The following is an excerpt from Chapter 7: Towards True Democracy in the book Holy War for True Democracy.
DG is an nonprofit organization that embraces all possible tools, such as technology, media and entertainment, to help move the world towards true democracy where governments are truly of the people, by the people and for the people. DG’s mission is to channel the passions of people who share a vision for self-government in order to strengthen democratic institutions, and thereby promote governments that serve the interests of all of the people, not just the powerful few.
Initially, DG will focus on increasing the trustworthiness of information sources on government and politics (see previous chapter), thereby increasing public pressure for truth from media outlets, elected politicians, government administrators and other organizations and individuals who are in positions of power. This will lessen the ability of bad actors from using falsehoods to drive hate and violence, and give the citizens more influence on people in power. A by-product will be a world-class database of Internet identities (people and organizations) which will allow for future technology initiatives and revenue generation.
DG is nonpartisan, including which form of government is the most preferred. Therefore, even though DG will work to make existing constitutional, democratic governments more effective as a primary mission, DG will be compatible with any form of government, including benevolent dictatorships. Bottom-line: DG wants governments to meet their citizens’ needs. It is not designed to promote a single approach.
DG will pursue strength in many areas, including financial, legal, technology, innovation and marketing. DG’s strength will also come from its many trust relationships with people and organizations, its positive reputation and goodwill accumulated over time.
The DG movement will use a wide variety of innovative approaches and technologies to build greater power that will allow it to have a significant positive influence on society. Innovation will play a major role. DG will accomplish its goals in part by taking full advantage of various techniques and technologies that are controlled today by proprietary interests (e.g., for-profit companies own most Internet and social media platforms, and much of the news originates from special interests such as political parties). It is expected that DG will invent new approaches and technologies to achieve its goals.
If there is strong consensus among DG members that some amount of extra effort and sacrifice is necessary and desirable to counteract a threat, then DG will leverage its power to counter that threat. DG needs to be both well-meaning and strong.
It is incumbent on all members that the DG brand represents goodness and is no threat to existing benign or neutral interests. Therefore, a key operational requirement is that DG has a generally positive reputation to minimize the amount of friction from society. In the USA, the goal is approximately proportional membership across the American political spectrum.
For Western democracies, DG will generally support values that align with both the Left and Right, such as equality, fairness, freedom, free enterprise, individual initiative, free markets, safety, family and general well-being. In the West there is a strong consensus around these values and there is strong evidence that there is a good opportunity for people to be healthy, happy and fulfilled when society embraces these values. But some less democratic government might also give its citizens the same opportunities. For example, people seem reasonably well off in the Principality of Monaco. Even for autocratic governments, there might be a role for DG to incrementally move the government towards serving its citizens better simply by helping government and citizens jointly participate in DG. However, DG will have difficulty penetrating authoritarian governments that oppress their citizens via total control over information and offer few freedoms.
DG is non-opinionated about religion. DG will partner with religious people and organizations when goals align and DG does not have to compromise on its core values. It is expected that DG will have members who belong to most major religions because DG values and goals are largely in alignment.
DG believes in true science, where hypotheses are proven by facts or theory backed by compelling verifiable scientific evidence and experimentation. For example, DG members have a consensus that the Earth revolves around the Sun, not the other way around, partly because mankind could not have successfully sent spacecraft around the solar system if the scientific theories were wrong.
When engaged in DG activities, DG members vow: to act out of unselfish love of life and others; to work towards better trust relationships between the people and organizations of the world; and to commit absolutely to increasing the well-being of mankind. These simple vows provide DG a foundation of strength because they are based on true love for humanity; willingness to collaborate and compromise, to both give and receive; and unsurpassed zealousness and determination to achieve selflessness and goodness.
DG has noble goals and puts high expectations on participants, but only requires these good behaviors when participating in DG activities.
Participation in DG activities will be fun and joyful, and often will lead to both personal and professional growth.
DG believes people should live rich and fulfilling lives, so DG generally regards fun, pleasure, comfort, security, camaraderie, spirituality, style, music, dance and all of the arts as beneficial and sometimes essential. DG believes in individuality, freedom and self-expression because humans are naturally creative, and this creativity will lead to improvements in people’s lives.