How the Grinches Stole the United States

Tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35WgpMq6e3o

After John Puffy Cheeks Grinch failed to steal Christmas,

the Whovilians elected a new Mayor and kicked the Grinches out of town

The Grinches gathered at their Fake Chinese Diner

Not being able to stand the sound

Of happy whovilians feeling hope

They sat around the table saying "nope, nope nope."

They were feeling quite dejected.

Because the Whovilians had voted

And Out they'd been ejected!

So they moped and they groused.

And scratched at the occasional louse

And they smoked and they belched

And quite stunk up the House.

Til one of them looked around

and lit up the room with a smile

Community Policing as Part of Democratic Subsidiarity

Using the requirements of the constitution to Re-constitute the Police for better Policing

There is a recurring argument between those who want "order" and suppression of crime, and those who want community policing where the police respect the right of local citizens. In community policing police are often asked to fill roles that they aren't trained for. When they operate on a purely law enforcement level they tend to act like occupying armies. The reason for this is that our society neglects to systematically apply principles of good government locally. We claim to be a democratic republic, yet our communities are often voiceless, powerless, neglected and sometimes feel oppressed. We need to apply principles of democratic subsidiarity to our policing. When we start doing that we'll get better outcomes. The answer is to restore Policing to it's relationship with the militia requirements of the Constitution, and diminish the "standing army" portion of modern policing to a general aid function called on by communities in need or the courts. All that is part of applying principles of democratic subsidiarity to local government.

Local Government and General Government

Local rule and general government are two different things. Local government is specific to neighborhoods, settlements, workplaces, small numbers of people and folks who all know each other. All other government is general Government. Direct democracy is possible at the local level. It is absurd, or impractical, when dealing with large numbers of people. Most forms of government can be made to work at the local level. Indeed the survival of a local people is contingent on how well they govern themselves. In the United States we advertise ourselves as democratic, but we don't practice functional local government well. And we suffer as a result. Other countries don't either, but that doesn't mean we can't do better.

Local government should be a right, a duty, something entitled by our national charter and integrated with general rule. And the same should be true with General Rule. The Founders did not envision States and Federal Government in constant opposition when they setup our National Charter.

Both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers saw the relationship of the Federal Government to the States to be envisioned as analogous to that of the States to the Counties. For example Madison says in Federalist 46:

"The States will be to the latter [Federal Government] what counties and towns are to the former [State Government]." [Fed 46]

Hamilton, likewise assumed integration and collaboration as necessary for good information transmission. Hamilton Notes in Federalist 36:

"If any question is depending in a State legislature respecting one of the counties, which demands a knowledge of local details, how is it acquired? No doubt from the information of the members of the county. Cannot the like knowledge be obtained in the national legislature from the representatives of each State?" [Fed 36]

Grant, Sound Money And Human Suffering

Learning Lessons from the Past

In my previous post on General Grant (general-grant-and-mark-twain-greenbacks.html), I was referring to a biography of Grant I had just read. There are a lot of lessons to learn from the Civil War era, and the Grant administration about what to do and what not to do to nurture and sustain an economy.

What Grant Did Right and What he did wrong

These posts are not an attack on Grant. Both I and the author of the book are sympathetic to grant. But on the issue of how to regulate and control our money supply and prevent or deal with depressions, Grant was in the wrong. The author concedes that Grant himself, in 1873, felt regret even as he took actions that were inimical to dealing with the suffering caused by the panic of 1873. In Grant's defense, the leading men of his time were "hard money" men who would have preferred that the only money available to the general public would be coins. And they were offering him advice. These men rightly distrusted private bank notes, but they also generalized that distrust to greenbacks and fiscal or monetary measures to deal with the business cycle.

GOP & Russians worked together to defeat Democracy

British Spies First to Spot Trump Team Links to Russian Agents.

This is a follow up to the report on the arrest of Pyotr Levashov, in Spain the other day, and it's relationship to Project Alamo. I'm writing about this because there are multiple journalists pursuing multiple threads and I need a central place to keep the info and links. Also I expect Donald Trump to lash out at some country, probably North Korea, to divert attention from his treason.

Now we have a Guardian report which shows how Right Wing and Left Wing were being influenced by disinformation, stolen and massaged information and info-wars/psy-ops during or before 2015. The report details how Russian "Active Agents" directed by Russian Intelligence Disinformation experts working with Trump Campaign officials and members were picked up by allied intelligence doing their dirty work. It was those allies who relayed word on what the russians were doing back to, First CIA director Brennan and then, eventually, to James Comey.

"Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told." [Guardian]

What Electronic Democracy Means

Local Democracy Necessary for Democratic Republics

Key principles:

For our system to be more democratic we need 5 mandatory things at all levels of public deliberation:

1. Trouble Reporting and tracking of issues, complaints and commentary with follow up at periodic milestones
2. Officer vetting Before Selection/Election
3. Accounting for Performance at End of Term
4. Top down, bottom up systematic deliberation
5. Appropriate power with necessary resources in each part of Government

This post focuses on the electronic portions of these ideas.

Levashov and Project Alamo: Spamming Democracy