Before I begin my treatment of issues concerning government, I would like to explain a few things about myself.
First, I am a retired, outlaw biker. I spend the majority of my adult life as a criminal, and outlaw, rejecting and denying the legitimacy of current systems of government. Please do not doubt that I continue to do so.
Second, early in my adult life, when I began my life as outlaw, I was given a “road name”, by the other people I was involved with. This happened in the mid 1980’s, before Trump was even a thing, and my name has nothing whatsoever to do with Trump, or the system that elevated him to a position of power within that system.
No, my name was based on my motorcycle, I built and rode, a 1942, 45 cubic inch flathead, Harley Davidson chopper.
That is the basis of my name, 45. (pronounced “Four Five”, not fortyfive.)
Which is how I ended up naming my website, in 1994, www.45ink.com
I would like to repeat, I reject utterly, the current system, and it’s bastions of authority. Trump, the congress and the courts, and all their minions and supporters. (I include Obama now, as well as Biden)
With that out of the way, I would like you to realize also, that I began considering my rejection of current systems on May 4th 1970.
Kent State University, 4 students killed, murdered. I was alive, I watched it on TV, I read about it. I was 14 years old.
Next, consider, that I survived in a lifestyle of brutal criminal violence. Outlaw bikers were, and are some of the most conservative and dangerously volatile people on this planet. I am not a large or strong person, kinda scrawny, actually. I survived, by being smart, and mean.
Oh, and I taught myself to program computers. I wrote an entire database program for Hewlett-Packard, from scratch, in one weekend. They LOVED it. It WORKED.
I understand PROCESS!
Thanks for your patience.
4 US
4US is not a state of geography.
4US is a state of mind.
Sky blue, blood red, wisdom gray.
Circle of wise people on a field of blue.
Stripes of grey, making decisions within stripes of conflict.
A celebration of cooperative decision process.
This links to an incomplete rather formal specification of 4 branch decision process, used as a form of government:
https://45ink.com/wp/first-branch-authority/
let’s get on with it.
Government is a PROCESS for making decisions.
The word, represent, does NOT mean misrepresent.
As I am writing, when I use the word, represent, I mean it. Do not confuse what I mean, with the lie of misrepresentation.
If, someone is making a decision, that you disagree with, that person is NOT representing you.
Regardless of how they attained a title or position, that person is misrepresenting you.
To be clear, I repeat, You cannot be represented by someone making decisions that you disagree with.
(And remember this: A republic, will produce EXACTLY the same result as a direct democracy.
If it does not, then there was NOT representation, and if there was no representation, it AIN’T no damn REPUBLIC!!)
That is why what I am proposing is IN FACT, a constitutional direct democracy AND a constitutional representative democracy AND a constitutional republic.
It is ALL three because I refused to allow the process to misrepresent any citizen.
( You agree, BECAUSE you demand to be represented properly within the process. EQUAL right of representation for every citizen.)However, when one is faced with 10 angry people voting to hang you because they don’t like your opinion, one is likely to wish for some PROCESS that prevents a mob from voting against your life.Tyranny of majority.
There are several methods of process that can be used to protect us from such mob behavior, and NONE of those methods involve “representatives”, or the specification for a “republic”.The first method of process to consider, is a legally precedent decision, by a majority, of what freedoms and rights will be protected, and the manner in which the protection will be enforced.A majority of citizens agree, that some matters are simply none of your damn business. These rights and freedoms will be protected against infringement by legislative act, and the prying eyes of nosy neighbors.The second method involves the requirement of “majority” of citizens.
Consider that in a community of say, 10,000 citizens, 10 people voting to hang you, is NOT a majority. Not even a simple majority. A simple majority would require 5,001 citizens, not 10.
Consider that carefully. In a proper democracy, we should NEVER enact any law based on a majority of those who voted. We should ALWAYS require a majority of citizens ELIGIBLE to vote. If 10,000 people are eligible, and 10 people voted yes, and 4 voted no, it makes no difference, within the democratic decision process that more people voted yes than no.
What DOES matter is that 9,990 people DID NOT VOTE YES!
Remember that. It’s important. That establishes a factual requirement of majority consent.
There is another method of process that can be used as well, and that is the concept of ‘majority threshold’.
Please pay attention here.
Many people consider a simple majority sufficient for making decisions that they wish to have implemented.
However, those who do NOT want to have a decision implemented, often insist that somewhat more than a simple majority should be required.
(are you gonna get the noose? wanna insist on a 2/3 majority decision? How about a 95% majority? yeah?)
If 5,001 people vote to enact a law, and 4,999 vote against it, then shouldn’t we be considering it much more important that very nearly half the people don’t WANT that law, do not consent? Yes, of course.
If the law is so divisive, then it would be civilly PRUDENT, and socially RESPONSIBLE to reconsider the matter and attempt a resolution, that has much more support. I am rather fond of 2/3 majority threshold, myself.
Yet, the majority threshold is not my decision, it should be OURS, all of us, involved in deciding what that majority threshold should be, true democracy in action here.
Therefor, it is possible to include on each ballot, as well as the decision of the voter, on the issue, also, a decision by each individual voter on what the majority threshold should be required for enactment of the decision.
That is my thinking on “tyranny of Majority”, and how a correct process, can be used to protect ourselves from that.
To recap:
a legally precedent process, by majority decisions, creating articles of protection of rights and freedoms,
a process requirement that a ‘majority’ approval, must be counted against the entire count of citizens, never against the count of those voting,
a process method that encourages the citizen to consider and participate in deciding what a majority threshold will be required for enactment.
Government is a decision process.
Let’s look at some common process we see working daily.
For instance, a group of parents after a school event, with some general agreement that some benefit to the students should be implemented.
A few parents shouting, then someone says, “hey, let’s form a committee, and see what they come up with, and then we’ll vote on it.”
General agreement with that, a few days later, a committee is elected, and a few days after that the committee comes back with 3 different plans that all look reasonable, but are so different, they could not combine them into ONE idea.
One of the parents, a cop, says, whoah. “THIS part is actually illegal. We cannot vote to do this part.”
The parents agree, and send that part back to committee.
The cop, helps explain why it is illegal, and offers to help them write it so that it’s NOT illegal.
Now, the parents a couple weeks later, have three different ‘ideas’ to vote on.
Yet, a banker steps up, and says, hey wait a minute, “This part does not make sense, the plan is to buy a set of furniture for raffle, but the presumption is that we can buy furniture for less than $25, and we cannot. Someone messed up the accounting here.”
So, back to committee, and finally 3 plans, and everyone agrees that each might work, none are illegal, and all the accounting is correct.
The parents vote, and one of the plans is a clear winner.
Boom, a decision is made.
*******
I want you to recognize that there was a considerable amount of ad-hoc, unspecified PROCESS that happened. It was NOT just a matter of people deciding to vote directly on something.
There was an entire process leading up to getting something to vote on.
THAT is what we need. That process.
However, we must be careful, that the process is not a PRECEDENT process.
We never want to see the sub process taking over the decision process.
That is why we cannot allow the committee, council, congress ANY authority to ENACT DECISIONS!!!!
Yet, we do need those subordinate processes to function correctly.
That is why we should employ an executive, or administrative branch.
To sort problems and to review resolutions for plausibility and accounting.
The authority to sort and review, however should never be absolute, there should be some precedent process, by which a public can veto, over ride and nullify any decision made by the administrative arm.
In fact there should be also, some precedent process, by which the public can force the admin to do exactly as decided by the public.
Hmm, we HAVE such a process already. It’s the process used to create and maintain articles of protection of rights and freedoms.
We use THAT, if we have to.
That committee? A council, or congress? Same thing, we employ them to consider the problems we WANT considered. Not just anything they want to work on, but what WE want worked on. The admin does that. The executive, admin, president, whatever you call it.
That is what tasks the council, with a problem.
Once the congress has a tasking, they start working on ways to solve it.
They submit their ideas to a judicial court, cops, judicial security, OUR enforcers, which reviews the plan for legality.
Remember those articles of protection? THOSE are what the court enforces.
If any bill from the council, infringes on those protections, the bill is simply rejected, immediately, poof.
This is kind of convoluted, but pay attention. The public can NEVER have any method or process to over rule the court. The court is there to PROTECT our rights and freedoms, as agreed to previously by the majority of the public.
We do have RECOURSE however. We own and control, that precedent process to create and maintain those protections. THAT means, that we can amend, or repeal any of those protections, by a majority vote.
Note that if we decide to allow ourselves to enact a law that prohibits ‘hate speech’, then we just agreed that we have no free speech.
(we can fix that later though, if we have to.)
In any case, next we need an executive review. We need to look at the bill/plan/idea, to make certain that it actually addresses the problem it was written to work on. It also needs a review to be sure we figured the cost accounting correctly.
Boom, once the bill has passed the reviews, it needs to be voted on.
There it is.
4 branches. A decision process.
The first branch, is the entire public, direct democracy. Options to create and maintain protections of rights and freedoms, and to enforce and implement initiative and referendum, if needed.
The second and subordinate branch: Executive/administrative/rotten tomato sorter.
The third subordinate branch: Council/congress/committee
The fourth subordinate branch: Judicial/cops/enforcers
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We could hire advisors to seats in Congress and elect management of agencies. This process of hiring people as advisors and managers would use simple majority of votes cast.
If a candidate receives fifty one votes out of a hundred that person is hired.
Note this is not how the First Branch decides whether a law is enacted amended or repealed. Recall that the public branch, the first branch makes decisions of law and policy by majority of citizens. In a town of 374 citizens deciding animal control law, 147 ballots collected could not be sufficient to enact that law even if more ballots were yes. (103 yes/44 no) The minimum majority would be 185 yes votes. 50% + 1
Recall as well, that citizens use a ballot that provides the public decision authority of the majority threshold. If a significant minority chooses a higher majority threshold then the majority must be larger. If the threshold calculates to 67% then enactment would require 251 yes ballots. This provides minority defense from “the mob”. It is constrained democracy.
The ballots for hiring are simple majority of votes cast with no option for choosing majority threshold, citizens are not enacting law, the decision is employee hiring.
In that town of 374, an advisor could be hired with 147 ballots with a simple majority of votes cast. (75/72)
A dog catcher could be hired with 3 ballots. (2/1)
Removal of an advisor or management by :force: would require simple majority of citizens, again not of votes cast. 147 remove/37 keep ballots would not remove the dog catcher. That would require at least 185 remove votes. Even if the vote to hire was 2 votes and one no vote.
At the federal level, the election of executive branch, legislative branch and judicial branch is decided as employee hiring and removal.
The decision to enact law requires majority of citizens, that majority determined by the votes cast.
That threshold is calculated as votes are counted, calculation begins if simple majority is reached. The citizens that vote quickly have the best influence on that calculation.
The decision to enact or not is decided when the majority threshold is reached, or the bill expires without reaching threshold.
A federal bill will generally expire after 365 days from the date it was passed to the first branch for decision. The expiration may be specified by the bill author.
Generally in local decisions, that expiration might be 30 days, or more or less.
I hope this helps people to comprehend the four branch decision process used as a form of government by the public, the First Branch.
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Representatives.
Recall earlier, I said, “The word, represent, does NOT mean misrepresent.
As I am writing, when I use the word, represent, I mean it. Do not confuse what I mean, with the lie of misrepresentation.
If, someone is making a decision, that you disagree with, that person is NOT representing you.
Regardless of how they attained a title or position, that person is misrepresenting you.
To be clear, I repeat, You cannot be represented by someone making decisions that you disagree with.
This is the basis for our agreement that we need a direct democracy.
That is important. Remember that. We AGREE, that we need a direct democracy.”
*******
With 300 million citizens, or more or less, some people will wish to use a representative.
Many people cannot even begin to consider the use of representatives, because they immediately confuse representation with misrepresentation.
Within the public branch, each citizen has a ballot, which they can use to represent their decision on a matter, and invoke that decision on the democratic process.
I want you to think about that. You vote “directly”, but you actually use a “representative” to do that, your ballot.
If you wanted to vote by mail, you would use the postal service, as another layer of representation. You fill out your ballot, then give it to someone else to “re-present” your ballot to the counting process.
If you wanted to vote on your phone, by text message, you would fill out your electronic ballot, then trust the cell phone network, to re-present your ballot for you to the counting process.
If you wanted to skip going to the voting office yourself, to drop off your paper ballot, you could give your ballot to your brother, and trust him to re-present your ballot to the counting process.
None of those “representative” methods changed your decision, nor prevented your ballot from being counted properly.
Understand that. Your decision, and your invocation of that decision on the democratic process was not changed, altered, prevented, stopped, denied or hindered in the slightest.
THAT is representation! NOT misrepresentation.
That is how representatives are used in 4 branch, as representatives, not misrepresentatives.
The most important function of a representative in 4 branch is to keep YOU informed about the issues being considered. They will inform you about problems being submitted to the executive branch, and how that part of the process, is handling those issues.
Your representative will inform you about what bills the congress is working on. What rulings the judicial branch is making.
What bills are coming up for YOUR vote.
You can do that yourself, of course, you do not need to use a representative to do that for you, however most people have lives that does not revolve solely around “government”. Those people should have some method of being informed about the decisions being asked of them.
In 4 branch, representatives are not elected. They are not in congress. They serve within the public branch, and they are chosen by citizens, similar to the choice above, where your brother took your ballot to the voting office for you.
Consider what I just said. A citizen can simply choose a representative.
That choice can be changed at any time, you could choose a new representative every day if you wanted to. Several times in one day, if you wanted to.
Nor is there any requirement for you to choose any representative at all.
Each citizen always has the option, to vote directly, by paper ballot, at a voting office. By mail, by text, by blockchain, by smoke signal, by telegraph, you can even try to vote by telepathy if you subscribe to such.
REPRESENTATIVE.
The representative process:
An extended comment on “representatives”:
Representatives have NO authority or power, except that which is conveyed to them by individuals that choose to employ them.
A representative, will monitor the process and actions of the executive, legislative and judicial branches and inform their constituents of those actions, with as little opinion as possible. Facts. ONLY facts.
When a bill is passed to the public all representatives shall within a reasonable time, (hours,, not days), publish into a permanent record how each citizen choosing to employ that representative, will vote.
Each bill will be assigned a reasonable time of consideration by the public. (Generally, if the bill does not have a majority vote within a year, the bill will be retired. If this confuses you, go back and follow the process to this point, ask me if this still confuses you.)
At the end of that period of consideration, all ballots will have been collected and counted and the majority threshold calculated.
(What this means, is that you don’t have to spend your entire life working on “government”. You vote on the matters which you are concerned with and ignore those you do not care about.)
DURING that period of consideration, each citizen that employs a representative, may make decisions regarding the submission of their ballot.
IF they agree with the published vote of their representative, then that representative keeps that ballot, and submits it along with all the other citizen ballots that agree with that vote.
(note:
This means that if you chose your representative carefully, you, need not be actively concerned with their vote, as you generally agreed with them enough to choose them to represent you.)
However if you do NOT agree with your ballot being cast as your representative has published, then:
You as the citizen, can pull your ballot from control of your representative. If you do so, you are NO LONGER represented on that vote, unless you take further action.
You may pass your ballot to another representative, with a published vote you do agree with.
This is a temporary representation on this single ballot. The “other” representative is NOT your chosen representative, simply a temporary on this bill.
You may choose to go to the voting booth yourself, and cast your ballot as you wish.
This is what citizens without a chosen representative would normally do.
You are NOT required to vote.
If you pull control of your ballot, you may simply choose not to vote at all.
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Representation, not misrepresentation.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration, patience and questions.
45
A different view of the exact same process:
https://45ink.com/wp/need-a-new-government/