Free Government

What Happened? What Next?

noreply@blogger.com (Foy Savas) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:13:00 +0000

We have some unfortunate news: there will be no FreeGov campaign this year.

What Happened?

Shortly after deciding on an applicant who would have made an amazing candidate, we began to organize our team for the next phase, seeking out signatures to get on the ballot. However, it wasn't long before we realized what a time-crunch we were in - less than 10 days to get 2000 valid signatures from voters in the district. We looked for shortcuts (read: endorsements from the popular folks), but we had a hard time getting people to conceptually differentiate FreeGov from direct democracy. With even more time lost, we found ourselves with an impossible target.

For a few days, everyone's head on the team hung a bit low. We reflected on both our successes and failures. Then we came to a consensus: yes, we had failed to get on the ballot this year, but no, people were not losing interest.

What Next?

Just looking through the emails we've received, there are so many passionate people who get the concept and want to see FreeGov succeed. Given that many of those people come from different parts of the country, we have realized that it was myopic to try and get FreeGov out so quickly and with such a limited scope. Therefore, we'd like to announce our next set of goals:

* Continue to build on site features
* Grow our community nationwide
* Use the FreeGov technology as means of internal decision making
* Find candidates well ahead of the 2010 elections
* Run a unified multi-district campaign in 2010

Longer time-frame, larger targets - as you can tell we are not backing off. With Congressional approval ratings at 9%, why would we?

Finally, one more show of appreciation to our volunteers for all their support and dedication. It's been through your help that we laid the foundation for FreeGov, and though the upcoming two years are going to be packed with even more to do, nothing can compare to the effort we needed to kick-start FreeGov and get out that initial release - thanks everyone.

We Have Chosen a Candidate

sophia@phosphenefashion.com (Sophia) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 04:09:00 +0000

More details soon.

In the Press

sophia@phosphenefashion.com (Sophia) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:17:00 +0000

As the FreeGov team continues to push further in development, we've been feeling a good share of "blah" moments of exhaustion but balanced by exciting highs which makes this bumpy road worth it. Two of these highs are FreeGov appearing on Slashdot and Wikinomics. Speechless.

Waking up Friday morning (July 11th) and finding FreeGov on the home page of Slashdot was our (nerd) dream come true. We all feel too fortunate. More importantly, we truly appreciate all of the Slashdot readers for taking the time to ponder the possibility of Free Government and discuss it so openly. Negative, positive, raving, witty comments, we read them all.

Lastly, FreeGov was covered by Wikinomics. Will Dick of Wikinomics hits the nail on the head in describing the FreeGov concept. Quoting Will Dick,

The plan, though, is not pure direct democracy. Those who prefer not to make their own voting decisions can delegate their votes to advisors. These advisors then, become sort of like elected representatives. But there are a few important differences:

They are never running for election, making their decisions less susceptible to variations in the political cycle.
Their power is never “locked in.” If they make a bad or corrupt decision, constituents can immediately and retroactively take their power away.
Those who do not win are still engaged in the process. When a candidate loses an election, we shut this (often) highly qualified person out of government, rather than give them an opportunity to serve their community. A corporate HR department would cringe at such a policy. Free Government’s system allows those less-popular “advisors” to continue to engage in the policy making process.

Again, thanks to all the believers, skeptics, dreamers, yea-, and nay-sayers. Let's keep up the open discussion and push on toward the ideals (and practice) of Free Government.

Searching for a Candidate to Represent the 8th Congressional District of MA

sophia@phosphenefashion.com (Sophia) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:02:00 +0000

FreeGovernment.org is now searching for applicants for a candidate to represent the 8th Congressional District of MA, which includes Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea, and parts of Boston.

This election year, we are looking to test the political waters and make an impact by selecting one qualified applicant to run for Representative of MA's 8th Congressional District.

If elected, you will be bound by contract to act as no more than proxy for our district by voting on bills only as do online verified voters, and by introducing and sponsoring bills only through significant support. For more information on the exact mechanisms through which voting will be made convenient for all citizens, please see the FAQs on FreeGovernment.org.

Basic Requirements

25 years of age or older
U.S. Citizen for at least 7 years
Resident of Massachusetts' 8th Congressional District

Applicants must display a high level of integrity as well as previous experience in serving the community. You must be willing to represent the will of our district, even if it conflicts with your own. Energetic, well-spoken individuals ready to jump into this ultimate grassroots campaign are preferred.

Time is of the essence, so if you're thinking of applying or know someone who you think ought apply, please get back to us as soon as possible. We will be conducting interviews within the next few days, so please provide contact information and availability along with a résumé, personal statement, and any other qualifying documents to: apply@freegovernment.org.

Good luck!

FreeGovernment.org Launch on July 4th

sophia@phosphenefashion.com (Sophia) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:06:00 +0000

It's official, 232 years after the Declaration of Independence, FreeGovernment.org is up. We are very excited (and anxious too) about this release and hope that you will enjoy using this website as much as we have while creating it.

This project has definitely been long in the making. Not 232 years--phew--but still long enough. Foy cooked up the Free Government idea when he was an undergrad student, and ever since then we've pushed hard to try and make the concept a reality. Now, after many take-out meals, countless IRC nerd chats, hundreds of lines of lorem ipsum, and too many pots of coffee, FreeGovernment.org is born.

Why did we create FreeGovernment.org? Simple question with a slightly more complicated answer. The reasons, though, can be roughly divided into two categories: 1) Our belief that politics should be free, convenient, and transparent and 2) that the timing has never been better for change.

Free, Convenient & Transparent Politics
Foy and I have always found politics to be a little out of reach for the average citizen. Getting involved in politics can be inconvenient, time-consuming, intimidating, even a little boring. Whatever the reason is, we still believe that politics should and can be accessible to everyone. FreeGovernment.org strives to bring political involvement closer to all its citizens by allowing anyone to create and vote on polls, comment on bills paragraph-by-paragraph, draft their own bills, create groups, or become advisers to vote on other users' behalf. Political involvement shouldn't only happen once every four years or on select days--we can speak up and make a difference any day.

Free Politics - FreeGovernment.org is founded on Free Culture philosophy, so at the very essence of our project is the belief that citizens should be able to engage in government decision, understand the work of the government, share control, and improve the workings of the government for the benefit of all society. Translated to features on the site, users can view and discuss current bills in Congress and create their own bills for the FreeGov community to debate. This allows for constant discourse on the legislation being passed in Congress as well as citizen involvement in the legislation-making process.

Convenient Politics - Want to have your voice heard but don't have the time to cover all the issues? To provide users with a convenient hands-off approach to voting and allowing effortless constant involvement, we've implemented the idea of "advisers." Users can select advisers whom they believe represent their political interests and beliefs accurately. The adviser votes for you on polls; it's like having a personal representative. Well not exactly, as you have the option to choose more than one adviser as well. This effectively gives you the potential to pool together a team of advisers that best represent you. With multiple advisers, we tally their votes as they are cast, and your vote is determined by wherever the majority stands. No worries though, if your advisers have gone against what you believe in any particular poll, you always retain the ability to override it by manually casting your vote.

Transparent Politics - We aim for political transparency with all features of FreeGovernment.org. For polls, all statistics are kept public and up-to-date. Bills, posted either by users or CongressBot, are free for all users to look at and any discussion is kept in the public forum. There is no private messaging--FreeGov seeks to keep dialogue open to everyone.

A Trite Saying: Right Place, Right Time
We've become a society very open to melding the real world with the Internet. It's nearly impossible and even frightening to imagine a world before the Internet. We've also witnessed changes in politics. Citizens are more involved, have more tools at their disposal to take action, and are more hopeful of change. Seeing these two phenomena unravel before us, we know it's a good time to take the next steps toward a more citizen-involved government.

Final Message to Everyone
What do all these words amount to? One message: Get involved. We truly believe there is something on FreeGovernment.org for everyone. Yes, everyone. Why do I say this? I say this because Foy is a web developer and I am a dental school student. A typical day of ours includes programming or studying cranial nerves in a coffee shop. You don't need to be a political science grad student at a prestigious academic institution or a politician in D.C. All you need to have is some interest in the issues that matter to you.

So get involved and be heard.