The Biggie In Taking Our Country Back Is To Rescind Amendment XVII

The two houses of Congress are both “representatives of the people” since the passage of Amendment XVII a century ago. Only one house should be representing the people. The other house, the senate, is supposed to represent the states. A century ago, the amendment told the state governments to pack up their reps and vacate Washington, D.C. What little excuse there had ever been for calling the national government a federation, was gone. The D.C. government thereby transformed itself into an empire over the inert state governments.

The succeeding century has been a disaster, legislative wise. The only reason the Founders gave the senators six-year terms and the house members two-year terms was because the house members were essentially the appointers of the senate members. Senate members were to act as more mature councilors who would act as a brake on sharp changes of legislative direction. They were to be the more deliberative body.

Now, let’s throw a few jokers into the shuffle of the cards. That’s exactly what the states did in 1789 as they assigned two representative bodies to a newly unified people. One body of reps should have been enough. So, should the state assembly reps be appointing U.S. Senators or should the U.S. house be appointing the senators. At this point, logic is lost and absolute nonsense takes over. The states bungled the setting up of the system.

Meanwhile, the U.S. house was incrementally increasing its district populations from an original of 40,000 to 700,000, thereby losing any pretense of local control by the electorate over their reps.  Democrats and Republicans began originating the reps and voters could only choose between two foreigners. It was in the middle of this two century trend that the U.S. senators made their big move to partisanship in the evolving system. They quietly pushed Amendment XVII to its passage without either party taking a position on it. The Founders had provided no mechanism for their popular election. They became freelancing politicians not unlike loose cannons on the deck in the D.C. government.

We have lost the few virtues of our system because of outright fraud and deceit. We have never had the pleasure of living under the federated system that should have been set up.

Let’s rewrite No. XVII and establish the elusive federation instead of sabotaging it. It should say that the U.S. house should be the grand assembly of the houses of the fifty states. Every person should be living in a standardized grid of home districts of somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000.  Our present five make-believe reps should be elected to the new single grid of reps. The new set of reps should have full authority to operate the federal system of fifty-one governments. They will hold a convention in their state, and elect all state officers. Then, as one body, they will elect the two national executives. 

If we want to take our country back, let’s follow the above instructions. Look carefully and you will find all of the above in the original Constitution.

Federalism’s Machinery Has Never Been Assembled Properly

We have never known real federalism, the ultimate machinery that organizes sovereign states to act as one. What the thirteen states created in 1789 was a new nation consisting of 13 states and a union of peoples determined to make the new nation work no matter how it was assembled. This union of peoples was not the federation we like to think we have.

We have never interpreted the Constitution as a sketchy, partial outline of its deeper implications as it discusses Electoral Colleges and Congressional Districts. We totally scorn Electoral Colleges and have allowed Congressional Districts to degenerate into shameful conglomerates of partisan politics. When those two mechanical parts are fully understood and integrated into their proper places in the federation, this nation will have the federalism that the Constitution attempted to create.

We avidly follow the quadrennial conventions of the two major parties. One of those conventions always produces the next President. A select few people run those conventions. Grassroots voters have to jump through hoops to participate. The Founders had exactly the same thing in mind as they designed the Electoral College, except that the Founders wanted all voters to participate in choosing their President. And, with true federalism, the Founders would have all voters choosing their state officials, also.

Electoral Colleges are the grassroots voters’ state conventions, and their national convention. Their elected reps were supposed to go to those places first after they were elected. The Founders wanted those reps to have full responsibility for the running of the federation.  Therefore, they were to complete the election process and come up with a full set of state and federal officials for the next four years before adjourning.  This process takes political parties almost entirely out of their proposed system.  The only partisan infections at the conventions would have been sent there by local districts.

The second vital part is the Congressional District which furnishes the people who go to the Electoral Colleges. Tragic experience has shown that diluting a district of 40,000 persons by adding 660,000 more persons, destroys local people’s ability to make intelligent choices of reps. This forces them into political parties and destroys the system the Founders intended. Students of government should be watching for results from districts of varying populations. What size district produces the more competent reps for that district? It is a more critical number than the ones guiding the Congresses of the past.

To rectify the errors of the past, and actually form a working federation, this nation needs one common set of home districts of a size somewhere between 30,000 to 50,000. County Election Departments, or their equivalent, should have  the responsibility for setting up and maintaining these local, standard districts. Their reps will rule their respective States as well as their nation. County governments should fill state senate seats.  State governments should fill the senate seats in D.C.

Just as soon as this nation can get this system of reps and their national conventions to elect officials, the people can begin to rebuild it. 

Abraham Lincoln Spoke Inaccurately at Gettysburg

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address used an inaccurate concluding phrase about a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. He would have been more technically correct had he phrased about a government of two peoples, by two peoples, and for two peoples. One of those two peoples sends their rep to a state government. The other of those two peoples sends their rep to the national government. Strangely, those two peoples are the same politically bi-polar, schizophrenic person, required to send two reps instead of the one that could have done the job.

This unfortunate electorate was organized in 1789 as a double electorate having two separate personalities. We have been forced to act schizophrenically for over two centuries. We are actually organized as two bodies politic, when we should have been organized as one body politic. What the voter has in mind in choosing a state rep is quite different from what the voter is thinking in the choice of a national rep. The partisan appeals of the two campaigns are from different perspectives. The so-called cultural divide can be seen by looking in the mirror.

We are like the farmer walking by his field of newly mown hay and hoping the rains wait until it cures. Then continue walking along his corn field hoping it rains before the leaves curl.

Whenever state governments see fit to reorganize us as one body politic whose rep sits in both places, we will no longer act schizophrenically. 

We-the-People Need Fifty-One Federated Houses

We need to live in families and self-sustaining communities such as counties or cities. But those counties or cities need to live in their own associations which culminate in States attempting to work together as a union.

We-the-people operate a hands-on system of running our own affairs up through the operations of our county/city governments. Beyond that point, counties and/or cities should be using our representatives to build a pyramid of federated houses.  That pyramid has never been properly set up.

Our system is in big partisan trouble because it has never been set up properly. Federated Houses will build the proper pyramid. Federated Houses is a newly coined phrase that needs further explanation. The Constitution calls for a nation that is organized into Congressional Districts. What it does not call for is a nation that is organized into two, three, four, or five sets of districts. Yet the people are actually contending with five districts per voter. When they are able to get rid of four of those districts, they should end up with one local home district. The Founders called it a Congressional District.  It becomes the basis for building Federated Houses.

The Constitution says that it should be no smaller than 30,000 people. Using that figure, the election departments of counties and/or cities should organize their people into one such districting system. It would result in the creation of about 10,000 districts and fifty-one Federated Houses. Each State would have its House of Representatives. Washington, D.C. would have its grand assembly of the fifty houses as its House of Representatives.

There is one other Constitutional requirement that gets rid of partisanship. Those 10,000 reps should be holding conventions in their respective states, at which they nominate and elect all state officials. They should meet as a national convention to do the same for the federation’s executives.

Federated Houses are what this nation needs to calm it down and establish a synchronized system of governing.

Washington, D.C. Is A Failed System For Lack of Proper Design

Washington, D.C. was supposed to be the place where the Fifty States would join together in the formation and execution of International Policy.  In other words, Washington, D.C. was to handle matters outside the sovereign borders of every state, while the states handled matters inside their borders.

The Constitution purported  to give sufficient instructions for the States to accomplish this purpose.  All fifty states have signed on to that Constitution and should feel bound by it. The Constitution purports to establish a representative republic. It purports to unite all the nation’s people as one body politic in the determination of foreign policy. It purports to allow fifty bodies politic to independently rule their states.

The unsolved problem has always been, “How can fifty bodies politic be joined together to act as one body politic?” Put that question to an eleventh grade American History class or to any adult discussion group. Corporation lawyers should be laughing at the stupidity of such a question. Yet, for over two centuries we Americans have not found the answer.  Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. blunders along on its downhill slide.

Whenever the Fifty States decide to create equal bodies politic (districts of the same population) for their own governing, and State Senates composed of county/city government reps, they will be emulating the Founders’ design.

This qualifies the House of Representatives of every State to join with their counterparts from all other States in one Grand Assembly that is called The United States House of Representatives. They are accompanied by two Senators each, whom they have chosen to take to D.C. with them. The soft-spoken original Constitution has been saying that since 1789.

Representative Government: the Unsolved Puzzle

The United States is a representative government.  The United Nations is a representative government.  Russia is a representative government. And so is China and maybe a hundred other nations are representative governments.

In the United States, you and I and every other voter, each have five reps who claim to be representing us, personally. Not a single one of them actually do represent us. Rather, they are reps of some political party with which we voters are compelled to establish a relationship. If we want to participate in the governments of our state and nation, we fall in line and do as we are told.

Is this the governing system that the Founders thought they were establishing? Has the world of nations fallen in line with the Founders’ ideas of how people can set up their own representative systems? Or is every nation simply mocking the failed system that the U.S. flaunts as being authentic? What would we have to do to make ours authentic? Better yet, what have we done to destroy authenticity?

Whatever authenticity we had at the beginning was based on the Congressional District that had no more than 40,000 people. How did the Founders come up with 40,000? Good question. Would 20,000 have been better? Who knows?  When the optimum number is finally determined, the nation can have an authentic representative system. They will shop around their manageable local district and choose a rep without any assistance from a political party.

The representative system lost whatever authenticity it had as its corrupt reps expanded their districts by a factor of seventeen times and sometimes distorted their boundaries ridiculously.  Nor were the states any help as they created all the extra, unneeded districts. One standardized set of districts can run the entire federal system of fifty-one governments.

The world’s phony representative systems need to get rid of their partisanship. The way to get rid of partisanship is to reduce the size of each district to the point that local voters can competently use the neighborhood gossiping system to locate their reps. If free and fair elections are held, those reps will be locally derived and authentic.  That is the key to having governments of the people, by the people, and for the people. If County Election Departments were empowered by their State Governments to set up and supervise a system of such districts throughout the nation, the voters would happily abandon their divisive partisan elections system. They would happily tell their five impotent reps where to go.

All State Houses of Representatives Should Be Sitting In Washington, D.C.

State Governments have nobody to blame but themselves for the bullying coming out of Washington, D.C.

State Governments have never properly used the Congressional District.

The Constitution says that a Congressional District should have a population of at least 30,000 people.

If every State would organize its people into Congressional Districts of that size, the people of this nation would all be equally represented, whether at their own State Capitols or in D.C.  That one set of reps should be doing the entire job of governing all fifty-one governments of the Federation of States.

The election departments of county governments should be finalizing the setting up of these districts.  Experience has proven that the reps are too corruptible to do it.

Then, let’s restore the original U.S. Senate by rescinding Amendment XVII, which has raised havoc with the Constitutional system for a century. Incidentally, State Governments, likewise, should have similar Senates representing their counties.

The district reps, elected by the grassroots electorate, should hold conventions in their respective states. They should choose all the State Officers with whom they will be working.  Those fifty conventions of reps should reconvene as one body and choose the President and Vice-President.

Study the original Constitution of 1789. Compare it with the above suggestions. The suggestions are in line with the original Constitution. We can have a true Federation of the States as originally intended. Talk to your state rep. Remind the rep that the state constitution is inferior to the U.S. Constitution which calls for a single set of districts for the intended Federation of States. We have wandered in the wilderness long enough.    

Western Civilization Was Kick-Started At Pentecost? A Thesis.

Every person is different. However, every person is expected to behave peaceably (and productively) while around other persons. Each person has mysterious motivations to behave one way or another.

When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, they formed a government. It was called The Mayflower Compact. Within a year, its failure was obvious. The complaint went out that a person who does not work shall not eat. A second Mayflower Compact was quickly written to incorporate that principle.

The all-volunteer society that the Pentecost experience tells about is a behavioral dream that simply could not be passed to the next generation.  How long it lasted depends on one’s imagination. The experience has haunted the high born and the low born for two thousand years: How can what happened at Pentecost be re-instituted into human behavior?  Socialism says, “Force will do it.”  Christianity says, “Free-Will will do it.”  Socialists look forward to the day when Christianity is wiped out.  Christianity looks forward to the day when Socialism is wiped out.

Or does Christianity feel that way about Socialism? What behavioral forces are causing some Christians to embrace Socialism, if the only way Socialism can work is by application of total force? The answer to both questions is that those who cross over have faith that Socialism really can be a volunteer system. That faith is just as religious in nature as their Christian faith. It is the quick fix that brings back the great religious experience of Pentecost. They close their eyes and dream.

Since the original Mayflower compact, many similar experiments (such as New Harmony IN) have been tried, and failed.  They have all failed, and always will fail for one reason: Energetic persons tire of carrying the drones---and freely walk away.  Socialism is benign, until it builds fences to keep its people inside. Then, it becomes State Socialism, a nation of slaves to government.

There is a practical volunteer society that freely floods the world with abundance. It is operated by the same spirits that organize the amazingly complex ant and bee colonies. That spirit operates our enterprising productive system.  It is the way Western Civilization has found to successfully keep the spirit of Pentecost alive and well among the human colonies of Earth. Earth’s tyrants hate it. Earth’s people love it as soon as they taste it. Lies are the only enemy of it.  It is the instigator of cultural wars.    

The Basic Constitutional Issues That Scholars Refuse To Discuss: Part 2

There is a down side to the hope and optimism for better governing as explained above. We have now lived exactly one hundred years under two of the most destructive Constitutional Amendments that could have been conceived. They are numbers Sixteen and Seventeen.  Sixteen paves the way for bleeding the free enterprise system to death by income taxing. Seventeen totally changed the job descriptions of senators, and raises questions about senators’ value in the system.

Alone, those two amendments have spun America into a downward spiral that is about to crash us.  They were designed to do what they are doing. They were passed by lying and deception. Their supporters want to destroy what the Founders tried to build, and establish their own power base by force. They are constantly on watch for opportunities to  shut down the American Way.

You can blame Progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson and all their ilk for these two destructive amendments. They must be rescinded.  The partisanship cancer must be removed from the body politic. Home districting will empower local voters to take charge of their own destiny. Otherwise, Western Civilization is needlessly doomed.

The Basic Constitutional Issues That Scholars Refuse To Discuss

The foremost issue is federalism, and the failure of the States to achieve federalism.  During the nation’s first hundred years, the States were represented in the U.S. Senate, but only the people were represented in the U.S. House of  Representatives. Apparently, the States could not figure out how to put their own reps into the U.S. House. If States could have figured out that problem, federalism would have been achieved.  The Constitution would have been a success. Well, almost a success, except for one other thing. The States run all elections through their county elections departments. But the responsibilities of county elections departments should come to an abrupt end just as soon as all local officials are elected. Unfortunately, States have not figured that one out either.

We have this thing called “representative government” where the whole election process is constitutionally supposed to change gears and enter into a completely separate system of elections.  They are Electoral College elections, over which the county elections departments should have no jurisdiction at all. The Electoral Colleges do their first jobs at their respective State Capitols, followed by their second job at their National Capitol. When both jobs are done, these colleges will have organized themselves into legitimate working bodies and conducted their own conventions that will have both nominated and elected all executive officers of the entire Federation of the Fifty States. Republicans, Democrats, et al leave their partisan labels outside the door, and follow the wishes of the local district which sent them.

The Founders wisely planned that only a body of elites would manage all the affairs of the Federation. States, from the beginning, have bungled and mangled this constitutional plan for creating a true Federation. They should have said to themselves in the beginning, “Now before we start implementing this Constitution, we must reorganize our people into the Congressional Districts required by the Constitution so that the one elected body of people’s reps are qualified to sit in any legislative body to which they are sent. Thereby, every State Legislature will move right on into the U.S. House of Representatives as well.” Those instructions are just as valid today as two and a quarter centuries ago.

We are one people, deserving one local rep to take care of all governing (for a 2-year term) above the county/city level. Of all the crying and fussing over civil rights, all of us without exception should have that civil right to a local rep of our own. This nation needs upwards of 10,000 of such reps. That is 10,000 Home Districts (Congressional Districts) in which all elections are local contests no more exciting than a shopping trip. The three senators and two house members each of have now, can go take a hike.  The Founders Congressional District is all we need.

Political Scientists, this writer has been evolving this idea for eighty-six years, or since I was age ten.   

A Belly Full of Laws. Will We Ever Get Enough? Who Knows All of Them?

There is a law of diminishing returns, like how much chicken can a person eat? So government by the people has seen lawmakers grinding out laws for two and a quarter centuries.  Are laws like fried chicken?  Must we keep them coming? 

What is the purpose of representative government?  Better yet, what is the purpose of a representative?  Suppose there is another way of looking at a representative.  Suppose he/she just hangs out in the home district, and hardly goes anywhere else.  What would that job be like?

The Constitution says (suggests?) that a district’s population should be no less than 30,000.  Congressmen have corruptly expanded it from hardly more than 30,000 to 700,000, and have made it literally useless to the people.  Suppose we go back to 30,000, thereby creating reps who can honestly say what every community is thinking. For a nation of over 300,000,000, that’s over 10,000 reps.

Provide each of those 10,000 reps with modern communications devices, and they can “assemble” in whatever groupings they wish within a matter of minutes. They can transport themselves electronically to their State’s or Nation’s House of Representatives while sitting at their home office.

We have become a nation operated by poll takers.  These 10,000 reps are the most reliably informed political body that could be found for poll takers.

Poll takers ask the reps.  The reps ask the poll takers. Twitter and Facebook get involved.  They can discover the sense of 10,000 communities in a matter of hours. It is a most sensitive system for discovering the will of the people.  Every two years, a refreshed base of reps keeps the system accurate.

Imagine a John Boehner lording over his House in contrast to the above!  Or magine a Harry Reid lording over his Senate in contrast to the above! The above would replace their system with qualified State reps who could sit at both places, as well as elect the U.S. Senators. Today’s electorate is bewildered. There is no way for it to participate as a single body politic until it gets its Home Districts.  

The Governmental Units Keeping Western Civilizations Alive

Partisanship is killing Western Civilization.  It launches a person’s rational way of thinking into a mode of irrational thinking.  Common sense goes out the window.  Partisanship happens under the pretense of self-governing, as a people are asked to make unreasonable choices about candidates they know nothing about.

When a people of a local community are asked to elect one of their own to take charge of a local office, the process is a no brainer.  But when those same people are asked to elect someone to a state-wide office, they don’t have a clue about those candidates’ local community reputations. It is emotionally traumatic to even be asked to make a ballot choice under those circumstances. Exacerbating that situation further, the two parties organize mud-slinging campaigns. Such “elections” are tantamount to barbarism. 

The contrast between local vs. state/federal elections is like day and night.  Local elections are intelligently conducted. The others are nasty ordeals. That is why it is said that all elections are local.  Because people deal intelligently with local issues, and irrationally with cleverly contrived state/national issues. That is why the county system stands out as the last great hope of Western Civilization.  It is the highest form of a civilized self-governing system.  Politicized representative systems are nothing more than make-believe self-governing.  

Did the Founders think about this problem? Yes.  Did the Founders have a solution for it? Yes. Would their solution have solved our problem? Emphatically yes! There is no need at all for us to go through the election ordeals that we go through. The Constitution is a far greater instrument of government than anybody has given it credit for. It was supposed to unite the people as one body politic, as well as unite the states as one federation. 

It has failed in both respects. The states treat their people as two bodies politic, thereby creating two legislative bodies with a legal system to arbitrate between the two. It is total nonsense. What the Constitution was saying to the States in 1789 was, “Let’s become one body politic of equalized Congressional Districts. This will give everybody a home district with a rep handling all affairs of State.

Reps will operate the governments of the States in which they reside; then operate the foreign policy work of the States jointly at the nation’s capitol. This will destabilize state legislatures until a satisfactory size of common districting can be worked out. The U.S. House of Representatives will take whatever number of reps that the states finally decide to send. Meanwhile, states must expeditiously set up standardized home districts.”

Those hypothetical instructions went out in 1789. We are now a nation of one hundred times as many people, and the same unfulfilled instructions still apply. The nation ignores the Founders’ convictions about local districting and the Electoral College.  The local district has been consolidated into one that is seventeen times larger. The Electoral College lies damned and essentially unused. Each of us have five useless reps instead of the Founders’ ONE useful rep.

Everybody can find one person to blame for this mess. That person is your local state representative who swore to uphold the above described constitution.  But they have no vision of what must be done to turn the Constitution’s failures into successes. Ironically, state reps would become the movers and shakers of the entire system, if only they had the vision to act. 

The Founders’ Constitutional method of keeping all elections local and civilized and out of the hands of partisans, is the Electoral College. It is the natural enemy of partisans, so naturally the partisans hate it. The Electoral College does in a civilized manner, the same thing that partisans do in a barbaric manner.

The people properly elect the ones going to the Electoral College. At that gathering of electors, the secret balloting system prevails. Roberts Rules of Order prevails. The electors set their own agenda regarding campaigning and public access. Such colleges should be electing the executive officers of all fifty-one governments of the federation.  Every elector will work closely with the people of the district, if the elector wants reelection.  The college’s secret voting will be repeated until the winning candidate gets a majority.

Historians cannot let us forget one of the first Presidential elections, when the runner-up was named Vice President. The two contenders were worst enemies. Experience should bring adaptations for a better performance next time. Unfortunately, experience brought shyster politicians who subverted the college’s function.

Western Civilization would be alive and well in this country if: (1) We lived in a single grid of local districts, and (2) We were allowing Electoral Colleges to operate as intended.  Since we are doing neither, it is dying.

Americans Do Not Trust Their Congress

Ninety-three percent of those recently surveyed said that they do not trust the U.S. Congress.  Actually, it is a poorly designed instrument of government. To say that it represents the people is simply not true. Even as a poorly designed instrument of government, individual members of Congress should have held themselves to a higher standard of personal integrity. 

The Founders were openly doubtful that their brief little Constitution could work among non-Christians.  If today’s Congress were to pass a law against spitting on the sidewalk, it would necessarily have a hundred times more words than the entire Constitution. We live in a paradox having ten times the lawyers of any other society, yet in a nation of Christians claiming to have other means of settling disputes.

Now, to the higher ethical standards our lawmakers should have been observing. Number one is their unfaithfulness to a community size Congressional District of about 40,000 persons, to which they were originally assigned. In a district that size, people can “shop” among candidates just as they “shop” for all their other necessities of life. At each 10-year census, the crooked lawmakers have expanded their districts (and their power) until each district now has 700,000 persons.

These crooked reps have designed their own districts, each gobbling up sixteen other districts that should have their own reps. They horse trade and re-arrange constituencies among themselves, disregarding their duty to a particular constituency. The district may end up looking like a snake or horse shoe. The result of these shenanigans is that most local communities in these humungous districts are represented by foreigners.

The second problem with Congress is that it was never set up as the single law making body of a united people. The Constitution is brief.  It didn’t come with a 300-page manual about how the people shall run their new federation. If those who set up the system in 1789 could have had access to such a manual, it would have told them to first get their own houses in order. Adapt their own governments to the same district that was to rule the federation. Equalize all of their districts in all of their States to conform with the Congressional District idea.

Try to imagine what a smooth-running synchronized system we would have, if all the people were organized into one set of Home Districts (Congressional Districts). One rep from each district should be doing all the governing of the entire federation of fifty-one governments. The fifty Governors and the President would coordinate their calling up of the reps for duty at their respective capitols.

The much maligned Electoral College (fifty-one of them) should employ these Home District Reps as the “electors” who choose all the executive officers of the fifty-one governments. The Founders profoundly feared partisanship such as has deadlocked Congress, and is spreading hate and fear among us.  

We grassroots voters were never expected to run the governments of the federation. The Founders assigned that job to the Congressmen. These “congress people” have never been fully conceptualized.  To run a nation of over 300,000,000 persons, divided into districts of 40,000, requires 8,000 reps.

Would you rather blunder into another civil war, or reorganize the representative system into Home Districts? This November, as you choose your state rep for the next two years, you should be demanding that your rep comply with his superior Constitution which wants his/her people put into one set of home districts. Such a change will put the reps of the fifty states into the U.S. Congress, thereby eliminating the U.S. Congress that satisfies seven percent of the people.

The U.S. Senate is a disgrace since Amendment XVII was passed in 1913. It is easy to conclude that the senators themselves engineered that passage. When the amendment is rescinded, and home districting is accomplished, the people of the local districts will finally be in charge for the first time in the nation’s history.

One  more detail is apropos: Once the home district idea is established, each local county government, or its counterpart, should be put in complete charge of a district’s administration. The district and its boundaries should not be administered by a rep or any combination of reps.  

The U.S. Constitution Failed For Two Reasons

The purpose of the U.S. Constitution was, and still is, to create a republic of the several States.  We persist in that dream.  The reality is that it is only a dream. The Constitution exists in our consciences, and in our determination to make the dream come true.

In today’s world, the language of the Constitution is too soft, too suggestive of what might be thought of as preferences rather than obligations. For example, it says that a Congressional District of under 30,000 people might be unnecessarily small.  Another example, for a more perfect union, the people should be divided into districts that are equal in population. And a third example, the officialdom of the federation should be chosen by a collegiate body of reps.

These brief words having broad implications are all right there in the original Constitution. The Founders were state delegations issuing instructions to each other.  If they had implemented their Constitution in the same seriousness as they wrote it, we would not be in the political mess we are in today.

Instead of the Constitution’s Congressional District of about 40,000 persons,  today’s district has 700,000 persons. That’s over twenty times the community size that the Founders originally chose. We have allowed Congressmen to conspire together and corrupt shapes and sizes of Congressional Districts to the point that once they achieve name recognition on the ballot, they have life tenure. The cry for term limits would not be necessary if each local community were controlling its own rep. County election departments where a district is located, should be setting up these districts.

Further, every local community has been forced into the arms of Democrats and Republicans and others who hold political conventions that contravene the Constitution’s Electoral College conventions.  These partisans will lose their influence, once the district size is returned to “something over 30,000.”

Partisans have embedded themselves in the county elections process by choosing who shall be on the partisan primary election ballot. The only reason that they are able to do this is because the original district obscenely multiplied in size. The Electoral College has been much maligned by the partisans because it is the alternative to partisanship.  The two are mutual enemies. If the Founders’ Constitution were being truly implemented, there would be no need for political parties. All elections would be local ones where the people have other ways of deciding how to vote.  We are able to choose a dentist, mayor, sheriff, grocer, repairman, spouse, or pastor, all without the help from a political party. The community network is more trustworthy.

Voters manage their local elections without the rancor and hatred that partisans incite in national elections. Local elections should be electing the reps. The entire federation of fifty-one governments is on the shoulders of those reps. They are the elites, the paid professionals who have the full responsibility. The grassroots voters pass judgment on them every two years.

What are the two reasons the Constitution has failed?  (1) It failed to achieve the true Congressional District, the one that organizes all the people into one set of home districts whose reps rule all fifty-one governments of the federation. And (2) It failed to control partisanship by continuously monitoring the proper size that a Congressional District should be in order to keep it locally controlled.

Let’s assume that the Founders and their Constitution wanted their Congressional district to be like a home district by which the people could have their more perfect union.  Let’s assume that their primary goal was to establish a workable federation among what are now fifty-one governments; and that all of these governments were to be run by one set of reps on call from their respective Governors and President.

Let’s accept our share of the guilt for not properly implementing the Constitution. Our perspective is far more intelligent than that of 13 scared and doubtful states of 1789. So long as the Constitution is not properly implemented, everybody shares the guilt for not getting it properly implemented.

The State Reps should feel the guiltiest of all for perpetrating a districting hoax on their people. They have a duty to reconcile their inferior constitutions to the superior Constitution which calls for equalized districting throughout the land. And it is their obligation to help establish a workable federation of states. 

The United States Senate Is an Imposter of Questionable Origin

For the first hundred-twenty years, this senate fulfilled its constitutional purpose. But a mysterious Amendment XVII found its way into the Constitution in 1913.  It stated simply that senators are now to be elected by the people, totally ignoring that there is no constitutional mechanism for electing them by the people.

The people already had their representatives over in the U.S. House. If the senators no longer wanted to represent their state governments, there was no place for them in the Founders’ scheme of government.  Senators had made themselves irrelevant and without purpose. 

This amendment torpedoed all pretense that a Constitution had federated anything.  Rather, it starkly revealed that we-the-people were now living in Washington, D.C.’s Empire of States, and that this empire would be setting its own course.

Since 1789, when the States demonstrated an inability to set up a working federation, the Constitution has been doomed. Its only purpose was to create the federation.  Since no workable federation has ever been created, neither is the Constitution workable. It’s like passing a law without an enforcement clause. Their fates were inextricably intertwined.  The only relevance either one now has is as idealistic goals. 

The  political climate prior to the election of 2014 appears to be contemptuous more of the Democrats than of the Republicans.  The great political center that fringe groups love to hate, may be about to get another chance to show that they stand for something.  If so, do Republicans have the gumption to lead the great political center through the reforms we must accomplish?

First.  Every community of 40,000 needs its own home district rep. This means that the U.S. House of Representatives shall have 8,000 reps. Those reps will also sit in their respective State Assemblies.  As electoral colleges, they will elect the officials of their respective states plus those in D.C.  As members of their state governments, they will choose U.S. Senators.  Their local county governments will be in charge of setting up their districts for them.  Reps will probably cluster at work stations close to their homes and continue being good community citizens.

Second. State Senates should be composed of delegates from each county government.

Third. The registered voters will vote as usual in all local elections.  What will be different, is that representative government puts local district reps in charge of state and national elections.  They are our chosen elites and will administer the Constitution and the fifty-one federated governments in our behalf.

Do these three things, and all the grief and despair surrounding the failed Constitution and Federation will be over.  After setting up the wonderful system, what shall the people do with it?  There must be something better to do with it than to punish the achievers and reward the non-achievers.  Why not offer to everybody the opportunity to work hard and be proud of one’s self? Why not try to create such an abundance of goods that we are forever grateful.

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In reality, all of the representative districts into which voters were registered had lost their local bases, and therefore their purposes.  By 1913, the sizes of all representative districts had been expanded to the point that local communities were turning to Republicans and Democrats to take over the running of the representative system. 

This was the opening the U.S. Senators were looking for as they quietly made their move to also dump their constitutional status.  It did not matter that Amendment XVII provided no mechanism for their election by the people.  Democrats and Republicans had become the new election mechanism and would improvise new balloting.

No true history has been written, of the successive blunders which have brought the electorate to its present demise. The Founders wanted us to have our own community representative.  So why do we have five?  They wanted us to select the rep from among our friends and neighbors.  So why do our ballots list mostly strangers from far away as our choices? I am constantly making choices of who to deal with.  Why can’t my voting choices be equally intelligent? If voting is no more than flipping a coin, why vote? That must be why national elections    in equalized voting districts. We are as happy as a bunch of morons for all the meaningless voting opportunities. Meanwhile, we have allowed our nation to drift into the hands of gangsters, except that we would not know such a gangster if we saw one handing out candy. 

State Governments are totally to blame for this mess. The opposing political gangs of the red states and blue states are in no mood for reorganizing their people into home districts. Nor are they interested in giving up their electoral power to any elite group of reps organized into electoral colleges. However, it may be possible to take another route to home districting and electoral college elections.

Suppose the Republican Party decided to do the right thing in behalf of all the freedom loving agricultural, mining, manufacturing, and commercial workers of America.  Suppose they simply wrote off all the tax leeches such as teachers and postal workers who thrive on the income tax.  Suppose they encouraged good people in every way to help with the local politics of direct democracy, thereby building a strong base of local reps from local home districts.  Suppose they fully supported everybody’s right to work at free market wages.  Suppose they promised every school age child his/her voucher share of all school tax moneys. Suppose they held every parent responsible for the welfare of every child.  Suppose all public assistance were placed into the care of locally elected officials.

Just as soon as they decide the proper size of “a people’s home district,” then register their voters into one national grid of home districts, their people can thumb their noses at Democrats and Republicans.  But will these opposing political gangs of the red states and blue states be willing to bury the hatchet and negotiate? One standard home districting system that replaces Republicans and Democrats with Electoral Colleges on a standard home district? with each other to create a people’s home district system? Two chicks were fighting over a worm, when a hawk spied them.  That hawk is gangster government.

The Original Constitution Was Improperly Implemented

The people of the United States do not know how to set up a representative system of governing.  They have never been able to do so.  If they had pondered the uses of the congressional district more extensively, they would have solved the puzzle.

The Constitution of 1789 was an adequate governing instrument. It was to guide persons in setting up a workable federation of states. Since the Constitution did not succeed in creating the federation, it has reverted to a cherished and revered document whose state government enforcers have no power to enforce it. The Supreme Court became the fall-back cajoler as it has whimsically opined about it.

What would have succeeded in creating a real, genuine, working federation of states? Answer: If the States will ever show the good sense to adopt a single standard set of  h o m e  d i s t r i c t s  for all their people, their people will be able to operate all fifty-one governments with one set of reps.

Instead, the districting mess the States have contrived is unbelievably redundant. It creates reps for humungous, useless districts with all manner of pecking orders. Yet States are somehow unable to create a single local rep that serves one local community. Ironically, it is the State Governments who have tied their own hands. For over two centuries, they have failed to see the original congressional district as their key to federation.

Constitutionally, the grassroots voters were to directly operate their local governing districts, up through the County level governments.  At that point, grassroots voters were to turn over all governing of the federation, including the nomination and election of its officers, to their elected reps. However, reps have abused their freedom to set district sizes and boundaries. Counties should be supervising the setting up and maintenance of the boundaries of these districts.

Suppose the fifty State Governments decided to do themselves a favor.  Suppose they all just happened to adopt the same 40,000 size HOME DISTRICT. Suppose they repealed Amendment XVII, and restored the original U.S. Senate.  State officials would be swarming over Washington, D.C.  D.C. would be theirs.

Reform Number One:

Whereas, there are fifty-one constitutions with fifty-one unique organizations of the electorate in a nation that is trying to become more united;

And whereas, the Founders thought their proposed government’s success depended upon a single set of equally populated districts of about 40,000 each;  

And whereas, the reps from those districts have engaged in boundary wars that have created personal fiefdoms;

And whereas, each district rep has arbitrarily enlarged his domain to 700,000 each, thereby depriving sixteen other local communities of their reps;

And whereas, local electorates have been forced away from their locally derived reps and into unwanted partisan activities;

Now therefore, we demand that our respective States shall reconcile their inferior constitutions’ to the superior constitution that they have all signed. And that, having done that, they fill the seats of the U.S. House of Representatives with the exact same reps who fill the seats of their State Assemblies.

Reform Number Two:

Whereas, this nation operated for over a century with a U.S. Senate composed of reps from state governments;

And whereas, this nation has operated since 1913 with a U.S. Senate composed of reps from state partisan organizations, thanks to Amendment XVII;

And whereas, the on-the-job loyalty of U.S. Senators underwent a major shift;

Now therefore, Amendment XVII must be repealed and the Founders’ purpose for senators restored.  States, likewise, should have counties filling their senate seats.

Reform Number Three:

Whereas, the intent of the Electoral College was to have a more elite body of electors choosing all the executives officers of the new federation;

And whereas, fifty-one sets of officers will be elected by such assemblies;

And whereas, the reps themselves as electors may need some constitutional latitude to organize and do their jobs properly;

Now therefore, be it resolved that the electorate step out of the way and allow their elected reps complete autonomy in the selection of the executive officers with whom they will be working (and/or impeaching) during their respective terms in office.

The above three reforms will, for the first time in our history, create a workable federation of states governed by approximately 8,000 home districted reps.  Each two-year-term rep will be bossed by his/her district’s majority rule. Their local county election departments will manage the process. 

No membership in any partisan organization will be required for voting at any opening of the polls. The reps will be in a working relationship with their district constituents at all times, whether in their electoral activities or in subsequent legislative activities.

The “Congress” referred to by the Founders in their Constitution was a theoretical body of “people’s representatives” plus “representatives of the States.” Since such a body had not yet been created, Its various possibilities were still in limbo at the end of the Constitutional Convention.  The Northern States and Southern States and little states and big states, all had reasons to fear each other in any power sharing arrangement. But they feared outside nations even more. What they ended up creating was neither horse nor donkey, but an unviable mule. The one more perfect union of people needs a more perfect union of governing reps.

What a great day it will be in America, when the people are able to send to Washington, D.C. the same officials who run their state governments. We will finally have transformed contentious governing into coordinated governing.

Western Civilization can be saved by its counties

The political craziness that infects Washington, D.C. and so many state governments , cannot devastate the ordinary county government.  By some stroke of fate, counties have geographical boundaries surrounding optimum numbers of people.  Those optimum numbers can operate a successful direct democracy.  Those optimum numbers also just happen to be quite capable of organizing a local, self-sustaining economy.  Each county has its own version of who is rich or poor, or who is successful or failing.  Each county has its own ideas  about how to deal with its differences among people.

When push comes to shove, a county’s borders are easily crossed. One is free to move in or move out.  Counties should be where personal liberty comes to terms with forces of government. One county could become a haven for one way of life. Another county might attract another way of living.  A greater autonomy should be permitted among county legal systems.  The States and Washington, D.C. have usurped too much authority over what people in their own counties should be deciding for themselves.  Telling others how they must live, just because you can, is inexcusable.  The county is the best place to sort these matters out.

Counties should be ultimately responsible for the success of the representative system of government.  Counties should be originating the home districts which should be producing the reps which should be ruling the Federation of States.  Counties are the saviors of the people from the evils of partisan government.  Western Civilization is being destroyed by the evils of partisan government.

It is the evils of partisan government that prevents inter-state negotiations that will define the standard home district.  Without a standard home district, we are a dis-united people in a doomed and dying system.

The More Perfect Union of Home Districts, Term Limits, and Nonpartisanship

This union of states was clobbered together.  Even In this 21^st Century, it is still just clobbered together. The union that was expedient in 1789 has drifted along with little self-analysis. Its scant three million people have become over three hundred million people.  We are a nation whose collective conscience is full of contradictions.  Although all voices should be equal, religious organizations cower in fear at all the intimidations thrown at them by political organizations.

All voters are cruelly placed in multiple state and federal districts, all of which are far too large.  Such a complicated system drives the voter into partisanship and despair.  We have always governed ourselves quite well within our local communities. But our attempts to organize local communities into a nation state deserve a grade of D-.  

A local community can easily elect one of its reputable leaders to represent it in the legislative halls of a nation state.  But no, states cannot understand what their U.S. Constitution means by ordering one set of equalized districts. That one set of reps can handle the entire representative system of the people.

What are political parties, really, but self-organized gangs which have embedded themselves into our system.  They are the natural enemies of Electoral Colleges. Political parties will lose their influence just as soon as every local community has its own rep, and that rep collegiately nominates and elects all the officers associated with the federation of states.  It works like this:

A local community of 40,000 people chooses one of its leaders to represent it for a two year term.  Constitutionally, that rep is the community’s only contact with the federal system. That rep joins with fellow reps to nominate and elect all elective state officials.  That rep joins with fellow reps to nominate and elect all elective federal officials. That rep joins with fellow reps to run the state’s legislative assembly.  That rep joins with fellow reps to run the house of congress. After two years, the local community evaluates that rep at the polls. A county government chooses its state senator, and thereby creates a state senate. A state government chooses its federal senator, and thereby creates a federal senate. The local community chooses a rep, and thereby creates two electoral colleges plus two houses of representatives.  The people sit back and relax, confident that they can make adjustments every two years. It is their civil right to do this but their states will not allow it. The Founders created a civil right to a home district.

Instead, states force every household of every local community to have five reps, two of which are statewide. The other three are from humungous districts, all having different ranks and pecking orders. The local congressional district, for example, has 700,000 people, up from its original 40,000 people.

If States continue refusing to equalize and standardize their people into one set of home districts, some force is going to set up its own system.  That force will be beyond any orderly control.  State governments and their people have everything to gain, and nothing to lose by acting before such a force takes over.    

This orderly change makes the term limit problems go away. Dependency on Democrats and Republicans goes away. Big money and big press also lose their influence. The home district is the congressional district but with a different name.  If everybody were assigned to a home district of 40,000 (the original size of the Founders’ district), their eight thousand reps would rule everything above the county government level. 

This collection of personal consciences would become the nation’s conscience. The poll takers would be constantly probing that conscience.  Together, they would become a mutual education society, enabling both the reps and their poll takers to act more intelligently.  The nation’s pulse would be on constant display.

The federal constitution is superior to state constitutions.  Where a state’s constitution conflicts with it, the federal one should prevail. The goal of having a more perfect union calls for one uniform set of districts, not fifty one odd ball sets of districts into which our states have put us.   We-the-people are psychologically tortured over voting decisions we should not have to make. All because the States do not know how to set up and run the federation of their dreams.

Direct democracy by the people manages local communities very well.  The federal system should be using representative democracy. The voters step aside and allow their reps to run the system.  But States have never agreed on the common grid of local districts that can run the entire federation. Where there is no vision, the people suffer. Our federation has remained inert. The fifty states are strangely allied with their nation state, all being too stupid to federate.

When States structured their double system of representation in 1789, they created a districting mess. We are not two bodies politic.  We are one body politic being forced by our states to act as if we were two bodies politic.  It would be so simple to set up a grid of equal local districts and allocate them among the states. The reps produced by that one grid are the sum total of all the reps needed to run the federal system from the county level up the pyramid. 

Gigantic egos, putting themselves first, stand in the way of doing it. Only submissive egos allow gigantic egos to stand in the way.

Let’s get our ducks all in a row and synchronize this system into the federation it should be.  Even with home districting the reps should not set or adjust boundaries. That job belongs to the counties in which the districts are located.  Counties know their fractional share of the total population and can work with adjoining counties in setting up and managing these home districts.

Let’s get our double lawmaking out of its constant stream of jurisdictional disputes in the courts.  The delegates who signed the Constitution went back home unaware that they had agreed to home districting.  They were all thinking inside their own little boxes.  That has not changed.  

Ask any State Rep about this.  The answer you will get goes something like this: ”I took an oath to abide by my constitution which has its own districting system.” These state reps see no need to abide by a superior constitution.  They are caught up in the same schizophrenia that forces one body politic to act as if it were two.

The U.S.A. A nation of dependant children, who vote

This nation is being drained of its resources by persons with the economic intelligence of a fifth-grade child.  We are like a family of two parents who have turned over all money management to their three grade school children.  The family has mistakenly given all five of its members equal voting power.  Mom and Dad get outvoted at every turn.  Although Mom and Dad know how to bring money into the family and how to parcel out its expenditure, the kids are able to override Mom’s and Dad’s decisions.

The majority of voters have the economic intelligence of fifth grade children. Among all the political exhortations from our claptrap educationists, nobody seems to get around to saying something about “educating children about economic competence.”

Do you know what would happen if the claptrap educationists actually taught the honest version of production economics?  Those kids would grow up and begin asking the questions that seems never to be asked: “What are you claptrap educationists doing over on the governing side of the economic equation? You belong over on the production side among those of us producers who want to take home more of our earnings for our own uses.  Why aren’t you earning your money the same way the rest of us must earn ours?  If you were, you’d begin thinking the same way we do about keeping the tax bite low.”

Economic literacy and political literacy go hand in hand, just in case you’ve been wondering why the U.S.A. is being dragged back into poverty by its rulers. We have been conned for a hundred years about ways big government can decrease poverty.  If big government would get its taxes off the backs of its local communities and let little governments deal with the same problems on a local basis, huge tax costs and much political strife would simmer down.

The county system of governing dates back to the Magna Charta (freedom document) of 1215 at Runnymeade Island in England. Our ever-reliable counties of the U.S.A. could operate the federal system, instead of relying on the plethora of unequal, and wrangling, districts we are now using.  We have never given the Founder’s Congressional District a fair chance.  How the counties could do it is a subject for another blog.

Two clashing economies, one slave - one free

Humanity prospers according to its ability to produce.  If humanity were so lovingly perfect that they needed no government at all, everybody would be engaged in some form of productive activity.  All human attitudes would be directed toward organizing production for the greater good of all humanity.

The monetary system would develop in much the same manner as the one we now have, except that its flow would be more spontaneous and voluntary with no governments taking bites out of the production.

Humanity can, and does, voluntarily organize into all manner of groupings such as family, church, and school.  America has led the world in voluntary organizations among business enterprises, in addition to family, church, and school.

Governments are involuntary, and are brought into the human condition to protect mankind from the predations or certain others of mankind.  It is only when family, church, school, and business organizations are unable to reconcile all persons to conventional disciplines, that governments must be established.

The orneryness of one or two percent of humanity is what necessitates “governing,”  Once a government camel gets its head into the tent, the entire tent of civilization is vulnerable.  When humanity must resort to force, it is an admission of some one’s failure.  Somehow, the ninety-eight percent should remain free from the involuntary actions that government imposes.

Childhood education is a case in point.  Humanity has turned to government for the education of its children.  Apparently, this means that family, church, school, and business organizations are unable to work voluntarily together to allow their children to grow up in a climate of freedom.  By fifth grade in government schools, most children have set up “defensive mechanisms” to survive the dictates of government curricula.  

Children’s inborn curiosities are blunted.  They become children of dictatorships. Their teachers must join the dictatorships in order to be teachers.  The “education economy” expands the tax structure enormously. When a government dollar buys something, that something costs three times as much as when a private dollar buys something. How much of the knowledge of a fifteen-year-old comes from the expertise of a government-paid teacher?  Perhaps fifteen percent?  Suppose both the child and teacher were working in an entirely voluntary system of childhood education. And suppose that the parent-teacher-child relationship became more voluntary.

Can education be quantified?  Public educators are constantly measuring it.  Why?  Do we know enough about what one needs to learn in order to take its measure?  Everybody is different.  Government is given “rights” to “educate” children.  It is the height of folly.  Such resorting to governing is an admission that no voluntary group can do it as well.  That’s poppycock. What are we trying to perpetuate, our rich and many sided cultures, or a tyrannical government bent on standardizing a slave system?