A BLOG ABOUT INDEPENDENT POLITICS, POLITICAL ETHICS, ECONOMICS, AND ANARCHISM. Political theory, U.S. politics & election statistics, the political spectrum, constitutional law & civil liberties, civil rights & interstate commerce, taxation & monetary policy, health care & insurance law, labor law & unions, unemployment & wages, homelessness, international relations, religion, technology; alternatives to the state
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Suggested Political Coalition-Building Strategies for Potential Use by the Green Liberty Caucus
Monday, February 22, 2021
Solidarity Between Libertarians and Socialists: Achieving Freedom and Equality Through Bottom Unity
We
can distribute resources equitably, without resorting to hierarchy or
violence, as long as people know how much they're entitled to, as a
share of the Earth's resources.
Each one of us is entitled to our share of
Earth's resources - as a fraction of the human population - as property; plus whatever we can produce, through using and developing that share, plus our use and development of our own talent, skills, and intellects.
In order to distribute resources equitably, and to understand "whose is what", we need to stop thinking in terms of "private or public" and realize that there are more sectors of the economy, and more types of property ownership, than just these two categories.
Club goods are being neglected. So is the voluntary third sector, the sector of charity and social purpose enterprises. So is the commons; which comprises nearly the entire category of the factor of production which we call "land" (the others being labor and capital).
Private-public partnerships exist as well, as do N.G.O.s (non-governmental organizations), and Q.U.A.N.G.O.s (quasi-nongovernmental organizations).
We must expand our knowledge about rivalry and excludability of resources, economic sectors, types of ownership, and forms of mixed economies and economic systems aside from capitalism and socialism, if we want to achieve anything resembling economic mobility in the future.
The United Kingdom has depoliticized its environmental affairs through having
quasi-non-governmental agencies decide on environmental regulation
instead of voting. It has also depoliticized other scientific,
financial, and juridical duties.
As
long as depoliticization can be done without succumbing to the evils
of privatization, we can have science-based policies that establish
health and safety standards which cannot be voted away. These
policies should be added to the Constitution via amendments, so that
they can be permanent rather than temporary, and cannot be tampered
with without the overwhelming agreement of the supermajority.
I support depoliticization of land and environment and resource related issues - basically having panels of scientists determine scientific and environmental policy through consensus-building - and bioregionalism, as ways to achieve more balanced distribution of natural resources.
World land area divided by human population comes out to 4.8 acres per person. Which means that a four-person family can own 19.2 acres. But room must be left over for animals and plants, and future human population (which will increase, so the number of acres per person will decrease accordingly).
This 4.8 acre per person rule tells us that any one person with 20 acres should allow at least three people to live on his property. Until then, he should either have a family, give up some of his land, let people forage and glean on his property, or compensate the community for monopolizing more resources than he needs.
Written as two Facebook posts on February 22nd, 2021
Edited and Expanded on February 22nd, 2021
Published on February 22nd, 2021
Tuesday, February 9, 2021
How Committed is the Green Party to the Principle of Decentralization?
The purpose of this article is to determine on which policy topics the Green Party and its supporters are most committed to decentralization. Decentralization is one of the Green Party's Ten Key Values.
gp.org/four_pillars_ten_key_values
I put this article together after the party's last presidential nominee, Howie Hawkins, ran on a platform that called for increased centralization of the regulation of energy and transportation affairs into the hands of the national government.
This platform prompted me to ask, "If Hawkins is leading the party to support more centralization on energy and transportation, then on which other issues is the Green Party still whole-heartedly committed to decentralization?"
I have sorted thirty-one major topics in politics, into seven categories: Centralize More, Keep Centralized, Mostly Centralized, Promote a Mix (...), Mostly Decentralize, Keep Decentralized, and Decentralize More.
[Policy Topics Which Most of the Green Party Wants to] Centralize More
-
State Department / diplomacy
(centralize through growing and
properly funding, and demilitarize by transforming into a
Department of Peace)
- Interstate regulation of commerce
-
Energy, and provision of public utilities
(centralize, but
eliminate influence of businesses, lobbyists, and monopolies)
-
Transportation
(centralize, but streamline, and eliminate
business & lobbyist influence)
- Campaign finance
reform
(centralize, but streamline, and eliminate business &
lobbyist influence)
- Labor Department
(centralize in order to
create a jobs guarantee)
- Justice Department & the Attorney
General, incl. courts
[...] Keep Centralized
-
International trade, including tariffs
- Establishing uniform rule
of naturalization of immigrants
Mostly Centralize
-
Elections
(cooperative or corporative federalism; national
government should supervise more)
- State public worker
benefits
(increase national supervision of public sector
employees' affairs, benefits, and bargaining)
Promote
a Mix of Centralization and Decentralization, inc through Cooperative
or Triple Federalism
-
Military / Department of Defense / Pentagon / common
defense
(centralize its administration, but reduce its use, and
demilitarize it, while decentralizing public defense)
- Social
Security / retirement
(centralize by growing S.S. into Social
Security for All, i.e.,
a U.B.I. to every American, which would decentralize the
distribution of U.S. Dollars)
-
Agriculture
(cooperative or triple federalism, but eliminate
business & lobbyist influence)
- Education
(cooperative or
triple federalism, but eliminate business & lobbyist influence)
-
Child welfare
(cooperative or triple federalism)
-
Health
(cooperative or triple federalism, but eliminate business
& lobbyist influence)
- Housing & Urban
Development
(cooperative or triple federalism, but eliminate
business & lobbyist influence)
- Taxation
(both states and federal government should have taxation power)
Mostly
Decentralize
-
Treasury
(keep Treasury Dept., but decentralize through a UBI)
-
Veterans' Affairs
(decentralize, or abolish, or make unnecessary
by putting its activities under Defense Dept. &/or H.H.S.)
-
Native American affairs
(localize through increasing tribal
autonomy)
- Patents / intellectual property
(keep
administration centralized, but reduce durations)
- Gun control
laws
- The
internet
(centralize regulation as a public utility in order to
foster a decentralized or polycentric creative / collaborative
commons)
Keep Decentralized or Balanced
- Law enforcement and policing, prisons and
jails
Decentralize More
-
Interior Dept. / land management
(decentralize to the
bioregions)
- E.P.A. / environment & ecology
(decentralize
to the bioregions)
- Homeland Security
(decentralize, shrink,
and abolish)
- Sanctuary cities and sanctuary states
- Mutual
aid, direct action. and charity
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Abolishing the Federal Government and the Presidency in Seventeen Easy Steps
This list should be viewed as a set of stages.
The purpose of the first two steps (Phase One) is to communicate clearly to the people why the federal government needs to be abolished. This will help ensure that the president who promises to abolish the government, has the people's trust and support when inaugurated.
The remainder of the steps should be taken by the president as soon as possible following inauguration. Those steps include the first phase following inauguration (Phase Two). In Phase Two, the president makes sure that foreign nations recognize that the president was elected lawfully, in order to avoid an international incident, and ensure the stability of the new administration while it attempts to abolish the federal government (as the people will want it to do).
In Phase Three, the president gives Congress, the Supreme Court, and the executive branch officials under the president's control, one last chance (each) to cease cooperating with the continued creation and enforcement of widely unpopular and unconstitutional laws. Many of these cannot even rightfully be called laws, because most unconstitutional acts of Congress, are unconstitutional because they disregard limitations which were put in the Constitution with the specific intent of ensuring that the states and the people retained a significant and meaningful measure of the right to govern themselves (as opposed to being governed by a central authority).
In Phase Four, the president takes all steps necessary to abolish the entire federal government (with the exception of the offices of the president, and one diplomat for each foreign nation), and issues declarations and public statements explaining and confirming these moves.
In Phase Five (providing that most or all of steps 7 through 10 were successful), the president declares that efforts to abolish the federal government were successful, and makes statements and invitations which recognize the sovereignty and independence of the fifty states as separate countries, each with their own diplomatic authorities.
In Phase Six (after the world has recognized the freedom of each state), the president calls for the consideration of a new national or federal government and a new constitutional convention, weighs in on this matter, fires all diplomats still employed federally, and vacates the office of the presidency (leaving nobody to succeed).
The Seventeen Steps:
Phase One (Before Inauguration):
Phase Two (Immediately After Inauguration):
Step 3: Invite Ambassadors to Recognize the Legitimacy of the President's Election
Phase Three (After Achieving Recognition of the Election Results):
Phase Four: (If Steps 4 Through 6 Have Little to No Effect):
Step 7: Revoke the Authority to Enforce Federal Laws
Step 10: Firing the Vice President and Refusing to Nominate Cabinet Members
Phase Five (After the Federal Government is Abolished):
Phase Six (After the World Has Recognized the Independence of the States):
Step 16: Fire All Federal Diplomats
Phase One (Before Inauguration):
Additionally, at least six state constitutions recognize a right to reform, alter, or abolish government; -and many nations acknowledge the right to revolution and/or the right to rebel - so those facts should not go ignored in the president's statements.
Phase Two (Immediately After Inauguration):
Phase Three (After Achieving Recognition of the Election Results):
Step 4: Urging Congress and the States to Convene for an Emergency Amendment Session
The president should strongly urge Congress to convene for a brief, one-time, emergency legislative session, to give Congress one last chance to amend the Constitution in a meaningful way.
While doing this, the president should cite the need to review the existing set of national emergencies (of which there are dozens and dozens, and probably too many); and the need to declare national emergencies regarding civil liberties, due process, government transparency, and corruption.
The president should do this, while specifically demanding that the members of Congress authorize their own arrest for misdemeanors as well as felonies, and also demanding that Congress refrain from interfering with any efforts by the states to hold a constitutional convention.
The president should accomplish this by insisting that Congress and the states work together to immediately pass an amendment which would amend (and repeal a portion of) Article I, Section 6, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution. That amendment should replacing that clause with the following language: "The Senators and Representatives shall not be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance of the Session of their respective Houses, nor in going to nor returning from the same, and in addition to any Speech or Debate in either House, they may be questioned in any other Place."
The president should additionally insist that the convention of states consider amendments which would repeal the U.S. Constitution in its entirety and revert to a confederation, and/or abolish the office of the presidency (by striking Article II, Section 1).
In the (extremely likely) event that Congress were to refuse to accept the president's insistence that this emergency legislation be considered (i.e., proposals to allow the arrest of congressmen for misdemeanors, revert to a confederation, and abolish the presidency), then the president should proceed with any and all plans to order the Congress to disband, since it will have signaled that it is not willing to acknowledge the right to hold a constitutional convention as acknowledged in Article V of the Constitution.
The president should additionally insist that the Supreme Court issue a ruling regarding whether Congress's refusal to allow an emergency convention to amend the Constitution (as described in Step 4).
Phase Four: (If Steps 4 Through 6 Have Little to No Effect):
Step 10: Firing the Vice President and Refusing to Nominate Cabinet Members
The president should ask for the resignation of the running mate who was elected along with the president, and/or undertake any and all peaceable measures possible which could prevent the vice-president-elect from taking an oath of office.
The president should also refuse to cooperate with any demands to hire a chief of staff, and also with demands to nominate cabinet members. The president should explain that at least half of those cabinet members would only end up heading federal departments which lack proper constitutional authorization (so most of what they do is unlawful).
The president should dismiss the vice-president-elect, and refuse to hire a chief of staff and nominate a cabinet, in order to prevent those persons from being arrested for cooperating with the federal government (which they would not deserve, having been elected specifically in order to abolish the federal government).
The president should issue just under two hundred exemptions, however. The president, and one diplomat for each foreign nation, should be retained, until such time as the president would be prepared to relinquish them from the federal employment rolls. This will be necessary in order to ensure that the president completes the mission to abolish the federal government, and in order to ensure that foreign nations will accept the sovereignty of each American state after that mission is over.
Phase Five (After the Federal Government is Abolished):
Phase Six (After the World Has Recognized the Independence of the States):
Step 16. Firing All Federal Diplomats
The president should fire all diplomats still employed by the federal government (which shall have been retained this long solely for the purposes of ensuring international recognition of the legitimacy of the new administration).
That address should include the president's thoughts regarding whether a constitutional convention should take place, and whether there is a justification for any national or federal government to exist again in the territory once occupied by the United States federal Government.
The president should also communicate an opinion about whether positions like the presidency, the chief executive, and the unitary executive, ought to exist or be trusted ever again. This will help make it clear to the people that the president truly is about to become the last president (or, at least, the last president under this current constitution) upon the resignation that follows this address.
If this public address is not televised live, then it should be either pre-recorded and broadcasted, or else a statement to the same effect should be sent to members of the press and officials representing the fifty states.
If this public address is broadcast live, then the president should be shown signing a letter of resignation live on television, and then, the president should insist that everyone present in the Oval Office, leave the room immediately (i.e., the president and any remaining members of the president's retinue, members of the press, and/or any state governors or foreign diplomats invited and present for the resignation).
Written on October 25th and 31st, 2019
Originally Published Under the Title
"Fourteen Recommendations Regarding How to Abolish
the Federal Government and the Presidency"
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