Lead, Follow, or Get out of the Way…
The Declaration of Independence did four things:
1. It told the world that the United States of America was a free and independent nation,
2. It began to define America’s system of government.
3. It listed 27 things that King George III and his Parliament had done, or should have done, which justified America’s separation from Great Britain,
4, It listed the seven “self-evident truths,” which provided very specific things that any American government is required to secure. These self- evident truths are:
All men are created equal.
They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
Some, but not all, of these rights are: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Governments are instituted among men to secure these rights.
The powers of the government can come only from the consent of the governed.
If any government fails in its duty to secure these rights, the people can alter or abolish it, and create a new government.
The people can structure the new government any way that they please.
We have had three national systems of government, two of which were/are real and the third is imaginary.
The first real system of government was the Articles of Confederation, which was replaced by our second real government, our constitutional system: the Madisonian Republic. Obviously the Madisonian Republic is a republican form of government, it is not a democracy. It was designed, defined by James Madison, who is also known as the “Father of the Constitution.” Madison should not be confused with George Washington, who is known as the “Father of his Country.” And George Washington should not be confused with Robert E. Lee who apparently wanted to be the “Father of the Confederacy.”
The single, imaginary system of government for America has various names: “democracy,” “American democracy,” “Our democracy,” and “representative democracy.” There may well be others. But, we should be clear: an “imaginary” democracy, no matter what powers and features our imaginations may give it, is nevertheless imaginary and is therefore not a real democracy but an imaginary one. In other words it will not ever solve real problems. I’m not kidding. I hate to be the bearer of such sad news, and I am already ducking to evade the vitriol that will soon come my way, but it must be said: “Imaginary governments cannot and do not ever solve real problems. Our imaginary democracy, the one we call “American Democracy,” will never, ever solve a real problem.”
Our imaginary system of government actually seems to be a real, living thing to most Americans. We have created an imaginary history for it, we have imagined in precise detail the processes by which it governs us, and the details often change from situation to situation and from day to day so it can solve any and all problems. We imagine it to be a very flexible system. We have a deep and abiding faith in our imaginary system which often leads us to imagine that the real system is imaginary and the imaginary system is real. We love the imaginary things our imaginary system does for us, and we hate the real things our real system does, or does not, do for us.
We are so enthralled with our imaginary “American Democracy” that it is the one we teach in school to our children. The media, educators, politicians, preachers, and many others talk about it constantly I wonder how many Professors of History, or Professors of Constitutional Law, have talked about American Democracy, even though such a government does not exist. And we worry about the fantasy world of video games, when the fantasies we teach in school are wild beyond imagination.
For example, our real system of government, our Madisonian Republic, regularly mistreats seven hated groups of Americans. I call them the “hated” groups because if we loved them we would not mistreat them like we do. They represent well over 50% of our population.
The seven hated groups are: the not-white, not-male, not-heterosexual, not-Christian, not-well-to-do, not-native-born, and the disabled.
Our real system of government, our Madisonian Republic, is creating an eighth hated group: school children. Any system of government, real or imaginary, that enables the murder by gunshot of its school children while they are in school, at their desks, studying for that wonderful day when they will graduate and finally have the liberty to lead their own lives in pursuit of their own happiness, is a government that has lost its right to rule and, according to the command of the Declaration of Independence, must either be altered, or abolished and replaced with a new government.
This phenomenon is clear proof of our ability to live in two worlds, imaginary and real, at the same time. We do not get concerned about the murder of our schoolchildren because we either refuse to take notice of it, or we blame it on the real system, while we imagine that we live in the imaginary system. If we ever believe that the imaginary system is causing a real problem and then find that our imaginary system cannot solve the real problems we think it creates then we would have a crisis, perhaps real, perhaps imaginary—I can’t say. I imagine that we can manage our own imaginations so that we can just imagine that the problem of murdering our schoolchildren does not really exist. It is a neat trick, imagining away all our problems, but it is not a real trick, it is imaginary.
But the most amazing thing our powers of imagination do for us day after day, election cycle after election cycle, decade after decade, disappointment after disappointment, injury after injury, lie after lie, tragedy after tragedy, is grant each of us a lifelong love affair with our favorite political party. We may not always forgive the sins of our loved ones, but we always forgive the sins of our political parties, even though they are complicit in the destruction of our planet, our civilization, our species, and the futures of our children. Thank God for our imaginations. Otherwise we might have to get serious about life. But our imaginations are real, and they are with us every waking moment, making it unnecessary to solve the real problems we have created for us and our posterity—we can just imagine them away.
One of the most important imaginary powers we give to our imaginary system of government is the curative powers of elections. We are convinced that if our party wins the next election all will be well. But, here reality intrudes, because our party, or any party for that matter, when it wins, does not produce the changes we imagined it would. Since this is a clear failure of our imaginary system to produce real results, we are perplexed. So, what do we do about it? Nothing. We keep repeating the same failed process. We keep expecting the system of elections to produce real changes, desirable changes, problem-solving changes. We expect our imaginary government to stop mistreating the seven hated groups, we expect our imaginary government to protect our school children by regulating guns, we expect our imaginary system of government to produce global cooling—we expect all of our problems to be solved.
But wait, maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am the only American who is concerned about the murders of our school children—no, that could not be true. In other words, we citizens are so concerned about protecting our school children that we would have immediately taken regulatory steps to prevent such murders. Since we haven’t taken such steps then I must be imagining that the murders are taking place at all. You might call me the “lone imagineer.”
But still, children are dying, that is a fact—no, that is a tragic fact, and we are going nothing about it. The planet is warming, and we are doing nothing about it. The seven hated groups are being mistreated and we are doing nothing about it. So, maybe it is not my imagination. Maybe the world is a real place where magic does not exist.
I think that the reason we flip from reality to fantasy so easily is that we are frightened and we do not want to face the truth. We do not want to think that our children and their children are in great danger and we are doing nothing about it. I think we feel that we are to blame for our failures as a nation. We think that we are failing, but we don't know what to do, and we realize that the only thing we can do is vote for our party and hope for the best. Yes, that’s it, hope will save us.
But I think our problems do have a solution, that is, if we still have enough time. Our American Democracy is in trouble because it is not real, it is imaginary, and therefore it cannot solve real problems. But we can implement a real democracy, and to do so we have to win an election to obtain the political power to replace our Madisonian Republic with a real democracy. And, as luck would have it, I have already designed a real democracy that can be quickly put into effect and that democracy will enable us, the people, to take the steps necessary to save us from America’s chronic national diseases: colossal arrogance and galactic stupidity.
So, I guess my imagination is even wilder than most. I believed in the need for a real democracy to save us so strongly that, over several years, I designed an entire system to do the job. But now that that part is done, all you have to do is vote for it.
If you look at the programs put forward by our current aspirants for high office you will see that they won’t save the world, there are too many ways that our republican government can be manipulated to keep us from changing our future. But by implementing an entire system to replace our current disaster, we will roll over the naysayers and we can concentrate on building long lives worth living for ourselves and our children, including a secure, comfortable retirement.
Now, again, I must duck.
But before you attack me, remember that such attacks will not save a single child, will not save our nation, will not save our species, will not save life on Earth. So, unless and until you have a better way forward, then either lead, follow, or get out of the way.
And before you ban me from DKos forever, let me say one more thing. I have long had the idea that America’s system of government, the Madisonian Republic, is inherently flawed, and my belief was preceded by the beliefs and warnings of George Washington, John Adams, and Madison himself. They were explicit about the flaw and therefore they made my job of designing a new system of government, a democracy, very easy. Far easier that the task of James Madison. It is not easy to see because of the language usage of Madison’s time and place, but most of Federalist 10 is devoted to his efforts to overcome the flaw, and he failed. But, with modern technology, we will succeed.
So, virtually everybody here is hypersensitive about criticism of our two-party system, and that is a shame. Blind, unreasoning allegiance to a failed system will only result in more failures. And I think most people know that, that is why they are so hypersensitive to criticism—they know their allegiance is misplaced and when I point that out they attack me, the messenger, instead of attacking the problem.
But, I didn’t have to spend many years here coming here day after day, several times a day, looking for someone to lead us to the answer and that someone has not emerged. I could have gone elsewhere, and I have looked, but I am convinced that the Democratic Party is the only Party that can save us, that is, if it will put good ideas above Party Purity.
Bernie won’t save us. He may win the nomination and he may win the election, but he will never be willing to design, comprehend, and implement the policy changes we need. Let me be clear, I am not saying that Bernie lacks the intellectual power to understand things, because that is not true—he does pack the intellectual gear, Bernie’s IQ is greater than the sum of the IQ’s of the entire Republican Party leadership, and I would never insult a fellow old-timer that way, but I am saying that Bernie believes what he believes: he is a true believer. I am the same way. We are both working to make our ideas come true; that is a hard thing, but ultimately a good thing. Bernie and I are not willing to change our approaches. Our approaches are different in one important aspect. Bernie is trying to change the system of economics without changing the government. I am trying to change the system of government and then let the people change the system of economics.
Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, has a hybrid approach. She has done a magnificent job of making changes while working within a system that is trying to shut her down. Just imagine what she could accomplish if the system of government was designed to work with her, to work for her. It would be historic. It would be worthy of a grand name like FDR’s “New Deal.” Elizabeth Warren is the answer, she is the one who can save us. Because at the end of the day it takes real people dealing with real people in Washington D.C. to save us. Bernie is not the one to lead that battle. Warren, given the support her leadership deserves, can do the job. We need a leader who has a “Plan for fixing every problem.”
So that is why I am still here, enduring all the insults and the unadulterated crap that comes my way regularly. So, when I say things like this I am charged with thinking I am “superior.” Well, in this one respect I may be. Nobody in the nation has devoted as much effort and experience to solving these problems. Nobody has the background in computer systems design to apply what I have learned over the years. If that makes me “superior” then so be it. But don’t you compound the problem by pretending you know what is wrong and how to fix it,
because you really don‘t. Otherwise I would have seen it expressed here constantly, because once you understand what we must do to save the Earth and everything that is in it you wouldn’t be able to stop talking about it and trying to get everybody else to WAKE UP! So, the silence here about real solutions is telling. Nobody else knows what to do.
And finally, try to walk on the rational side for a while…
The problems you talk about here on DKos, are the same problems I have observed over my 80 years as an American, and I have heard these same problems described by my elders whose memories stretched back more than 130 years from today, and they are the same problems that have been described by historians, newspapers, and other media since our nation was founded. I have lived most of my eight decades focused on turning America into a real democracy, and I have read and studied many sources so you don’t have to. Despite more than two centuries of our system in action, our problems are still with us and they are essentially unchanged. Let me put it another way: “They have not changed.” Yet, we have changed parties, we have changed candidates, we have changed elected officials—who have been elected because they promised change, but despite all the changes in people, ideas, parties, laws, promises, and the like, change has not happened. We still mistreat the seven hated groups. Our children are being murdered. Our civilization is still being destroyed, the Earth, and everything in it is dying. We, the people hunger for change, and we are entitled to it.
We want a system of government that will give each citizen fair and honest access to the rights, resources, and opportunities, and protections that will give her a fair and honest chance to go as far in life as her talents and efforts can take her, thereby giving her a fair and honest chance to build long lives worth living for herself and her loved ones, including a secure, comfortable retirement. We deserve nothing less, but we will never get it until we replace our Madisonian Republic, and our Imaginary democracy, with a real democracy.
Bernie understands that we need to replace our current system of government, but he has chosen the wrong replacement system. Democracy is the right answer, the only answer, and this may well be our last chance to do the right thing in time to save us from our colossal arrogance and galactic stupidity. To paraphrase a slogan from an election campaign of a few years ago:
It’s the system of government, stupid! It’s our Madisonian Republic, and its system of elections, stupid!
Nothing of consequence will change unless, and until, we change the System of government. Unless we replace our real Madisonian Republic with a Faction-Free Democracy.
Democracy equals freedom, give Elizabeth Warren a little freedom, a little elbow room, and we will finally see America change, we will finally see the “American Democracy” of our dreams.