Great words!

" Imagine a democracy where tens or even hundreds of millions of people could propose legislation. Nothing would ever get passed, indeed nothing could ever even get discussed!"

Oh, I don't know. First imagine Steem has 100M users. Those users don't only organize themselves as one discreet organization. They self-organize into communities, that share many views in common. Those communities make it far simpler to propose, discuss, and enact 'legislation' that impacts their community. Their community.

This is why voluntarism is the key to freedom: because being forced is not freedom.

Each community can have it's own rules, and as long as it isn't forcing anyone to obey them against their will, the folks in that community are free. As ideas tend to be imperfect, and experience shows how they're imperfect, proposals will refine the ideas, and folks that discover those ideas aren't actually what they wanted will move to a community that better reflects the ideas they support, or make their own. The disparate communities will also share points of agreement, other that what they disagree on, and such communities can work together to forward those shared goals, as long as they don't tread on each other's toes.

In the long run, I expect coalitions of communities composed purely voluntarily to be far more productive than extant political systems that seek to force victims to comply, and thus suffer resistance and outright opposition to national goals.

I hunger for this more than I ever will food. I think Steem is showing the way to make this happen.

Thanks!