section allows for a kind of voting on comments. A comment that gets a lot of LIKEs could become an issue that is voted on.
If you, potential Rightful Freedom Citizen, have thoughts or suggestions about the votes, the experiment, the nature of democracy, or about future laws, we would love to see them in the comments.
Vote now. It's your right. For the time being.
So if they are trying to kill democracy does that mean we can kill them...?
Interesting idea – and I love experiments. But democracies always lead to tyranny. Why is that? Essentially, because too many ignorant people vote.
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, et. al, all warned that democracies lead to tyranny and Plato elaborated by using the metaphor of sailing a ship (do you want an incompetent captain and crew who have never sailed a ship to steer the ship?) Plato used the metaphor of the oligarch giving birth to the democrat who gave birth to the tyrant. So, the constitutional republic that was supposed to restrain democracy gave birth to a corporatocracy giving us too many industrial complexes.
I think Alexander Tytler’s cycle of democracy, where dependency is the last stage of a democracy is very accurate. It makes sense because once people are dependent on the government, they are well…dependent on the government for everything. It falls in line with what Alexis de Tocqueville said, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
I believe that Americans are the heirs of the American Experiment because of the idea of the American Dream. (Work hard, do better.) But collectively, America has created and allowed further dependency on the government/taxpayers. How many Americans (and/or illegal aliens) are dependent on the government now? And, that is simply irresponsible (and unsustainable)! And, as Tytler predicted, dependency is the last cycle before tyranny in any democracy (constitutional republic too).
If anyone can talk about freedom with authority, it could be Victor Frankl, who said, “Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”
First things first: We must all be responsible. So, first we might end Dependency on the Government and Give Peace a Chance to End the War on Poverty!
https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/give-peace-a-chance-end-the-war-on-9f8?r=76q58