BalanceParty.us is a social networking website (and soon also app) that aims to revolutionize politics in the United States by its members proposing and voting for member (voter) proposed political policies at the local, state, and/or Federal levels. Our slogan “#nonpartisan #voter #thinktank” summarizes our purpose. Balance Party is not a political party. We call our bottom-up approach to political policy ideas (as compared to the existing top-down approach) “open source politics.” We didn’t forget about lobbyists and political action committees in the flipped org chart diagram above — we’ve eliminated them. As they are one of the big problems with politics.
- The first 100 members of Balance Party get a free lifetime Founder level account!
The rigging of voter districts by partisan state level politicians (“gerrymandering”) is another major problem with American politics. The need for campaign finance reform is another, which combined with special interests results in their being too much money in politics. There is also a need to implement ranked choice voting (which largely solves the two party “problem,” as well as the lesser of two not so great choices problem,) and open primary elections (which gives voters who are not registered with a major political party a vote in primary elections.) Another problem with American politics is politicians having more of an incentive to not compromise on proposed legislation due to their being more concerned about not being re-elected. Balance Party intends to “flip American politics upside down” through the promotion of member proposed solutions addressing these and any other problems the Country is experiencing.
BAL will always remain “nonpartisan.” BAL’s members both propose their own policies as well as vote on those policies, with the most popular policies rising to the top of the discussion lists, with the most popular policies ideally representing a “nonpartisan, open source, balanced American political platform” of sorts. Balance Party allows a way for the voters to determine the policies, essentially, whereas traditionally they have only been able to determine the politicians.
- 49% of Americans identified as independents, according to a November 17, 2023
Gallup poll. (See USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences article.)
There is a simple statistic that describes why America desperately needs to “flip politics upside down” — and that is that the performance of the US Congress (House and Senate,) in terms of passing bills, has declined to 54% of what it used to be. The two decades before 1995 or so, the US Congress averaged around 650 legislative bills (laws) passed per year. In the two most recent decades by contrast, the US Congress has averaged around 350 passed bills. That is a performance of 54% when you use 650 bills as a standard. In college, 54% performance is an “F.” And the reason could not be more clear – there are enough representatives in Congress who are more concerned about getting re-elected than on improving the Country. And this is because of the amount of money in politics, to the point where they cannot afford to compromise on legislation for fear of a drop in their raised funds which finances their campaign advertisements and other campaign costs. This is understandable of course because if you are not elected you can’t make any difference for the Country. Instead of blaming the politicians for being self serving, which most likely most of them are not, we can just change the status quo.
Ranked choice voting, an end to gerrymandering, and open primaries will allow for more bipartisanship (compromise,) which will result in getting America back on track to a 650 bills passed per year performance. If you would like an example of this problem, take a look at the “bipartisan border bill” of 2024 that the Senate passed, the Border Patrol Union supported, and that the House of Representatives Republicans did not pass because the were afraid of not getting re-elected if they reached an agreement on the border crisis with the Democrats. Yet it would have provided better protection than no bill, which is what we were left with. The Country’s border crisis gets put on hold so that a few politicians can get re-elected. The House ended up not doing the right thing, and caring primarily about themselves. Which is sadly nothing new as we can tell by the failing grade that Congress has been getting for the last two decades.
We also hope that organizations that do political polls will find our members’ popular opinions helpful in coming up with new or refined questions used on their polls. Also, politicians of any political party (or independent) might find BAL’s popular opinions on political issues to be helpful when deciding on their own policy platform. While we don’t keep track of the political party affiliation of our members, we do keep track of their political leaning — liberal, moderate liberal, centrist, moderate conservative, or conservative — so that the collective opinions of BAL members (meaning the most popular proposed policies) have some measure of statistical usefulness. What we really are after though are good policy ideas. (Our member political leaning data is not publicly visible.)
We have also included two other areas on the BAL website and app that BAL aims to revolutionize, in addition to Politics; One for community projects, and the other for progressive business policies. Both have a purpose also for helping to solve USA social and political issues. Open source political policy, business policy, and community project ideas are all decidedly pro-democracy activities. The ending of our Nation’s Pledge of Allegiance reads “with liberty and justice for all.” As such, all three areas are also a way for our members to follow the Golden Rule, which is an ethic that every positive religion follows.
We won’t actually know what political direction BAL takes until our members collectively decide on the direction. The founder of BAL has only one vote just like all the other members. The Balance Party founder/staff do have control over the videos linked to in the “Ed Talks” section of the website, as well as having the ability to pin discussions at the top of the lists, but the website is entirely egalitarian/democratic in that anyone working for Balance Party only gets one vote just like all other members. And Balance Party will strive to provide equal opportunity for the linked videos in terms of which side of the political aisle they may lean. Balance Party also does have the ability to interpret its user policies including the Golden Rule. As well as the ability to pin posts to the top of discussion lists. We will always allow our members to collectively decide on BAL’s direction, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the Golden Rule.
Eight ways that BAL is different from traditional social networking sites/apps:
- Credit card verification required for all accounts. All members are required to be verified via credit card. This greatly lessens the occurrence of “problematic” member accounts. (You can help to revolutionize politics for less than one cup of coffee at a coffee house or restaurant per month.)
- We do not sell any of our users’ data to third parties (With the exception of if all or a portion of the Balance Party website and app and services and/or IdeaSpin, LLC company is transferred in an organizational restructuring, merger, or acquisition.)
- Our Website and App and Services do not track its users’ browsing statistics across third-party websites (With some exceptions: 1. Credit card processing companies in order to process your membership subscription with it/IdeaSpin, LLC, and 2. With your willful user sharing of data from our website and app and services to third-party social media or other organizations and companies, or for member optional integration with other Internet services such as Zoom, Slack, etc.)
- Your full credit card information is not stored on our servers. We may store the last four numbers of your credit card. Your full number is stored however with the third-party credit card processing vendors that we use to facilitate automatic renewal of your membership subscription with our website and app and services. We use third-party credit card processing vendors that have high industry reputations for data security (Authorize.Net and Authorize.Net associated processing vendors.)
- We do not sell or display advertising, (with the exception of having a list of substantial sponsors with on a dedicated page.)
- Users of the BAL website and app and services are required to be adults.
- Users of the BAL website and app and services are required to be located within the United States. (In the future we will probably also require proof of US citizenship.)
- All of our proposed political policies, community projects, and business policies must adhere to the Golden Rule. And one of our Acceptable Use Policy rules requires following the Golden Rule on the BAL website/app as well:
– Treat others as you would like others to treat you
– Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated
Balance Party’s proposed ideas are of course in the public domain, so feel free to “borrow” them (referencing the specific web page on BalanceParty.us where you found the idea as the source please.)
Balance Party is a for-profit social networking site / app. As such, we would be greatly appreciative of receiving donations to help cover our operating expenses and to get the initial snowball formulated and rolling, as we do not have deep pockets of capital. However, there is no special benefit or influence to donors other than a sponsor listing on a dedicated sponsors page if the donation was substantial ($500 or higher, including if in payments over time, separate from membership fees) with an optional hyperlink to their website or social media page. They benefit also though by knowing that they have made an investment in revolutionizing the “3 C’s” of Congress, Capitalism, and Community. (The sponsor page is technically advertising, but not typical “in your face advertising” – it’s the same as what is done with public television sponsorship essentially.
If anyone questions “who’s behind” Balance Party, the answer is that the members of BAL are the ones “behind” BAL. If any individuals or organizations are interested in sponsoring Balance Party, feel free to send a check to our mailing address below. Being listed on our sponsors page is optional, and the link to a website is also optional. If an organization or individual is deemed to be blatantly contrary to the Golden Rule in the press or in reputation, their check will be returned to them as they will not be accepted as a sponsor.
Worried that BAL might be a scam? Don’t be, as we will post our income statement on our website at the end of our first year which is 2024, allowing for financial transparency. Additionally, it should be obvious that at $1.33 per month BAL delivers a lot of benefit for the buck as an Internet service that helps to reform American politics (once we have a sufficient number of members.)
The umbrella company of the Balance Party website/app is IdeaSpin LLC. IdeaSpin, LLC / Balance Party is a startup business located in Costa Mesa, California that launched in 2024. The only owner of IdeaSpin, LLC is James Shannon (Guiltinan.)
IdeaSpin, LLC Legal Agreements