How To Fix the Government

Philosophy, case examples, and method.

Philosophy Cases Method

A failure has occurred in the fourth estate, i.e. in the area of the media and press. In society, I think we should treat a fourth estate failure as a primary systems failure. For sufficiency in societal infrastructure and to overcome shared problems; this is a proposition in political architecture which includes the American system of government, and an independent, voluntary, democratic organization in the fourth estate, to monitor and redress the government on injustices.

Three Sides of Seeing Political Needs Today

1) We have employed bureaucracy with the American political system, but we may also see ourselves as living in a failed state. This could cause a person to exclude political architecture when endeavoring to solve today's problems, but I would add a separate, voluntary organization.

I find that our common problems do not originate in the government; they begin with problems in the fourth estate. Shortcomings in public awareness create gaps, which are places for corruption to fill, in the public system.

2) When we do resort to political architecture, our tendency is to treat it as a matter of government architecture. Proposed herein will be to add a voluntary bureaucracy, greatly reusing American methods, but doing so among the fourth estate, where it is confined to a particular area of public concern. By doing this, a voluntary organization may be led by its own delegates, in accordance with its own rules, to cite and redress shared concerns.

3) While there are propositions and actions which we find to be more preferential, there are the matters of universally recognizable government injustices. Raping, robbing, maiming, and killing would be examples of matters of nonpartisan concern; these would be universally recognized as offenses committed. Universal matters are in a separate department in relation to the left-right political spectrum. These things fall into the area of universal presumption and internal affairs.

Whether or not our nation does what it says is an internal affair, and a matter of national integrity. Between two sides, we could vote to go one way, and then go the other, and our nation would lack integrity. In the same way, I think a statement of conscience would recognize integrity, or a lack thereof.

A nonpartisan organization should require a higher percentage of support within itself to claim that more universally agreed upon offenses have been committed. These would be things that anyone would call wrong. So long as a universal claim of injustice has merit, such as by way of its compiled evidence, it will be in a position to exist as legislative material and gain widespread support.

I. Philosophy

Now we digress into a most fundamental level of consideration upon these matters; on politics, thought, the world, and everything, but this should only take a few minutes.

Politics

Can you imagine two people acting differently under the same set of circumstances? There is everything that is present, when we each reside in our own spaces. When there is more than one of us sharing a space, there is what we add to what was there. In politics, we are both there, and we may bring our minds and backgrounds to bear. "Politics" comes from being of the "polis" - the city, and I like to think of politics as something which exists, body, mind, and soul; "by way of us". To be politics, I think there will also be a more public or shared aspect, as opposed to what we would call private.

Our politics are not solely defined by our bodies, land, and resources. There is a world within us to say what we think about and would do with what we have. In man's behavior, ranging from Alexander Hamilton's reference in Federalist #6, where he says, "men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious", to when people are trying to achieve great architectural virtue, such as in the birth of this nation. I see some recognition of the nature of man in Hamilton's reference, and I think this is what architects will be up against. Our intention is to govern man, which is the main reason why what we do cannot be owned by any man, such as in a monarchy, or by any particular group of men, such as in an oligarchy. Everyone takes a knee equally in relation to a shared set of rules.

Thought

The power to think is why we need political architecture. The world that arises with the mind is a new world of construction. All of this construction is subject to being right or wrong. Construction may be wrong in its reference to any reality, and it may always miss a relevant fact. Construction may always include mistakes.

Do we recognize that with this power of construction comes governance - to try to be right, and not wrong? Another thing that comes with this power is shared structure, which we can think of when we think of our shared laws and government. Our government occurs physically, but our laws occur mentally, and there is much mental structure in our society today.

Errors can occur in internal affairs - in our laws and government. These may be contradictions, such as between law and government action, or between the representatives and the represented, and for society this could constitute a lack of integrity and violations of conscience.

A Picture of The World

I want to make a picture of everything in the world of our architecture. To start, I will make lists for everything that exists for us physically and mentally.

Physical: The People (in body); Feeling; Government; Property

Mental: The People (in mind); Thought; Law; Knowledge

A Picture of Everything

Now I would like to add one more category to make it complete. This completed set will function as a picture of society; body, mind, and soul. On top of all of our physical and mental things, I would like to add our consciousness, or soul, as an innermost, singular, first-person point of awareness in relation to all of the rest.

While it may seem like knowledge and awareness are the same, construction and awareness do not appear to be. While there is knowledge in mind, there may be awareness of it, as well as awareness of feelings, for example, that do not come from the thinking mind on the left side of the brain, but from the right. This conscious awareness is upon both sides.

In society, knowledge may exist that few people possess, where there might ought to be the awareness of many, and sometimes, we may be reminded of our own misplaced or forgotten knowledge. When there is oneself, and not simply a collection of so many mental or physical things, there is a oneness of self. This brings us, as individuals, into the picture.

From this singular, first-person point of awareness, one can see whether the items in the combined conscious spectrum of the mental and physical have integrity, or are within one's good conscience.

One might see the fourth estate, which is thought of as the estate of freedom of speech and the free press, as strongly servicing our conscious awareness. Other sources of information should place here as well. When people work full-time to provide information for quick consumption, I think of these sources as logistical information hubs, in the service of our direct, open access to the information that we would call important. Here is the added category:

Conscious Awareness: The people (first-person); Conscience and Integrity; The fourth estate: sources in service to our conscious awareness

The most direct form for public awareness in our area of concerns is information about government activity. Along with voting, fulfilling public awareness plugs us into the system. In the next section, we'll more clearly see a gap in public awareness appearing, and the need to fill it.

II. Case Examples

The Birth of a Gap

Before civilization, we had what we called pre-civilization, but this also exists in parts of the world today. I have come to think we may have lost some good old things in our modernity. I will compare the two for our purposes.

It appears to me that tribal, pre-civilization living commonly includes saying that everyone is to an extent on the same page. I think greater localization, or to be more local, is helpful in governance affairs, and tribal is more local than modern societies. When local, it is more common to say, "everybody knows". I find local human interactions more intimate, and less distant. More complex environments have such logistics about them, that they call for being broken down into more departments and layers across all things.

The move to civilization includes moving to a greater degree of shared hierarchy and structure. Now, the people can tend to their own families and careers, but watching the shared structure could constitute a full-time job. I would like to use this as a first example of how to create an awareness gap. It would simply be to make conditions such that one would need to add a full-time job to their existing workload in order to remain apprised of the state of their society's shared infrastructure.

We can have people who get full time jobs reporting to us, but since we didn't do the work, we won't really know what they're omitting, or whatever other mistakes they may be making. This is faith in secondary sources, and when we talk about research and epistemology, trust in method will be encouraged, as opposed to trust in persons.

We have to see the evidence directly, or we have to try to fill the logistical gap. The gap exists when each and every one of us does not do all of the work, personally, to research and put together all of the important information.

This logistical gap may be mitigated with method. We do not always watch those who use method, but we do gain faith in them by way of knowing their systems, their track records, and that we may always, at any moment, use the provided and known ways to check. A worthy method may include the moral support of its participants, to the extent that they take it to be sound. All of the measures taken increase the logistical challenges to opposing, corrupted interests.

The American Beginning

British parliament had been levying taxes, found by the American colonists to be unrepresentative, and so in 1774 the colonists created a congress to replace parliament in the American colonies. Then, the parliament and the king were overthrown, and congress became what the colonists wanted most; it became their government legislature. I would ask you to note that when there was a second body, it would appear that the people were successful. At the time, they primarily tasked themselves with removing parliament. My proposal is that we bring about a second body, only this time, to reside permanently in a national voluntary organization, in the fourth estate.

American founders have been noted expressing the importance of freedom of the press, and the need for this to be the first amendment. George Washington said, “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”; Benjamin Franklin, in reference to the press wrote, “When this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved.”; and John Adams wrote, “The liberty of the press is essential to the security of the state."

Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” 

I like to think of the 4th of July as a celebration of the victory of the people. I will correlate Jefferson's "opinion of the people", above, to our "conscious awareness". I also see what may be great architectural insight, when he said that he would rather have newspapers without a government, than a government without newspapers. Conceivably, that makes the newspapers more important than the government. I may have come to the same conclusion. I am holding the awareness of the people as a matter of primary architectural importance.

The American colonists achieved great political victory, but they also lived in a world without any modern telecommunications technology. In their day, any man who could run a business could own and operate a printing press. In distribution, the fastest thing on earth was a horse, so there was no ready way to control the press hundreds of miles away.

The press is in the private sector - it is all privately owned, but in their time, they didn't have the technology for it to be privately monopolized. The struggle for consolidated control over broadcast print and media appears to have come later, and to have more directly accompanied our rise in modern technology. The first example that comes to my mind is that of the press monopoly of William Randolph Hearst, from about the start of the 20th Century.

Benjamin Franklin also described the press as a "resentful, vicious institution comparable to the Spanish Inquisition." I think that this is always possible in this free market, where anyone may wish to manipulate public opinion. So the proposition here will be to put a voluntary bureaucracy into the fourth estate, alongside all of our regular free agents.

I would like to quote Jefferson again, regarding the importance of a free press; “If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was & never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”

When he says, "to command liberty and property", I see the sight of law and property, i.e. of the mental and the physical, and his "safe deposit" for information as "the people themselves", may give us reference altogether to our mental, physical, and conscious selves. He says, "nor can [the safe deposit for liberty and property] be safe with [the people] without information", making the information a matter of core necessity.

The Modern Age

Much has changed when we move from when the US began to the past one hundred years. Since the year 2000, the greatest consolidation of media and press has been upon us, with six parent owners of over 90% of American radio, TV, and print. This came on the heels of our great media deregulation of 1996. Other ownership can be found to participate where there are large corporate shareholders in the same industry, and via the large corporate advertisers.

This brings us to looking at a corporate landscape, where not only is their capture of the fourth estate greatly consolidated, so is their capture of politicians by way of corporate lobbying. It appears to me that we have corporations operating outside of the free press, and outside of the government, yet with owner or owner-like capabilities in each area.

Dollars are not votes, and so I think this questionable practice of corporate lobbying may be addressed by calling out and redressing the first amendment rights that we have given to corporations, which gives them the ability to give millions of dollars, per corporation, per campaign, to election candidates. In the fourth estate, a bureaucratic organization can define itself to monitor and redress government injustices. For the public, this monitoring will produce reports of any duly claimed injustices. The rest of the fourth estate will no doubt continue.

From Community to Autonomy

Moving to the modern world, I see a fundamental shift in man. For this section, which reflects upon developments in modern man, it occurs to me that someone could write a lengthy book on this topic. I hope to touch upon a sufficient number of points.

The modern world brings with it the Flynn Effect, which means that when people have children here, their IQ’s go up. This may be on the surface of an overall improvement, but we should bear in mind that the IQ test scores on a set of left-brain functions. I will include in my proposition that with the very heavy load of mind material in the modern age, that we may be moving more to the left side of the brain, and less to the right, overall. Put another way, to more on the mental side, and less on the physical. I also think that we may be misplacing or forgetting some right-brain things that will benefit us to rediscover.

18th-Century Americans had to handle all of their needs for interaction without any telecommunications technology. They didn't even have a telegraph. In 1791, New York was America's largest city, at a population of 33,000, and after Philadelphia, Boston was its third largest at 18,000. The total US population at that time was 3.9 million, which is 1/10th of the population of California today.

In 1791, 90% of the US population lived on farms, and there were not yet separate classifications for producers and consumers. People more commonly worked directly with the owners of their workplaces, and not as distant employees of large corporations. Early Americans appear to have been more personally involved in all that they participated in. People sometimes got together to build a barn. People more commonly slept in the same rooms, or at country inns, up to five to a bed.

Constitutional writings for American colonists began in the 17th Century, and happened a few times to follow, most famously at the points of the American Confederation in 1776, and the US Constitution in 1787. We have this kind of writing today, in democratically owned and operated credit unions across the country, and in other organizations, but I'm not seeing this type of structure being used in political activism. Today's world is so big, I imagine that if someone knew about the structure of credit unions, then they might win an obscure round of trivial pursuit.

Presently, a number of public responses appear to have been conducted. There is the burgeoning, manifest world of alternative news, and the degree to which there is establishment opposition to it, but we are experiencing a major positive development with this industry. There was a massive blacking out (and defaming) of 2.5 million Occupy Wall Street protestors. There was the Tea Party of 2009, which was almost immediately overrun by establishment-funded opposition. There was the Ron Paul presidential campaign of 2012, which was largely blacked out. I don't mean to make an exhaustive list, but we have had the chance to see attempts and results to date, in our political actions, and I hope we can all see our need to step back and experience a greater reflection.

Today, politics in particular is the easiest way for body and mind to split apart, in part because of how large our society is, in relation to the individual. Political concerns should be much less than they are today; they're full of crime. Our concerns could be greatly simplified, if our logistical needs were being met and our political arenas were not so wasteful and on fire. Our leaders are directing much of our resources and attention to the fulfillment of their agendas. Our whole nation would experience greater clarity and integrity without all of that. Having their politics is a big reason why we don't have our politics.

My proposition, in the use of this democratic and bureaucratic instrument, includes restoring ourselves at community and society levels. I use the word "community" to refer to a population that is, within itself, local. It has a self to its degree of intimacy. To be local works as a way of saying that the whole reflects being more intimately connected with its grassroots human individuals. I think our community activity has waned over the course of our history.

I am using the word "society" to refer to our collective beyond the local, where at both community and society levels, there is politics. By sheer logistical load, society must break itself down, or include many divisions across its mass. This is just one more major contributing factor in support of making all of us little people disappear, in a big world.

If we translated Americans from 1791 to today, I think some of our founders might be in STEM (or "science, technology, engineering, and maths"), and were that so, they might not be up to speed in politics. STEM is such a big development. I've worked in it, and when I did, I felt like it was easier to divorce myself from things outside of my department, such as community and society. Perhaps that way, I could create the future out of my department, and that would be the modern way to change the world.

Have we lost in politics, in exchange for gains in knowledge? In a larger picture, I can see this as modern man missing the forest for the trees, or for society, as potentially collapsing through specialization. I think STEM epitomizes the loss of a previously more politically integrated society, through specialization, and through an exploding logistical load as per our modern complexity.

My understanding is that political architecture is a three-credit class in a political science degree program. The modern world makes me wonder; with all of its STEM departments, who is in this department? I think that by definition our politicians are there. We have people in law, which will mean that they include making a study of the architecture that we are currently using. Computer science sees much architecture, but not necessarily the political kind, and this is where I worked before taking an interest in politics. This project requires at least a core group of people to function as architects, from the start.

The thing that I enjoy saying the most about what I think of the modern age, is that what we have forgotten may be just what we need. Politics may be good. This is to shift a little more to the right side of the brain, with community, society, action, and interaction. I also think that we may need to do these things in order to do well as a species on the scale of modern society, and to be more satisfied as human beings.

The Modern Age: Conclusion

With an added private-sector bureaucracy such as the one proposed herein, we will be interacting locally. We will have our own political process. We will restore ourselves in interaction and participation, at community and society levels. Once we get ourselves together, then we can try to go after the government, and fix that. This approach takes the highest hill to stand upon against any opposition, by way of the method being used. For example, we have watched our mainstream media assassinate the character of a major political party. Is there some faction out there that thinks that it is more immune from such attacks?

In architecture and epistemology, man is the one that needs greater immunity from character attacks. A bureaucracy is of greater character than any man, or group of men, and just like modern governments, method is the victor. This method can also be a very scary thing to oppose. I believe that the failure in our system began with failure in the fourth estate. I also believe that when facing waves of tyranny, the bureaucratic method will take the highest hill to stand upon and defend that anyone will ever be able to run to. It is nonpartisan, and factions will get nothing.

Can we match the guile of 18th-Century Americans, to come together on common cause? While this might seem like an adventure today, I think this has been done before. I know we have created many new non-geographical online communities, and I salute that. I think that we need to organize ourselves in the same way and for the same reasons that we are legally arranged in our geographic jurisdictions, and I feel like I could meet with anyone on common cause. For us, this project will begin with adventuring into our local jurisdictions.

When I look into the history of what serves the public awareness, I find two related examples of advancement to stand out. One is the development of literacy in the aggregate, which I think begins about three hundred years ago. The second is the development of telecommunications and the Internet in particular, contributing to networking and distribution. I think that to make this a public awareness trifecta, architecture may be added in the fourth estate, to add an organizational capability to the reading and networking capabilities that we have already gained, in our quest for the existence of open, direct access to important public information. I imagine that combined with the system we already have, this may give us enough shared infrastructure to operate well as a society.

III. Method

I will use the word "bureaucracy" as follows. Unlike the common usage which says that bureaucracy is run by state officials, I will use it to refer to the structures required by the written rules. We'll say that an element of bureaucracy is an added amount of work performed to back a given statement or statements to the public. This occurs commonly in the structure of formal proceedings and the records which are kept. Philosophically, I would classify bureaucracy as epistemic; it is to back what is being said, or done, and I would say politics is also implicated; this will extend into the physical world.

Scientific and Political Methods

I think that most fundamentally, science yields knowledge, and politics yields action. Other than this, I find the two to have a categorical similarity, as the purpose of the method is to back what is being said.

We can see the appearance of a divergence between the two methods. In politics, we see voting being used to back what is to be said, or done. In science, it is not votes which are being cast. In science, each member of a community that reproduces the same results adds to the building of scientific community consensus. And so the method being used by participants is where the divergence lies; voting may not go as deep as reproducing empirical results, but you can see what science and politics have in common. They're both trying to back what they say and build consensus. I think they are both democratic, and we can bear in mind how much work in science is needed in order to "cast a vote".

In science, consensus is needed to say that something is true. In politics, consensus is needed for law and action. Perhaps now we can see how the free press is so important in politics. It is for the voters to have open, direct access to important information.

First Order of Concerns

Scale

As a present-day problem-solver, my first order of architectural concern falls to the matter of scale. In this case, it looks like we, the people, may be up against corporate America, the government, and the press. Thankfully, I think that we will be enough. There is only one of us, and we are what they need. We are what everyone needs. This is why I say this method is the highest hill; it is because it is universal, and inoffensive to all comers.

This scale means needing to have enough power, for example, to be able to request discourse with the leadership, and get it. Conventional channels of redress appear to be strongly blocked. This is what I think on the matter of scale; I would go with democracy and the greatest checks upon man. This was my reason for resorting to the American system in an NGO, or “non-governmental organization”, as a method. In this case, it is being defined as three branches for bylegal writings, as opposed to the legal kind. For example, in our judicial function, we may review violations of bylaws. The use of this system should resonate well with Americans.

I want at this point to interject, in looking into how the bylegal writing will be proposed to break down. The proposed ongoing bylaws define ongoing jurisdictions, offices, rules, and functions, but there will also be a second main body of writing. As we will see, this will include claims of injustices and statements of actions to redress them, organized into political action campaigns. There is a modified amendment process for these, as we'll see in the definition.

Definition

When gathering democratically, there is the question of what we agree to do. Some might think we should have a spaceship in every driveway. I would like to use method, but by itself, it would simply define an organization that entertains any and all propositions which may be passed democratically. This is entirely too broad, and I think we need to make a promise to ourselves and to the public as to what it is that we do.

Currently, I see a number of different sectors where there appear to be matters of public desire to redress. People should not be denied their own voluntary efforts in redressing the injustices that they find most important. This makes a place for some variation in which particular injustice or sector of injustices to tackle next.

This idea hinges upon an enforced definition of what the organization allows itself to do, and can be implemented in a variety of ways. I think it might be given its due as an executive function, with a veto-like power to stop any legislative proposal on the basis of being outside of the definition, which the legislature would then be able to override with a higher percentage of its support. I think that if this function cannot be overridden, then some might want its functionary to be replaced. This check might also be able to redirect to a separate amendment process on proposals taken to potentially call for breaking the law, which we might say we uphold. Here, I will give you an example of a way to define what we might allow ourselves to propose and vote upon:

• 1) Stated “Claims” of discrepancies between the actions of our government, and what we, the people, call moral, ethical, and just, including the evidence which supports the Claim;

• 2) stated “Campaigns”, or statements of organization and creation [areas and objectives for organized operations,] * for redress deemed necessary to end specified Claims;

• 3) stated “Redress” serving specified Campaigns, to be carried out by member-volunteers, as led by elected Campaign leaders.

Using an open legislature and political process creates an environment where it will be better to resonate in an open democracy than not. In this case, I imagine that the above definition will resonate well with the people in open democracy. I find these to be universal matters of conscience and integrity, and so this definition does not appear to coerce us away from our own better nature.

Once claims have been proposed and passed, a campaign to end all claims in a particular area of concern may be proposed. Campaign leadership may then be elected, for redress, to oversee campaign propositions and actions. In a campaign, additional claims and redresses may be dynamically tacked on, as the campaign goes on.

Individual members may give their support to more than one campaign. This is to keep the organization flexible enough to see through multiple major political actions, while staying open to how individual members would like to direct their time and efforts. Rules may be added to limit the possible number of simultaneous campaigns, by limiting the number of campaigns each member may support at one time, or to end campaigns whose support has dropped below a bottom threshold, which I think if used would be best to be very small. One thing which I think helps us is that when there needs to be more campaigns, then there will likely be more people who wish to join, helping to keep each campaign well-populated.

There is much core structure being reused by keeping a collection of the likes of these campaigns under one roof. One organization simplifies our society in comparison to a dynamic number of organizations over time. In each organization, startup phases would have to be completed, and thousands of people would have to be elected in hundreds of districts and thousands of wards, but why would any such organization not be operating within the above definition? This simplifies every American's shared structure, and consolidates and reuses membership, accumulated public trust, and even property. Campaigns will still have their elected leaders, and I think they should each have their own campaign fundraising, as they like.

I think the percentage required to pass a claim of injustice and initiate this process should be universal, and beyond factions. I would not consider anything below 2/3, and I would consider raising this percentage to all but a fringe remainder. Another part of this consideration is the percentage required before and after an executive block.

The exact writing of the definition, and how to interpret it, is certainly worthy of more time, but for now, I will try to cover the largest parts of this design picture. On that matter, I imagine that writing these bylaws should be accompanied by writing papers which provide the reasoning behind the elements of architecture being used, such as what we've seen in the Federalist Papers.

The American System

One of my most fundamental decisions has been to generally copy and paste the American system into an NGO (or "nongovernmental organization"). This will mean making an organization that has its own bylaws, and its own elected people in three branch capacities, for writing, enforcing, and interpreting its own bylaws and legislation.

There are areas of our American system that I think are too complex or sophisticated for our vertical market needs. Unnecessary bureaucracy may tax volunteers out. We do not need to implement a military, postal service, roads and bridges, schools, prisons, welfare programs, or any other existing government thing. We will be implementing an auditing and redress agency, and I think it's ongoing internal functions will be relatively focused and consistent.

To be fully trustworthy, I do not think that we need a bicameral legislature, but we can still organize by district and state, and I do not think that we need much sophistication in judicially reviewing violations of our bylaws, the likes of which would typically review whether or not to take someone's membership away. I also do not think we need a president, or governors, because we have space for simple ongoing executive functions that may be well and tightly defined by their own names, such as "elections", or "accounting". I don't see any initial need for predefined war or emergency powers. My idea for what I call a mom-and-pop style of executive offices will be given its own section.

On the matter of mom-and-pop operations, I think a ballpark for the number of words in the bylaws could be set at I would guess between 12,000 and 15,000 words. This could avoid an otherwise taxing pedantry, and provide enough writing to be clear to thousands of local office-holders, while leaving the unwritten parts to office-holder discretion.

Polemical Superiority in Three Checks

In order to really kick out the jams on method, I would like to briefly state these three checks, which I think can go a long way in being worthy of public trust. The first is open, voluntary membership, which does not exclude anyone, barring a conflict of interest, such as to be on government pay. The second is to use representative democracy, and have an elected body voting on what we say and do. The third is to require a high percentage of support within that body to pass a claim of a government injustice. With all of the bureaucratic trimmings, there is a great deal of infrastructure in what we've said, to achieve the passage of a claim in a most democratic and trustworthy manner.

What I think this gives the good people is polemical superiority. When there are character attacks, this is a most difficult character to attack. In an open, voluntary organization, a body of elected representatives from across the country must strongly agree in order to proceed. Also, individual redresses are carried out by willing volunteers. If someone attacks, then you can tell them that they can join, and speak their piece as a member.

Recruiting

I would classify persons with awareness of substantial government injustices as good quality stock for recruiting, and my baseline estimate for this is 10% of the adult population. They will be looking at solving political problems, and I think this structure will compete well for their interest among the options currently available to them. I also think that once there is a written set of bylaws, there will be American people who will exercise their ability to carry them out.

I imagine people working in service of the opposition may exist, and I think the numbers for this may be as large as being several orders of magnitude smaller than the good stock. I think that democratically this gives the good guys very good chances. The good guys are also always aided by power distribution; by having many wards and districts. In the early stages, starting bylaws may be fixed throughout a startup period, so that democratic stability by way of a sufficient head count is to be met first, before the power to amend the bylaws may be used.

There will be those who trust their government or who lack political understanding. I do not think such persons will be interested in joining a cause defined to face the government in such a manner.

Second Order of Concerns

Districts

I actually give my highest rank of concern to this second-order item. For me, a district is a localized entity that is capable of being robust and self-governing, which can function as a reliable building block in assembling larger structures. My rule for a district is that it is both local unto itself and sufficient in size. It needs to be large enough to have democratic stability.

When the US began, there were 3.9 million people in 13 states, for an average US state population of 300,000. The population of California today is 39 million, and I do not think it should ever be thought of as local unto itself. Most US states are too big for this. This concern has been given importance in the sections on pre-civilization and the American beginning. Being local means being able to remain well-connected to ourselves - to the grassroots.

In a unicameral structure, the nation can be divided into equal-population districts which are determined to be local and sufficient in size. 435 districts is the smallest number I would care to consider to cover this country. These districts may be contiguous with state boundaries, so that the districts within a given state may form their own state offices and functions. To be in keeping with the original American system, and to do what I believe would be best, the districts would be defined as the equivalent of US states, each with their own autonomy, and each would fall in line with and adhere to the requirements of national bylaws. In the first stage of forming this organization, the national bylaws would exist, the districts would form themselves, and they would then proceed to fill national offices, and to amend and fill state and local offices, as desired.

An added benefit from using equal population districting in a unicameral system is to create national circles of executive and judicial offices, where each circle corresponds to a type of office, and each district may fill an office of that type, which would fall into that circle. The circle of district officeholders can then elect from itself to fill the national office of its type. As a result, in the executive and judicial branches, only people who have been elected in their district may then be elected to national offices. National offices which have small corresponding circles may elect from other similar circles, as guided by the legislature, and sometimes the legislature can be a circle that is being elected from, such as to elect campaign leadership. This helps us to say of this design that it all ultimately comes from the districts.

Each district would implement all three branches of elected persons within itself, and would be taken as a fully stable and reliable self-governing entity. In order to have a legislature, a district will need to have a set of wards, with one elected representative from each. I think at the district level, elected people should be the ones who speak on the district floor, and ward representatives should be effectively caucusing ward members. I think it would also be good for general members if they could have some way to speak, by being able to speak on the floor at the ward level, so long as the ward isn't too big.

Districts include the protection of how many there are. If there are 500 districts, then 497 good ones should provide great stability in the face of 3 that remain challenged.

Jurisdictions/Domains

US jurisdiction types include national, state, county, and city, and there are districting grids for national, state, and local. This proposition uses national districts as a collection of fully-formed jurisdictions, with all of the overhead. Each district implements offices and functions in each of three branches. I think it is like adding a set of jurisdictions, which could mean adding more bureaucracy, which brings us to how to compensate for the heavy district implementations.

The national grid of districts, with each being said to be a fully stable and reliable structural unit, can provide its services at any city, county, and state levels, in the executive and judicial branches. For domains smaller than a national district, when they need, they can use parent district resources. For domains larger than a district, they can cycle through the use of districts within themselves. Their reuse of district resources means not having to install the same offices at city, county, and state levels. Once again, this seems to make this place very much "made of districts".

At city, county, and state levels, there may be places for electing people in campaigns, which I think of as part of a greater legislative branch. For example, a city of 100,000 people could be in district A, and the members there may wish to have an office that leads work and interaction in that city. District A could amend representative office(s) corresponding to that city. A city representative could speak on behalf of city-wide concerns, and lead in-city members on city-wide organization and function. The district wards are the national equal-population grid, and I do not think other legislative office types should be voting in the national districts, because they are not in the national equal-population grid. Conversely, a large state could have its own legislature, with its own voting on state-level operations.

Briefly, the districts in a state will have to get together to amend their state, and whatever offices or functions that it includes. The same degree of autonomy given to districts may be given at the state level. This creates three levels; district, state, and national, which are to either be on page with one another, or to conduct some disagreement. By default, some national bylaws may be expected to supersede the bylaws of states and districts, and some state bylaws may be expected to supersede the bylaws of districts within them. In a larger sense, I don't think any member wants to see a break-up between district, state, or national, either in front of the public, or where members can't be a part of what is going on at the levels they like.

Executive Functions

I would define offices for regular Americans to fill, because with hundreds of districts and thousands of wards, there are going to be many thousands of elected people across the country. Each one of these jobs needs to be clear enough in its definition and to fit in with regular life, for these are unpaid volunteers. There is also the matter of checking power by breaking it down into separate offices. After watching the history of the size and power of the American executive, I view the total executive function as something that can altogether expand, and possibly contract, and I like the idea of defining offices that do not expand or contract, rather; that the branch may expand or contract in its number of separately elected offices, where the size of each office remains the same.

The first thing I did was to use what could be called an object-oriented approach to defining these areas. I made a list of all of the information that needs to be kept, along with any other regular functions or property, and I tried to make them clearly defined and mutually exclusive. Here is a list of what I came up with:

Domains/Jurisdictions, Members, Election Events and Voting Records, Bylaws/Amendments, Accounting, Money, Language, Information Systems & Technology, Records (backup), Property, and Security. (others omitted for now)

I imagine for some readers these areas may seem small, when compared to governorships and presidencies. Due to how many areas there are in this list, it could mean having more elected people than members may well know. For feasibility and practicality, I do like to keep an eye on how many different offices anyone is going to be asked to follow and vote upon, and I do not want that number to get too high. I even think that if there are enough separate executive offices, then some could be elected by members, and some by the legislature, to stay practical with what awareness is being assigned to the general membership. The List of Domains above would be a good example of an area to assign to the legislature, such as via a standing committee, due to the power involved in adding and removing accepted domains, such as within one's own list of recognized parent or child domains.

I would start everything with one set of ratified national bylaws, and then the districts would implement what the national bylaws say they must. Perhaps it would give more flexibility to the system to define a list of areas of executive function, each of which is clearly separate and defined, but which at the district level may be combined into fewer offices. This would provide an area-to-office mapping capability, which could juggle national needs and district wants. For example, to allow a district to amend one executive office for Money and Property, or another for both Members and Security. National rules could exist which disallow certain combinations, such as Accounting and Money. Also, some areas could be defined as required, and others as optional. Even before the use of any money, for the public trust I think Amendments, Members, and Elections could be nationally defined as mandatory.

I imagined special places for a few areas of function. Amendments would include the enforcement of the definition of allowable amendments. There is a special set of three areas, which includes bylaw enforcement, counseling, and judging. I think enforcement would be the one with the list of members, and the judicial in another branch. Counseling is a Language function I would place in the executive, for lawyers. I think a district could have no-contest elections of legal professionals, where if they get perhaps 7/12 of a non-opposed vote, then they are simply added to the list of counselors in the district. There could also be national and state counselor circles. My special idea for counselors would be to rotate through board seats. I've considered boards in two areas; one for the judicial function, and the other for the executive function of enforcing this organization's definition.

Not knowing in advance what it is, a domain could amend any new project and project offices to itself. Individual residential or commercial properties could be offered, at scheduled times, for meetings and events, and their facilities and landlords or administrators could be amended to be formally listed. Property may be acquired by a district, state, or national domain, which I imagine could be managed by an elected person.

To me, elected executives are dedicated volunteers, and I think that when it comes to bylaw amendments, they should be able to partake in the vote. Ongoing bylaws remind me of ongoing executive offices, and pertain strongly to those who are holding down the fort. Campaigns, on the other hand, are temporary, activist operations, and so I think they are of more of a legislative nature; campaign leadership writes and leads on redress, so long as the campaign still exists.

Meanwhile, I would imagine the legislature would be voting on both bylaw and campaign-type amendments. If there is to be a national amendment, then 3/4 of the districts will need 2/3 support each. I think if there are claims, campaigns, or redresses being proposed, then they can be amended by the legislature, and that will serve the public trust. The other type of voting being conducted on campaigns are members personally listing the campaigns they support, which shows how much support each one is currently getting.

Startup

I am just one author; one person, and to start such an organization as this, as an individual I am the least capable of fulfilling public trust needs. I think starting up an organization like this will first require the step of creating its founding bylaws, by way of a ratifying body capable of earning some degree of trust. I think this can happen in at least two ways. For one, there may be a reputable, self-forming group of individuals, capable of securing enough public trust to reasonably bring this project to its implementation. It occurs to me that another approach to a ratifying body could be to assemble a trusted network, for those applicants who can show proof of speaking out about government injustices. Within that network, there could be a period of interaction, and then the whole network could elect its own ratifying body from itself, and they could produce the national document.

With national bylaws in hand, the ratifying body may then provide assistance to each of the districts, such as to secure trusted contacts in each, for district startups. Each district would then form itself. Startup requirements should be in place, in both headcount and duration, until a predefined startup phase may be completed. People will need some period of time to pass, where they can interact a bit first, before electing each other to fill offices. You might also want to imagine what appears to be perfectly possible to me, which would be simple and fair elections, which I would also find to play a very important role in such an implementation as this. I would predefine all elections as series of defined events, followed by voting. As such, no other money or campaigning would be involved.

In the beginning, there may only be leaders. Let us look at what a leader must be. A leader will be first, and so they will have no moral support at that point, and because of the revolutionary nature of what they will be doing, they may anticipate moral opposition. To me, a leader is someone who, when faced with all of this, goes forward anyways. As the amount of support rises, more people will join at the point in which they see themselves being able to.

Conclusion

The Dodd-Frank laws designed to help regulate us away from our banking fiasco, first publicized in 2008, have not yet been implemented. Do you want them to be? Would you like to end corporate lobbying, and a host of other large-scale abuses? This is the type of approach that the people need to tackle these problems. This is intended to bring the people to the table with all of the strength that they can muster, all the way to the point of their best effort.

Another way I like to put this is to say that the cat is out of the bag. The first time that this structure was rolled out, it was the structure of our government, and perhaps that looked like the only place to use it. Now this type of structure is proposed to be applied again. The cat that got out of the bag, as I see it, is to hear of the idea of reusing democratic architecture outside of the government, to conspire in a greater governance of man. I believe that once reuse of this type of structure comes about, man may come to experience sufficient infrastructure. Once this happens, I believe we will be positioned to enter a new age of man, with societal integrity.

I would like to have the politics of the people back. I would like to have greater political simplicity, integrity, and peace of mind. I might like to participate in my politics and society, or at least know that common people around me do. I would like us common folk to be back in touch and on team. I hope to see us to experiencing the future that I think we have the ability to bring about.