I shall steal...This is a good one...

 

All that is mine is yours. My only purpose is to leave a country for my children at least as good as I found it.

 

Another good blog!  My general thinking is that we're victims of our own success.  When the world's longest existing democratic government thinks a voter turn-out rate of 50% is high, you know we're in trouble.  Meanwhile, we've evolved into the best political system that money can buy, and its the people who get the shaft, especially the productive who pay to subisidize the political payoff and the lazy.
 

Voting is one method of accountability, but it can easily be subverted by convincing folks that they vote for policy change instead of a candidate to obey the law. In a Republic, it would be entirely inappropriate for the chief executive to create policy for approval by the legislature. Obama has lost any sense of credibility to those of us who believe the president is supposed to act in the interests of all people of the union and within the legislative compass intersecting both the Constitution and the acts of Congress. Obama's actions are incompatible with a Republic. If you believe that the Constitution of the United States defines our union, and that the Constitution guarantees to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, Obama is no part of our Union.

As Lloyd mentions below, Obama is just a figurehead, but we worship this figurehead as a golden calf, and bring it tribute. The golden calf itself has no inherent power, but the tributes we bring to it can be used to hire mercenaries to enforce the payment of more tributes. When we no longer see the golden calf as possessing any power of its own, the mercenaries amongst us suddenly become visible.


Mercenary: a soldier or police officer whose primary reason for controlling or murdering other people is monetary gain.

 

I know it's not productive but I really want to cry my eyes out right now. For me, this was not about healthcare but the murder of our Republic.

 

This is a blessing in disguise. The beast has shown its face. Instead of enabling us to rid ourselves of the insurance scam, DC is trying to force us to buy into it. If the people of our union cannot figure out what is wrong with paying most of their money for regular doctors visits to middlemen, the union was too big to survive anyway. The choice has become polarized: we can save the United States by refusing to comply with the extraconstitutional orders of Washington DC, or the US will naturally implode the way the USSR did. In the end, Socialism is not economically viable.

 

Forcing all of a society to pay for the general welfare (socialism) is not the same as forcing them to pay for insurance. That equates insurance with the general welfare. Fascism or corporatism grants privilege to a group within a larger group. Health care paid for by all applied equally for all is general. Forcing all to pay an insurance company to establish unequal premiums and unequal benefits, only privileges the companies who set the rates and collect from everyone else. If the government ran and profited from setting the rates that would be socialism. The middle men are fascists, a sub-group with privileges.

 

Giving employees who have already lied to you and embezzled your money a blank check is stupid under any conditions.

 

So one way or another, the jig is up ? Yeah, you're right, I agree. As upset as I was earlier today, I'm equally as determined now.

 

From your statement, I think it is safe to derive a general hated and distrust for the human race. If my hypothesis is true, that those who hate and distrust the human race have a reason to try to force their will on others, it would be very hard for you to support a Republican Form of government. Do you find this to be the case? To your knowledge, is there a viable solution to the world's problems that does not require the human race to change?

 

The defining characteristic of a republic is the election of representatives to make decisions for us, as opposed to democracy, where decisions are made directly by the populace via voting on the issues.  We live in a republican government now.  I'm less than impressed.

Something new is needed.

 

Using elected officials, it is possible to achieve a Republican Form of government, but you much put in place a very responsive system of accountability for those officials. The voting method of achieving accountability is rendered impotent where elected officials successfully "delegate authority" to unelected bodies that can act against you directly or those officials create a six month delay between action and transparency.

When accountability of officials is lost, you no longer have anything remotely resembling a Republic. Such a body would more closely resemble a cesspool of rat tailed maggots.


Rat-tailed maggots thrive in sewage and cesspools. They can submerge themselves in their own filth because they breath through their tails.

The good news is that the maggot infestation can be contained to Washington DC. Citizens of the States have no reason to comply with orders to allow the infestation into their jurisdiction. All they have to do is stop feeding the maggots and the cesspool will stop growing.



 

What about self-government?
 

A Republic is self-government. The only powers you give to your employees over your person are those to which you consent.

 

You could say the same thing about anything though... same with Employers, Police Officers, Politicians, Friends, Parents, etc... The only powers they have are the ones to which I concede to them -- well, that, and whether they have their own arsenol with which to influence my consent or not.
 

A distinct difference exists between a Republic and the lowest three forms of government (Divine Right of Kings, Democracy and Despotism). A Republic requires consensus omnium at all times, not just when the system is created.

Sufficient technology exists today to create a system that is always of Republican form and never has to exclude anyone, but until we finalize its creation, maintaining consensus omnium requires that incompatible forks be excluded. The only way I know of guaranteeing that exclusion of incompatible forks will not turn into punishment is by giving no preference to either side of the split. In other words, either side of a divide in a group could just as easily be considered the fork.

For example, at one time Wikipedia was divided over whether to limit open editing rights for articles on humans who are living. About 70% of us thought that Wikipedia should ignore the tort threats of ABA members and continue allowing open editing of articles on living humans. Jimbo and his ardent followers thought otherwise and the issue became hopeless deadlocked.

Finally, Jimbo said that if we wanted to continuing using his servers, we had to obey his will. In essence, he was admitting that his Randian philosophy fails in the real world where someone with big yachts and a lot to lose can be harassed by the ABA into compliance with its illegal edicts.


Jimbo was excluding the Randian heroes of Wikipedia who followed their heart and believed firmly that the maggots of the ABA should not create an infestation in our project. If everything else would have been equal, the larger percentage of editors would have loved to split from Jimbo at that point and let the bottom feeders try their worst, but all things were not equal.

If our fork would have continued to use the same servers, benefited from the same editors and had a level playing field in relationship to Google ranking, Jimbo's path would have faded away and the global networks would have won a decisive victory over the ABA scum, but the intersection of Jimbo's belief in Rand's singular "mind independent reality" and the ABA's ability to prove that it controlled the reality it inhabited apparently led Mr. Wales to a belief that he had to surrender the biggest thing to come out of the global networks yet to a bunch of lawyers.

Per your assertion, we did consent to give the ABA a foot in the door to increasingly gain control over the Internet brand global network, but only because we were not willing to break our ties with Wikipedia. The Wikipedia package necessarily included Jimbo because he controlled the servers. It also included the Fed because Jimbo could be coerced through his use of Fed Notes. Ultimately, a marriage to Wikipedia required us getting into bed with the 400,000 members of the American Bar Association that make the whole Federal Reserve scam work.

Our union of Republican States was created specifically to keep the above scenario from happening. Knots will always form that have good and bad parts and must be implemented as a whole to work, but when a huge Brunnian Link consumes everything new we try to create before it is even has a chance to succeed by its own measures, and despite our best efforts to keep ourselves free of it, something has subverted the concept of "consent of the governed" upon which our country was founded.

Whether or not rule by the American Bar Association and its partners is better than a Constitutional union of States is a matter we can debate, but the ABA using civil courts, judicial opinion and tort to bypass the criminal justice system is definitely not part of a Republic.




 

Well, I guess my point is, your premise is that we always have to have power over someone else or consent to allow others to have power over us, and my question is simply why? Why settle for such a heirarchical power system in the first place? When one succumbs to that sort of power struggle, doesn't that make it difficult to develop any meaningful and mutually supportive relationships, if one is always worried about whom has power over whom? Any system of dominance -- whether it be of the people over their government or their government over the people -- is bound to be an abusive one.
 

Please tell me what I said that makes you believe I am promoting the idea of a hierarchical power system being necessary, because I am trying to say exactly the opposite. A Republic is the easiest form of government to implement and the most stable. It is the opposite of a hierarchy. A Republic is a partnership between the members of a group. A group does only those things to which every member consents. The group can hire employees and give those employees powers when every member of the group consents to the hiring and the powers granted.

Each State of our union is a Republic. A State is free to create whatever system it wants as long as it is consensual to everyone living there. For example, every person in a State might agree that their employees should possess the power to monitor how parents treat their children. If a single family disagrees, it should go live somewhere else.

As you are aware, the problem we run into in our overcrowded world is that there may not be anywhere else to go. Every spot of land may already be claimed by one group or another, and every group may have decided that it wants employees to monitor and punish parents depending on how they treat their children.

There is plenty of room in the omniverse to grow, but we cannot get off this planet until we have mastered this hurdle. It is possible to master through an economic system a thousand times more robust than anything we have today, but we don't have forever to master it. Even if humanity found a stable state on this planet, sooner or later, the planet would again be purged of higher life forms to make way for something evolving.



 

Great Blog
 

Thought provoking blog.  I agee that accountability is the key to controlling the excesses of the politicians.  A Republic is still the way to go.
 

Very true -

No one has power over another unless it is given to them. 
 

Once again, your skill at analogy is clear. Rat tailed maggots! That is fabulous.

 

There are very few true democracies in the world, actually they don't exist as if a country classifies itself as a democracy now days it is actually a republic. A democracy can only exist if all the people of the country have a say in every issue that comes to the table. I am unaware of any country like that. So is Barak Obama not a republican? well yes he is as the form of government employed is a republic. So how can he be an enemy of the sate?

 

Barack Obama is an enemy of the Constitution of the United States because he actively circumvents and undermines the highest law of the land.

The concept of "having a say in every issue" is different from "consent of the governed." It is the difference between being subordinate to our employees in Washington DC or their being subordinate to us. In a Democracy, the country would have leaders. In a Republic, we would lead ourselves. We would create our own pursuits in our own groups to which we consent, using government employees merely to protect our private pursuits from the heavy handedness of others.

When our employees become the very thing they are supposed to protect us from, they are no longer assets. Washington DC is nothing but a liability to the people of the States. The world would be a better place if it ceased to exist.



 

"In a Democracy, the country would have leaders. In a Republic, we would lead ourselves"

 don't you mean vice versa

Anarchy 101.

 

No, I do not mean vice versa. I hire people to protect me, not to dictate morality to me.

It would be insane to give the same institution both the power of God and an army. I like them separated. My employees protect me with the power to call an army into service. My leaders have no armed forces, a fact that enables me to pick or define my own morality. I am intelligent only to the extent of my ability to chose my own moral constructs.

 

In a Democracy, the country would have leaders. In a Republic, we would lead ourselves

Sorry to wind you up but what I mean is a Democracy is leading ourselves, while a Republic is the country having leaders. At least that's how Plato described it. I was just trying to clarify the definitions their.

peace

 

Plato's book described one type of Republic. Other people described and created other types of Republics. The common denominator is "consent of the governed."

Where consent of the governed is a country's top priority, you would necessarily be leading yourself. No hierarchy could exist except for one accountable to the people where the people ultimately must consent. Here in the United States, we require a jury of peers for exactly that reason. If a law is not consensual, we simply nullify it by making it unenforcable. All it takes is one person on each jury refusing to convict to make laws effectively null and void.

There are an endless number of other ways to achieve consent of the governed. Plato proposed one, but never tried it. If he had put it to the test, Plato would have discovered that his does not meet its objectives. For a large Republic to never degrade into Exclusion without Punishment or an even lower form of government, an economic system vastly superior to currency is indicated.

While powerful city states have grown without currency in the past, infinitely sustainable contribution tracking networks on a scale of multiple cities would require an economy with three factors: 1) efficient communication, 2) system-wide relational accounting, and 3) individually redefinable economic measures. The technology to achieve a sustainable, infinitely scalable and eternally progressive economic system has now been created.

In the past, Despotic governments have called themselves "Republics," but that does not change the meaning of the word. Despotism is still an attempt to rule by punishment. Republicanism is still consent of the governed. Through fraud or failure to create a sustainable foundation, many so-called "Republics" have fallen short of achieving Republican principles. One can argue that the concept of a large Republic is hard to implement on a national level without it degrading into Despotism, but it is silly to suppose that Republicanism and Despotism are inherently the same concept.

 

Very good assessment.

Thanks for that, but just so we don't get to argumentative with each other, I was not talking about despotism.

Keep well and I will keep popping in to read your blogs as they are insightful.

 

What is the difference between nonconsensual leadership and despotism?

 

It actually is the same thing, as its ruling with no right to be ruling, so its the same as ruling with fear.

Point taken.



 

There was an experiment with dogs in a pen surrounded by a low fence - one that the dogs could

easily walk over. For a week, when the dogs tried to get out, they were shocked.

After that, the electric shock was turned off - but the dogs just sat there, defeated, and didn't

even try anymore...

Do we deserve to be a "great country" when most of the people act like whipped dogs?


c
 

In that experiment, how many dogs would have to rediscover their will to escape for the rest of them to stop feeling defeated?