Mike, correct on the representatives. My thought is that, perhaps, we'll trust those representatives under Jefferson's plan more than we do our representatives today not to be in the thrall of special interests or party loyalty. That because we'll tend to assume that they're having the same face-to-face experiences that we're having hyper-locally.

And, hopefully, with us citizens doing most of the government ourselves, our assumption won't be misplaced. Jefferson did teach us, though, that the citizens' watchful, jealous eye on our representatives is better suited for a republic than confidence in them. From his Kentucky Resolutions: ". . . confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism: free government is founded in jealousy and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power."

Right now, we citizens overall are neither confident nor jealous. We're resigned, and we perceive ourselves as powerless. (We elect populists in part out of this perceived powerlessness: populists promise to be champions of us little people against the powerful.) I think village-states would at least develop in us Jefferson's foundation of free government--jealousy. Jefferson seemed to think so: "Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic . . . he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte."

For more on the representational aspect, you might look at my response to Annie Blackwell's interesting comment. (I think it's one of the first comments on this post.) Thanks again for your involvement here.