Impending Death Splurge - Gaming Out the Constitution

So I've said before that we need constitutional societies to teach this as a wide spread cultural practice; we should have lectures on new constitutions and whole univerisity departments but they should also be as common as historical reenactments. The province of reform and better government are something that belong to all of us and you can't have a grass roots democracy if there isnt civic training and civic participation. But classes are not a proper measure of how to do this. One of the most educational experiences I ever had was a program in high school called Youth in Government where we went to the Colorado State Legislature to actually make mock bills and have a shadow governor, shadow senators, shadow press agents and shadow representatives. Government is a practical active skill and all members of a democracy should understand actively how it works. When you know what a legislative committee is or what your legislators are doing it makes it less arcane which increases transparency and accountability. You know, for example, how terrible Republicans are in doing any kind of governance whatsoever, and how inept democrats are at treating fascism like the threat that it is.

One of the most interesting LARPs I've ever taken part in is the NSDM or National Security Decision Making Game, where two cells are typically made with roles and political positions representing the interests and structures of two competing governments and a baroque but functional system to resolve mirrors of the real world for things like the US vs North Korea or Iran vs Saudia Arabia etc. The games dont mimic the real world exactly, nor would they pretend that, but they are great ways to highlight one system vs another and how they actually work when the sausage of decision making actually takes place. My perfect example of how to do an exercize that could happen in every school in America would be a three day session, where you spend the first day teaching people the basics of what a constitution is, what governments around the world have done and what will be happening the other two days. The second day would be a larp and also a constitutional design session where you actually make a functional government (or disfunctional government) and the third would be a larp showing the government that people just made actually working in a crisis. This serves many purposes; including demystifying the process of making one, and also ensuring that people see the consequences for design decisions; like how baroque the Electoral College is and how it is a miracle that it took until 2020 before it was a serious threat to our democracy.

I really intend to run this eventually; though stability has thus far not allowed. In another blog I'm doing a bucket list and will be adding this to a bucket list. I think that the value of this exercize is you can explore about a lot of different systems of government and see what works, and once you do you can also see how easy it is to find something that works a hell of a lot better than the current crap 1789 constitution. I've said it before and I'll say it again; the 1789 constitution at the TIME IT WAS MADE, was brilliant and well ahead of its time; visionary even. But we've had close to 250 years to learn lessons from it and we've learned a lot, many of which I am applying as able to this political blog, but the short version of it is, the current systme is clearly not working by any defintion of the word and needs to be reformed. The problem is, we've ossified as a culture and trust our 'political leaders' to have our interests or that some other magical leader will come along and initiate this process.

Balderdash.

I've made a poem about it, but I'll retell the story here. Once I sat in a movie theater with my wife and the projector stopped working. It was a crowded tehater, andw e all sat there waiting for someone to fix it. Five minutes went by, and I looked around, and it was apparent that everyone else was thinking the same thing. I stood and went and got the people to fix the damn thing. I have always known and understood that there is no "Someone Else." I dont agree with the politics of the documentary "Waiting for Superman" but I do like the point of the title and the point the documetary that people knew education wasnt working but that they were all sitting around waiting for some magical messiah to fix things. To fix our political process we all need to roll up our sleeves and come up with a strategy and then take over the democratic party (since the Republican party is broken and pointless beyond repair) and initiate a constitutional fix.

It sounds like pie in the sky, but what's the alternative? It's not like the Democrats are actually going to fix things on their own. Why should they? They have a good thing going where they force progressives to vote for them by threatening them with the nazi republicans, and thanks to Duviger's Law and a lack of Ranked Choice Voting make third parties effectively non existant and useless in the United States. Even if the Republican Party implodes; what's waiting in the wings? The Lying Liberatians or the Russian Anti Vaxer Greens? Its the Democrats or nothing, and we need a whole hell of a lot more at this point to fix things than just a couple of laws. The Democrats always promise to make us live in Shangrila if they get the Holy Trifecta, but those are at best incremental reforms and dont address the fact that the 1789 Constitution allowed one of the two parties to become full on insurrectionist Nazis and has totally failed to address climate change. Look, I'm not saying the democrats havent done good things; Biden's Infrastructure Reduction Act and the Election Security Act were good things, but neither of them nor a damn thing that Biden has done or that Harris promises to do if she gets the Magical Holy Trifecta (blue no matta who!!!) will fix the underlying problem of Nazis.

Impending Death Splurge - Fungible Courts

The court system for the United States was very advanced for its time; 3 layers of appeals and all the lessons learned of the English legal system. However, conservative justices have shown that tyrants in a robe are still tyrants just the same. Going by the Anarchic principal that Hierarchy is corruption, the trick is to make appeals process as flat as possible and ensure that the jury is made of qualified experts and peers. We can have 12 judges, randomly selected from the population, with a single person jury who takes the votes of the judges, breaks ties and also is able to rule evidence that doesnt qualify as inadmissable. This ensures that 'qualified' judges dont get to corrupt the legal process; and precedent while non binding can be considered by the legal clerk or other experts in the law. The courts should be owned by the population and entirely incorruptible.

Impending Death Splurge - Seven Prime Ministers

A cabinet will have many ministeries or if American they will likely still be called Departments with Secretaries...but seven positions should be coequal and share the provisions that the current President as Head of Government has the following:

Head Legislator - This position directs the parties legislative efforts to push an agenda of the governing coalition. They are effectively also the head of the Party that runs the coalition.

Head Commander - This position is specically the civilian commander and chief of the armed forces. This person has no other duty but to command the military as dictated by the dictates of the parliament and if time permits the populace at large. His duty is to call and have votes to ratify a declaration of war and justify why it is needful. It should be ratified by the population or it doesnt happen. In war, he commands the army and war strategy.

Head Justice - This position represents oversight of the prosecutoral agents in each executive department or agency. He directs strategy and also directs the prosecution of all laws enacted by the Parliament. He can investigate anyone. Effective Head of all Law Enforcement agencies such as the FBI or DHS.

Head Treatier - This is not a seller of treats but a souped up secretary of state who is in charge of ensuring ratification of all treaties or international participation in multi national government organizations including Military / Mutual Defense treaties. He can veto any action by the Head Justice or Head Commander that violates an agreed upon international treaty. He is also able to investigate the Head Justice for criminal violations so that no one is in charge of investigating themselves.

Head Secretary - Runs all other departments or agencies not covered by Justice, State or Defense. May veto any action covering a law or regulation effecting their agencies. In charge of earned benefits and laws and regulations governing State Charters created by the National Chorus

Head Ombusman - Always has standing in any court. In charge of defending laws not enforced by anyone else. If the law isnt enforced by him for a period of time then it becomes null and void. In charge of receiving direct citizen positions and representing them in court so that the individual has a representative at the highest level of governments. The Elites deserve nothing.

Head Dodger - Able to veto over all other positioned. Named after the Artful Dodger and is in charge of admistration of courts and agencies that enforce the will of the courts. Prosecutes or decides all Contempt enforcement whether of court or the Parliament or the Chorus or the National Assembly/population. Is the effective voice of the National Assembly/Population at large and in charge of ensuring that the popular will is maintained and that election integrity ensures cooperation with the government. Also always has standing in any court.

All Vetos can be overridden by Parliament AND/OR by the National Assembly / Population.

Impending Death Splurge - Flat Parliaments

So if we are flattening and democratizing government to keep capitalists and conservatives from destroying it, we need to make the voter the ultimate arbiter of everything and allow every judicial decision, bill, policy or appointment to be appealed to the people writ large, but we should also make people only need to get involved if they want. Parliaments mix party interests in the legislative and executive function, and I think having a cabinet of agencies with a devolved prime minister spread wide and flat allows parties to form deals which is what parliaments do best.

But the party law makers as legislatures should only draft legislation which must be ratified annually by the populace whi can vote simply by colored party line or get into the weeds and ratify or not ratify by individual bill; as well as have an option demanding a follow up election where that bill can be separated by sections and voted for or against. If the populace is educated and involved this endures a good society indeed but if its just parties them the parties know they can jam crap down peoples throats like the UK parliament and nasty tories; since they can be recalled at any time and ALL legislation but be ratified by the majority of the population.

Corruption is still possible, but corruption is alway possible but unless the population has some reason to get something out of the law, they will never approve it and since laws must be reratified every year that means it wont last if people dont want it.

Impending Death Splurge - A National Transition Plan

Let's all remember that the 1789 Constitution was illegal. The Articles of Confederation were so broken and so useless that the leaders of the country, including many of the Founding Fathers, set up a constitutional convention with the idea of fixing the Articles and instead they met in secret to propose an entirely new government. There was no Article V in the Articles of Confederation. The people just DID it and then it was ratified by the states.

The legitimacy of the state and the power to govern derives itself from the governed; even when not a democracy. Even when it pretends to be otherwise like a Monarhy or a Theocracy it still gets its power from the people who govern it. Under the 1789 constitution, you can't abolish the states, but if you make a constitution from scratch, ratified by the people at large. If the majority ratifies it, then its just as legitimate if not more so, then the old one.

Meaning, if the government doesnt stop a new constitution being made, or people voting on it, then you can get a new one. Of course, the old government typically has a say in that with this thing called the United States Military. But the Terrorist Red States can be circumvented from a tyranical 3/5th or 2/3rd majority impossible in their fly over minority rule, without abandoning the blue cities trapped in their Terrorist jurisdictions by focusing on the Democratic Party (or technically any other party but since we want to actually win and not be terrorists or nazis thats the one I'm writing about.). Run a candidate with the platform of holding a vote for a new constitution and all they have to do is prevent the military or DHS or FBI from rounding up the people voting on it.

Congress will babble of course but if a new congress is assembled and disolves the old and the President legitimizes it, then that automatically empowers the new governement. And there is almost nothing worth keeping about the current highly broken system.

Impending Death Splurg - Larping the Church of Crime

A larp stands for live action roleplay. The church of Crime is an invention of DC Comics with Organized Crime who worship crime and the God of Evil Darkseid. I always found the concept clownish but its no more ridiculous than the Republican Party which has such fools and evil idiots that any cartoon villain looks well balanced and well reasoned compared to it.

So the way you test your government is larp it out; pass bills, make decisions, pass laws but make sure that at least a third of the members belong to the Church of Crime. That way centrists and lecturing liberals wont squirm at making fun of their tools and pals the Republicans or the Conservstives

A government strong enough to survive two or three daya governing with the church of crime in it is far better than some shangrila utopia that hasnt been tested. A government that is going to help people has to be built from the ground up to keep conservatives out of power and to minimize that power one they or their party... i mean church of crime... are publicly declared as such.

I intend to eventually organize larps in just such a way.

Impending Death Surge - Red Team vs Blue Team

In the Military, exercizes are often done with one team pretending to be the enemy and one the home team. This doesnt predict what the enemy will due but it can predict what they may do and properly done, even what they are likely to do. Any new constitution must have itself tested against the forces that might destroy it.

So if I can unilaterally condemn capitalism as a failure for Climate Change and Fascism in the Free World alone....then next on deck as a total failure is Conservatism. I'm not going to get in other people's weeds of how they define it. I've known its been a problem for 15 years and have been seeking a legal definition of how to forbid it in a way that doesnt flat out outlaw Freedom of Association and I've come up with this one.

Outlaw any organization that does 2 of the 3:

1) Is Nostalgic about the past

2) Demonizes the Other

3) Lies like they breathe

I've found examples of this behavior in every human society since the dawn of time fictional or otherwise. Sometimes they are reactionary or 'movement conservative' or even communist but they ACT like Cnservatives. The Khmer Rouge were communists but they did all three of those things. A party that demonizes the other is going to go fascist if they arent put in check. A party that lies like they breathe is VERY likely to be conservative because conservatism favors lying. And lyrics to "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" aside, Conservatism always talks about 'the traditions of our fathers' and how the evil immigrants are stealing their jobs etc etc. Simply outlawing a flavor of this is going to have the same effect that Germany did outlawing Nazi, only to have supermarket generic fascism in the AfD.

Far Right parties if you describe Far Right as Anti Immigrant are THE most prime targets to get violent, to accept and encourage lies, to tactically be willing to do anything and everything to win elections including lie cheat and steal. We dont have to guess about this; the Axis of Fascism has allied all over the world; Bannon attends meetings with Putin and Slovakia and Hungary are clearly aligned with Putin. China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran are all allied to fuck with the US; even though they fuck with each other. But Saudi Arabia has its thumbs and fingers in nearly every pie undermining democracy up to and including particularly the Trump Family and Jared Kushner.

Lies do not work in a Market Place of Ideas. And its not like Conservatism ever helps anyone except the Rich. Everything they say they believe in is a lie; everything.

Tomorrow I will speak more on how we can conservative proof democracies.