Spies, Lies, and an Ungoverned Government

I was looking for something else and found a press release I’d sent out December 22, 2017 (that of course never got ink or airtime).
I think with all the new excuses to track, trace, monitor, test, inject and regulate us, along with yet another anti-constitutional “reauthorization” of FISA, we’re looong past due for this now:

It’s time to talk about our spies

Freedom, IN – ♬♪ They see you when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake; they know when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! ♩♫

Our US Congress is considering re-authorization of the unconstitutional mass surveillance programs we were once told didn’t exist. I say it’s time for what some might call a “courtesy flush.” The corruption, destruction and stench of our lawless, secretive societal saboteurs has grown too great.

The FBI was, from its start in 1935, corrupt, snooping, deceitful, and deadly. Truman regretted creating the CIA, and Kennedy said he would “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds” (right before he was assassinated). The CIA developed the first spying engine of the NSA; and we know that agency has been anti-constitutionally spying on all of us, and has repeatedly lied about it.

You know the saying, “Knowledge is Power?”

Consider the power of unlimited, unregulated spying, lying, and political immunity, mixed with armed force and the best technology.  Imagine you had the power to find out everything about people, convincingly make up what you don’t find, or make even powerful people, maybe even in our own country, die…without facing any consequences.

What government on the planet wouldn’t abuse that power? We have good reason to believe that a government that performed medical experiments on school kids, doesn’t even resist abusing it.

Does such knowledge and power actually control our elected politicians?

This is what people are talking about with the term, “deep state.”

So-called “federal” agencies’ famous rivalries, withholding of data, rejection of congressional oversight, their anti-constitutional actions against citizens, media and foreign governments, and their trampling of local law enforcement really do make them more enemy than friend.

The greatly abused Title VII, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is set to expire December 31.  Of course Congress should let it die and tumble back into the sulphurous depths it came from.

But I further propose we abolish the FBI and CIA, and give their money back to the states and people.  I would reinforce the constitution’s already clear ban on domestic spying, deception and subterfuge, and leave all domestic law enforcement to more local, appropriate units of government, and already-constitutionally authorized courts.

I would propose that the US Congress directly manage our foreign spy operations under specific congressional warrants and limitations, including the Geneva Conventions.

“… we want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.” — Harry S. Truman

 

 

The TRUTH about Excelsior…on Amazon

My brother Greg published a book about three years ago.  I don’t think of myself as particularly competitive, but doggone it, I couldn’t let him beat me!  So I wrote one too.

He also has a website for both his book, and a bunch of stories from my mom (she wrote and illustrated some hilarious stuff).

…Anyway, The Truth about Excelsior is now available in paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0849X45LQ?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860.

I don’t like the way it looks as an eBook, but I’ll likely publish that, too, in a couple of weeks or so.  It’ll be cheaper, of course.

But since some stuff gets lost in the eBook version, I’m resisting it as long as I can.

The blurb is, “Far more than the usual fanciful tale of precocious children, fire-breathing dragons, disastrous monetary policy and World War, “The Truth about Excelsior” offers a unique perspective on today’s cultural madness, and a glimpse into a world of peace, prosperity and …freedom.”

I mean it to be fun, but you know me…I had to insert some serious stuff in there, too.

Anyway, let me know what you think of it…and if you like it, tell everybody, and leave a review!

Indiana’s ballot access/primary election laws are unconstitutional and corrupt

We’ve been so systematically and trans-generationally deceived about the recent, unconstitutional, corrupt, self-appointed “Two Party System” that it’s understandably hard to believe the truth.  I’ve laid out my case several times in the past, but it’s worth trying again.  This time I’ll just lay out the facts and try (try…I really will try) to avoid pontificating.

Please read the following and come to your own conclusions.  If they’re different from mine, let me know what you think I’ve got wrong.  But if you agree with me…won’t you consider rising to action?

 

Facts:

Candidate caste system:

Indiana Code has in the past forty years created seven separate classes of candidates respecting ballot access, as well as for other increasingly divergent privileges, powers, immunities and liabilities under “law.”[i]

1. The “Major Political Parties” defined by IC § 3-5-2-30, and by which there can only be two, is by far the most empowered class. Only MPPs can have poll clerks, election sheriffs and other election officers, and have members on election-related commissions.  MPPs have the easiest, and in most cases, automatic ballot access in at least one election per cycle.  Few races require ballot signatures.  Only MPPs have actual ruling power granted to them (for example, appointment to the Indiana Election Commission IC § 3-6-4.1-2, Recount Commission, etc.).   At present and for the foreseeable future (see #2 below), only MPPs get the extra public exposure, debates, taxpayer paid promotion and primary elections to put the imprimatur of legitimacy and favorable odds on their candidates.  To be crystal clear – the MPPS are exactly and only the Democratic and Republican parties – which are, in Indiana, only recently incorporated (Indiana GOP incorporated in 2005) quasi-chapters of the national, private 527 corporations.
2. The second class defined by IC § 3-10-1-2 is hypothetical, since it would be any non-MPP political parties whose candidate for Secretary of State received at least ten percent of the votes cast in the previous election. That’s not just a difficult thing to achieve for a “third party;” it’s an odd, artificial goal for a political party where other offices would be considered much more important and ideologically relevant.  While no such parties exist in Indiana, second-class parties could have precinct committeemen, and participate in publicly funded primary elections.
3. Members of the Indiana Libertarian Party are the only people to have made the third class of citizens.  They have automatic ballot access by having maintained at least 2% of the General Election vote in the Secretary of State Race.  In some ways, third-class people have the easiest path to getting on the General Election ballot.  But they cannot participate in primary elections, or have the officers/organizational advantages and governing powers of the MPPs or 2nd-class parties.
4. In 1993, IC § 3-5-2-5.5 created the class, “Bona fide political party.” This includes the first-through-third classes, but also grants another class that allows a party its own poll watchers, and provides it certain election/voter-related information.  It is very difficult for them to get on the General Election ballot even in local races, as their hurdles are very greatly higher than the 3rd-class citizens’.  Their ability to participate in elections (debates, media, any public exposure), either General or Primary, is extremely limited.
5. All other political parties fall in the 5^th-ranked citizen class. There are many of these, but entirely out of the public view except in local races or as write-in candidates.
6. Independent candidates cannot possibly participate in primary elections, even if they can overcome the obstacles both put in their way, and doubled in severity through the past thirty years (double the ballot signature requirements for example). Independent candidates face more hurdles than even 5^th-ranked citizens, in some ways.
7. Write-in candidates are those who failed to meet the requirements for ballot access in any of the previous classes, though there is overlap with the 5^th and 6^th-ranked classes. Though it’s not supposed to happen, votes for such candidates have often been thrown out in my experience (my own write-in votes, for example).  It’s very unlikely that these candidates would ever be listed in any candidate information guides, let alone be able to participate in candidate debates and media interviews.

 

Primary Elections:

The primary election system in the USA was promoted by the “Progressive” movement (they were NOT Democrats then!).  The first statewide primary election was in Florida, in 1899; but not all states have them for all elections even today.  Most states didn’t until the 1970’s, when their importance and power to the Democratic and Republican parties increased dramatically.  The point here being that primary elections are recent inventions…not at all part of the constitutional design, or even universal today.

1. IC § 3-5-1-2 defines the purpose of primary elections to choose the following:
   1. The candidates who will be the nominees of a political party for elected offices in a general or municipal election.
   2. The precinct committeemen of a political party.
   3. The delegates to a political party’s state convention.
2. IC § 3-5-3-7 (and others) require that taxpayers bear the full cost of primary elections.
3. Primary elections provide benefits (debates, public exposure/advertising, listing in election reference sources half a year before other candidates) to only participant candidates and parties, which creates both relative and absolute disadvantages to all other candidates and parties.
4. “Blanket primaries,” which offer the most options/choice to voters in selecting candidates, have not existed since 2003, when the SCOTUS decided that primary elections are for parties allowed to participate in primaries, and not for voters.
5. Many candidates have no primary challenger. In these cases primary elections serve only the purpose of promoting candidates; not selecting them.
6. The whole purpose of a political campaign is to gain public exposure and the imprimatur of legitimacy offered in debates, public media and recent expectations of a “Two Party System.” The extended campaign cycles resulting from taxpayer-funded primary elections are worth more promotion money than most candidates can ever raise.

Issue: Indiana’s Constitution plainly forbids the separate classes of citizens under law.  The violation of Article I Section 23 by Indiana’s election/ballot laws provides benefits to only the politically favored class, and at the expense of everyone else.  The unconstitutional Indiana Code that created and maintains the anti-competitive entrenchment allows only Democrats and Republicans to write the rules, enforce the rules, and count the votes…all at taxpayer expense.

Rule: The Indiana Constitution’s Article I Section 23: “The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.”

Summary: Article I Section 23 was enacted largely to prevent corruption, anti-competitive favoritism, and government-entrenched monopolies.   Indiana’s recent election-related codes reward corruption through institutionalized favoritism and government-entrenched monopolies.

So, we need a court case.  Maybe an amicus brief.  Maybe ask for summary judgment.  If we had enough people to make it happen, a big honking jury trial with plaintiffs and damages and media and a movie starring only liberty-leaning stars from Hollywood to Bollywood.  But more likely, a multi-step legal challenge in Indiana (where we’ve got just about the worst ballot access rules, but one of the very best state constitutions) where we’d almost certainly lose the first round, but end up in the state Supreme Court with a more publicly visible, and maybe even winning case against what plagues us all.

But that’s up to you.  Whatever we do, we need more people than just me fighting this.

 

[i]Article I Section 25 nullifies any Indiana law depending upon any authority but the Indiana Constitution: “No law shall be passed, the taking effect of which shall be made to depend upon any authority, except as provided in this Constitution.”  If there can be no such law, there can be no judgment or executive action favoring laws that cannot legally exist.  Article I Section 25 is an absolute ban on any government action exceeding the limits prescribed by the state’s constitution.

A Modest Proposal to End The Madness

So perhaps now we can all agree that today’s Powers That Be – the self-appointed “Two Party System” that’s been expanding its powers unchallenged since WWII, is a destructive, unjust, wholly corrupt, costly, devolved-to-garden-slug embarrassment.

It’s also unconstitutional, in case anybody still cares about that.

I propose a solution.  Let’s end it.

Yeah, we have lots of problems for which I suppose we all have some solutions.  But I think this is one we can agree on:

The two private clubs called the Democratic and Republican parties have been left alone with power in a dark room for too long.  The system is broken, and it’s not going to fix itself.

While the phrase has been repeated innumerable times in declarations, constitutions, speeches and laws, it’s not entirely true that “all men are created equal.”  Some humans want to rule, too many are too eager to be ruled, and only a few of us don’t want any part of this follow-the-alpha tribalism and strife.

But everyone should be equal under the law.  No special deals, no special people, tribes, classes, castes or clans with respect to governance.  Every human gets the same deal when it comes to treatment by cops, judges, legislators, executives, bureaucrats, and…ballot access laws.

That sort of equality is law under both state and federal constitutions.

Indiana’s constitution says it well in Article I, Section 23: “The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.”

I’ll cut to the chase scene – The Democratic and Republican Parties are private, 527 “nonprofit,” and unreasonably tax-exempt and unaccountable organizations that never should’ve been allowed to grant themselves special powers, immunities, privileges and ballot access unavailable to any other people.  They’ve become a single crony network of corruption and destruction so costly, profligate and deceitful that you have to lie to yourself pretty hard and repetitiously to excuse this mess or fall for the lies any longer.

I’ll not bother to cite specifics here (that I’d be happy to beat to death if you ask), but just for example, there is no way possible for an independent candidate to get on Indiana’s primary ballot.  It’s almost always automatic for (D) and (R) candidates – but totally impossible for independents.  It’s not impossible for other party’s candidates to get on the primary ballot – but it’s so much more difficult than the (D) and (R) special access that no other party can do it.  Only (D) and (R) parties can have precinct committeeman.  And critically/absurdly, no other party’s members can be on most election-related commissions.

In short, only the members of two private, unaccountable and tax-free groups have colluded to grant themselves actual powers of government in violation of both constitutional rule of law, and fundamental principles of justice.

Indiana is among the three or four worst states in terms of unconstitutional ballot restriction and partisan chicanery.  And among these worst states, Indiana has the best constitution.

So, here’s what I propose:  An Indiana state court case to remove all special classes of people for ballot access, and fulfill the terms of state and federal constitutions, and fundamental fairness.  Same rules, no exceptions for anybody or any group.  Simple.  It’s already the law.

All we need is people.

We need people to help organize protests, write letters, gain media attention, occupy social media, and help bring a constitutional challenge to the Indiana Supreme Court.  Money would help, too, of course.  We need people willing to do at least a little for at least one of these actions.

We need to build and activate a focused political campaign team.

Not a lot of effort from any one person, hopefully; but it would be focused on a single goal of changing Indiana’s ballot access laws to declaw/defang/de-stink Indiana’s self-appointed “Major Political Parties,” and break their stranglehold on Indiana politics and media.

It’ll be fun, wholesome and successful if we gather a crew of focused people and build some momentum.

Whether you approve of the results or not, you’ve got to hand it to the LGBT movement.  They very quickly overturned centuries of law and social practice with determination and focus.  And that movement is focused on a low-single-digit percentage of the society.

How could we be less successful when our fundamental laws and centuries of judicial reasoning are already on our side, and everyone would benefit?  …Everyone.

Come on.  I know a lot of hard core Democratic and Republican faithful who admit this train has gone off the rails.  You do too, right?

Who’s up for this?

Tribalism Sucks

Unless you wear a MAGA hat to bed, you know our government is headed in the wrong direction.  Unless you’re crazy, you know our government is corrupt.  Unless you’re a genuinely rotten person, you want much, much more peace, prosperity, security, and doggone it…freedom, for both yourself, and all your fellow citizens.

But unless you’re in the less-than-10% (typically more like 3-4%) who ever vote for third party or independent candidates, you chose this complicated, legalistic/ rule-fraught, unfair, dysfunctional and globally violent corruption. All of it.

I don’t mean to be an insulting knowitall, but this is very simple in a nation with elections:

Either you use your power of peaceful revolution to oppose what’s not working and replace it with new guards for our future security, or you’re actually supporting the bad guys. If you’re not actively firing the bad guys with your vote, you’re as much as hiring them; either by direct choice, or in vapid inaction.

Now you may not disagree with that last paragraph. That may be while you’re still reading.

But there’s also simple logic in determining just who the bad guys really are.

And that is likely where 90% of voters will disagree.

Our constitutions were written in large part to prevent politicians from granting “to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.” (Indiana Constitution Article I Section 23)

This applies to everything political; from fair trade, housing and corporate laws to …ballot access.

Yet everyone with a living brain cell knows that our political scheme is all about special deals for special people.  Politically favored corporations get special rules that ensure protected profits without fear of competition.  Politically favored people get special legal/tax exemptions, or Get Out Of Jail Free cards.

I contend that a fundamental part of the problem is the recent, self-appointed, tribal, monopolistic and genuinely stupid “Two Party System.”

Since WWII, and mostly since the 1970s, and varying state-to-state …ONLY Democrats and Republicans can be on election-related commissions, and have special election status that grants them more money, more ballot access, and more power in government.

Not only have these private clubs granted themselves special powers, but they have also imposed special hurdles and handicaps on any group or individual who’d challenge them.

Most of us understand that if there was by law only one manufacturer of coffee, or shoes, or cars, that costs and quality would be horrendous.  Most of us could imagine that even with two options, there’d soon be so much collusion and price-fixing to squeeze out any other competition that, in effect, there’d really be only one option with two faces.  Many of us disdain the rapidly clotting mergers of media, pharmaceutical and healthcare empires just the way many thought it right to bust up the old monopolies in telephone and power service.

And all of us benefit from the profusion of choices in food, clothing, electronics and other, relatively lightly-regulated industries.

So what’s up with the “Two Party System?”

Not only is it not ordained by constitutions, the Bible or physics, it’s actually anti-constitutional, by both state and federal constitutions.

You’ve got to be blind and deaf to miss the collusion and corruption of this monstrosity. You’d have to be either part of their crony crime ring, or crazy, to actually like this almost-universally-detested tribal ruling class.

But you’d be a rare and precious person to actually vote against it.

I’ll just say it. If you vote for any part, any candidate of the Two Party System, you’re at least sustaining the problem.  Even the best (D) and (R) candidates represent the false hope of fixing a tribal system that doesn’t want to be fixed, and is well-organized against anybody who’d try.

More to the point – if you never vote for any alternatives to the status quo power structure, you ARE the problem. 

All the issues of incumbency – entrenchment of power and money, influence of monied connections, corruption – that goes double for political parties.  While politicians eventually die, their power structures too-often live on…and on…and on.

It’d be simple and easy to fix it all.  But you’d have to:

1. Understand the problem, and

2. Change your choices.  YOUR choices.

Come one, my fellows and friends. We’ve all but ended institutional slavery. We’ve extended the vote to every citizen (both living and dead, along with non-citizens, too…but that’s another story).

Nearly everybody says, “I don’t vote for the party, I vote for the candidate,” and up to now, they’ve mostly been lying.

Nearly everybody says, “Yeah, but look at the choices they give us…” as if we have no choice in that.

Well-over 90% of us keep doing the same stupid thing and never see the connection between bad choices and bad outcomes.

What’s really sad is that there are just as many great people as ever.  Many could be Founding Fathers (and founding mothers and/or non-binary whatevers) of a new and better age; learning lessons of the past and creating a better future.   

It’s just that now such people are pushed aside in favor of body-painted tribal savages and criminal clowns.  Too few ever throw their own hat into the ring, and yet love to complain.

So let’s snap out of that and finally use our votes as intended…as weapons of peaceful, orderly revolution, and end the rule of clans and tribes and gangs at last.

 

It’s up to US to drain the swamp!

If there are flaws in our state and federal constitutions, they are these:

1. There are no specified remedies for violating them. Our founders assumed we’d know (i.e., nullification, impeachment, and …quit reelecting them!), but we clearly do not know!  Not surprising, after a couple hundred years of politicians’ lies.

2. Seemingly equivocal prohibitions against the “whispering down the lane” or “telephone game” judicial/ legislative/bureaucratic corruption of our constitutions by incrementally perverted interpretation.  While the constitutions do clearly say what they say, it’s obvious that with every new case, every new law, every legal argument, there are new divergences from core principles and fundamental laws.  It’s gotten so bad through the past century that instead of consulting the actual words of our constitutions, we now consider previous court decrees as the authoritative law.

So now, politicians assert in court and in practice, that whatever’s not specifically prohibited from politicians, is within their authority.

That is of course opposite of the whole point of constitutions.

Constitutions are to restrain politicians, not citizens.

Despots have for millennia gained power without elections, and made their own rules as they wished.  The USA was supposed to be better than that.

Instead, we’re drowning in corruption.  It’s been too long since there’s been any organized attempt to legitimize and govern our government by the actual words of our federal and state constitutions.

So, about now, the Indiana Election Division should receive the CAN-I candidate filing challenge I signed on July 10.

Besides the fact that it’s an obvious trick to appoint a GOP-insider/swamp incumbent for the next SOS race, there’s a legal problem with the candidacy of incumbent Secretary of State Connie Lawson.  Please note, it has nothing to do with her, personally, and everything to do with corruption of our constitutional Rule of Law:

Article 6, Section 1 of the Indiana Constitution specifies that, “There shall be elected, by the voters of the state, a Secretary, an Auditor and a Treasurer of State, who shall, severally, hold their offices for four years. They shall perform such duties as may be enjoined by law; and no person shall be eligible to either (sic) of said offices, more than eight years in any period of twelve years.” – (As Amended November 3, 1970)

Now, legislators can and do make mistakes.  Frequently.  The word “either” is, for example, a mistake.  But please note these key words and phrases:

“There shall be elected… who shall… hold their offices for four years.”

“…and no person shall be eligible to …said offices, more than eight years in any period of twelve years.”

“Shall” is a strong imperative.  It is not “may hold” or “can, if the law doesn’t prohibit it, hold.”

No, it’s SHALL, as if written in stone tablets.

The word “shall” is in all the key places of “elected,” “hold,” “perform,” and “eligible.”

So, very clearly by the letter and intent of this constitutional term limit, no person shall be eligible for election to a public role they are constitutionally forbidden from performing as mandated in the letter and intent of the law.

The state will of course claim that Lawson’s first term was pro tempore; and that it therefore doesn’t count as a term of office.  But Jerry Bonnet was the actual pro tempore SOS.  Lawson was a full replacement for the ousted Charlie White…and Jerry Bonnet! 

So, no…there is no constitutional excuse for this.

Incumbent Secretary of State Connie Lawson is constitutionally forbidden from performing the specified role in the terms clearly specified in the constitution.

She is an ineligible candidate.  And the GOP is using her situation to hoodwink us.

Again.

I say no.  I’m throwing a flag on this play.

Fearing our own shadow

The Land of The Free has been surrendering freedom hand-over-fist because the Home of The Brave is scared of its own shadow.  Almost literally, its own shadow.

We’ve for generations been the arms dealer and political destabilizer to the world.  Our CIA and armed forces have interfered with elections and even violently taken down one dictator to prop up another for over seventy years.

Our government has lied about its wars, warmongering, entangling alliances and foreign interventions for much longer than that.  Our CIA and NSA have been spying on the whole world, including every person within our own borders, as well as prying into foreign elections (and our own) for long enough that it’s disingenuous to complain about foreign spies and foreign interference in elections…unless we claim we’re the only ones who’re supposed to do all that.

To everybody.

All the time.

Though China is certainly a strong contender – even with its fingers in our sock puppets – We The People are still the most heavily-armed, most globally nannying and bullying, domestically intrusive, imprisoning and militarized nation of all time.

It is our own shadows that both terrify and genuinely threaten us now, and, surprisingly, in the past, too.

You think our soldiers are fighting for freedom?   Which freedom?   How many freedoms must we lose to get that elusive freedom we’re fighting for?   At what financial/future security cost?   At what moral/social spiritual cost?

We have literally reordered and molded our society’s defense/military, monetary and legal and political structure to our collective trembling nerves.   Why?

While nobody ever says it exactly like this, the predominating justification for the USA’s violent, costly Fear-Aggression Syndrome is:

Our past screw-ups necessitate today’s screw-ups.

Rational people can look at the USA’s past mistakes reasonably.  Our government made horrible, murderous, costly mistakes when it was far smaller, less powerful, less secretive, less snooping, and vastly less heavily-armed and militarized both globally, and domestically, than today.  But ironically, the closer we get to the present, the more wrong we call right, and the more we justify today’s wrong by yesterday’s wrong.

We all know that slavery and native genocide was bad.  Only the more educated among us know that the wars against Mexico and Spain were motivated by greed and desire for empire, and had nothing whatsoever to do with protecting American liberties and land.  But very few consider how Teddy Roosevelt stimulated the Empire of Japan and the USA helped create the Soviet Union, however, so we tend to think of WWII as a wholly Good War, where the USA wore white and saved the world for liberty and justice for all.

The point is that, the closer we get to the present, the more our views of USA government become disconnected from reality.
Even after we learned that the Vietnam War was justified on, at best, a screwup, we tend to think of USA government as a benevolent god of peace and love, incapable of wrongdoing (though we keep seeing new wrongdoing every day).

This is a freakishly weird phenomenon.  But it’s also the nature of tribalism and idolatry.  We love our team, and we hate the other guys.  We can’t see the wrong in our idols, teams, champions and leaders, but we know that the other peoples’ idols, teams, champions and leaders are pure evil.

And it’s also just human: People of the past were THEM.  People of today are US.  We can easily admit that our ancestors did horrible, stupid things; but we sure don’t want to admit that, today, right now, WE are screwing up.  We’re blind to our own errors.

In other words, we see the past more clearly than the present.   And we see other sinners more clearly than we see ourselves.

So, as a result, we exemplify, even if unintentionally, the exact opposite of The Golden Rule.

This is self-immolation.   We have so many impending disasters of fiscal, social, monetary and military nature (will it be WWIII when China takes Taiwan and Russia takes Ukraine on the same day?), that we desperately need an epiphany and revolution of heart and mind.

You can’t be the Land of The Free if you’re not the Home of The Brave.   But no nation can survive at all with this kind of stupid.

Realistically, we’re doomed.

All of the most self-defeating things I ever hear begin with something like, “Realistically…”

At least in a political context, whenever I hear words and phrases like “pragmatic,” “the way things are,” and, of course, “realistically,” I know what comes next is a lame rationalization of wrong.

Right?

Instead of saying, “That’s a great dream! Let’s make it happen,” the “realistic” person’s got to say, “realistically, you must choose the ‘lesser of two evils;’” or, “Whoa there; these things take time.  Realistically, you’ve got to ‘take baby steps,’ ‘work within the system,’ and ‘you can’t fight city hall.’”

Even so-called “third parties” concentrate on “winnable” races, even if that means that they sacrifice a statewide televised platform to discuss real differentiating issues.  It also means the most visible races go unchallenged or are contested by lesser candidates who put their party in a bad light.  And, of course, when they do win a “winnable” race, that means it’s such small potatoes that nobody will ever hear about it anyway.

“Realistically,” they’ll say, “you don’t stand a chance.”  “You have to,” they tell me, “play the game.”  “Start at the bottom and work your way up,” they say.

I am pretty certain this is why human civilizations have a 100% failure rate.  There are too many unwitting servants of the status quo, and far too few revolutionaries.  Too many people think like plodding, duty-bound bureaucrats, and too few think like passionate, principled visionaries.

I am sure we have a sufficient number of dreamers if only we’d vote the way we dream… and if we would vote outside the unconstitutional, inherently divisive “Two Party System” that our founders warned against.  Unfortunately, our votes for dream-squashing Powers-That-Be crony puppets outnumber alternatives.  So the cronies all parrot the officially-approved talking points, run the media, and are currently in charge of pretty much everything on the planet.

This so unnecessary, so sad, so self-destructive.

To cave in to odds is to shuffle toward societal collapse.  To accept even mediocrity, let alone “lesser evil,” is to voluntarily, actively, choose failure.  (see aforementioned failure rate)

And that, is a denial of our very real power and accountability to do better.

I’ve spoken to more than a few voters.  I see what they do every Election Day. Collectively, we really did choose exactly what we’ve got.  We’ve chosen badly, and keep re-electing the badly-chosen.

We can’t blame anybody else for that.  But we sure try to.  The “Two Party System,” corruption, lobbyists, and “there ought to be a law” all get blame.  And those things are, granted, terrible. terrible.

But we chose it.  All of it.

And it looks like we’ll do it again this November.

We do this over, and over, and over again.

We never learn.

My enduring hope (and I believe our culture’s only hope) is that we’ll snap out of our madness and choose better.

Now, I do understand the roadblocks.

1. There’s a vast, nearly-diametrically-opposed difference between a good candidate, and a good politician.  We expect a good candidate¹ to be a market phenomenon; sort of like a movie production with a cast of hundreds.  The very “best” candidates are usually much less impressive as individuals than they are as a puppet figurehead/mascot of a team.  You rarely hear or see the politician as a person, actually.  You see a managed message crafted by professional staff.  A good politician, on the other hand, must be an honest, scrupulous statesman; hardly the sort of performance artist who’d be a media hit in this climate…amiright?  The job of a candidate is to get elected and reelected.  The job of a statesman is to serve his fellow humans by holding a leash on that dangerous abstraction we call “politics.”  And that apparently doesn’t sell well today.
2. The best candidates are bought.  We all know it. But we never follow the money and come to the correct conclusions, do we?  In fact, we do the opposite.  We see our candidates in order of odds and money, not in order of principles and actions.  We treat this more like pro sports, and less like real life with you as a key actor.  And that’s at least partly because…
3. All the major media are bought, and not just by the best candidates.  The major media are wholly owned and operated by the same military industrialists, financial services moguls, “information” regulators and political kingmakers that own and operate all the best candidates.  Look at how media and search engines cover campaigns.  Look even at the order in which they list candidates in articles.  It’s not alphabetical, is it?  And try to look for what doesn’t even make it to your eyes and ears.  Almost all of the very best statesmen are rendered invisible and voiceless by our incessant, loud and omnipresent media – both old and new.  Your senses are overloaded by their choices such that you may never get to hear what would be better choices.  That leaves you too numb and worn-out to scour the fine print, rumors and internet threads for better choices.
4. The rules we now call election and campaign finance “laws” were written by all the best candidates, so of course they’re unconstitutional, corrupt, and serve to stifle better options.
5. We don’t want to admit that we’re responsible for our choices, and that our choices really do matter, and that we could change our choices, because that’d be the same as admitting that we’ve screwed up for years!  I get it.  I’ve been there, done that…and in ways I still don’t want to admit.

But now let me describe your opportunity.

1. You get what you choose.  If you choose better, you get better.  If you decide to vote against evil entirely, what’s “lesser” or “greater” won’t matter.  You really do get what you, personally, choose, because you are not as alone as you’ve told yourself.  Not everybody else is an idiot.  More people than you likely think, are thinking, and acting, just like you.  Most people are just looking for somebody else to make the first move.
2. It doesn’t take a majority to change things.  In fact, it has never worked that way.  The passionate few have always determined the course of history.  Always.  The “masses” follow the leader.  That’s how our species, and most others, work.  You want to be among the passionate few?  Then choose to be.  Be a Political Alpha that others can follow.  It’s just another choice.
3. Politicians hire themselves if you let them; we do NOT have elections to hire politicians.  Our founders and prior generations bequeathed all of us (all races, all creeds, all genders…even the new ones) the hard-won right to vote not as a numb approval of the status quo, but as a weapon of peaceful revolution.  You are SUPPOSED TO vote AGAINST some things (evil, entrenched incumbents, bad choices).  You are SUPPOSED TO vote to FIRE the best candidates, and replace them with the best politicians.
4. Picture this.  On a single day in November, you upset the status quo.  Instead of reelecting almost everybody (over 98% of House Reps were reelected last time, you know), you fire almost everybody, and replace them with people who’ve not sold you out.  It’s a choice.  Your choice.  Imagine how bright the sun would shine on that next day when the gobsmacked media pundits realize that you figured it out, and won.  Just picture it.

Would it be so scary to, just for once, use your vote more like a sword than a poker chip? Wouldn’t it be invigorating and wholesome to walk into a voting booth with the Spirit of ‘76?

Realistically, we’re all going to die, and our culture and nation will collapse.  It’s a certainty, actually.  Sooner, or later.

But we choose how we live our precious lives.  We don’t have to keep doing the same things over and over again.   While history demonstrates very well that we humans keep screwing up over and over again, we personally don’t have to.

We can choose.

Don’t we want to strive for a really great life in a great country?  I say let’s dream on that, and make it so.

1A candidate is a corporate abstraction consisting of a figurehead, several key executive members, and a bunch of supporting staff all dedicated to winning elections…often as a full-time job for many campaigns, year after year.   A politician is, when done right, an actual, moral, honest-to-goodness human being who’s trying to make politics the noble art of getting along.

Eight Steps to Success

Here’re my suggestions for Peace, prosperity, Security and Freedom in eight steps:

1. End the cronyism/corruption network and culture.  This is fundamental and critical.  Our government is captured by people and parties who do not share our collective best interests.  So we must bust up the self-appointed, inherently divisive, eternal tug-of-war “Two Party System,” and nullify the recent, unconstitutional, immoral state codes that suppress competition, create classes and sub-classes of citizens, and make taxpayers pay for the promotion of only D and R candidates at the expense of everybody else.  To do this, we need to …vote them out of power.  Not just the individual candidates – the whole power network behind the curtain.  This needs to happen.  And make no mistake…this is not just about the parties themselves, which are really just puppet shows for a much wider, deeper system of cronies that we scarcely see.  We won’t get anywhere trimming the claws of kingmakers, bundlers, lobbyists, permanent staffers and eternal bureaucrats without first replacing the 2-party puppet show and firewall that prevents us from doing the rest of what follows:
2. Stand down our military-industrial complex and global imperialism, and replace it with strong, constitutional national defense.  This of course includes killing the CIA/NSA monster to which Eisenhower also referred to in his famous Farewell Address as the “scientific-technological elite.”  Besides, we’ve been misidentifying real dangers.  China is already in a very effective, winning war against us, and we apparently don’t even know it.  Hopefully their internal problems will lessen the danger soon, because it is the worst, in my opinion, this nation has ever faced.
3. Monetary/banking reform.  Click the link for details.  I wish this could be #1.  It is a fundamental, and currently a terrible, fast-growing problem that’s about to result in massive inflation and turmoil.  The system of monetized debt begun here in 1912/13 has gone global, and is perhaps the biggest enabler of corruption.  But as with #2, it is well protected by the crony system.  
4. Rule of Law.  …Which of course means, kill “The Administrative State” of executive agencies and unelected bureaucrats that have taken unto themselves legislative, judicial and executive powers. This would cut a lot of stuff from what we’re calling “government” today. You may not like some of the cuts; but I’m certain you’d like the end result.
5. No more loaded bills. One subject at a time, and no earmarks/pork.
6. End special classes, special deals for special people – equality under law for all at long last.  This is partially implied/ included in #1, but needs to become a fundamental moral of our society if any real progress is to last.  And it would involve scaling back and phasing out many of the extraordinary powers, rights, perks and immunities granted to politically powerful corporate abstractions.  In other words, we need to stop fearing “Big Pharma,” “Big Ag,” “Big…anything.”  We’re all people here.  We should all be equal under the law.  That is certainly not the case now.
7. Sunset provision/amendment to refine and reduce the number of laws, and keep them few, simple and important so that our rules are:
   1. Few enough to actually know.
   2. Simple enough to actually obey.
   3. Important enough to enforce without exceptions or special classes.
8. Term Limits.  Let’s face it; voters haven’t been doing their part, and there’s no procedural fix for bad choices.  But term limits won’t happen until after voters make better choices.  Similarly, I have for decades favored alternative voting schemes like Condorcet, Ranked Choice or Approval Voting (RCV or AV).  And I definitely love the idea of increasing the number of representatives to better suit our population; and we have the technology to keep them in their districts with more local accountability.  But we won’t get such changes UNTIL we get rid of the politicians who like things the way they are.  That’s why I’m placing term limits last both procedurally, and in importance, because we’ll get term limits only after a sufficient number of people wake up and act appropriately such that we fire the bad guys and, at least for the short term, defuse the huge advantage of incumbency… particularly the power of “committee” rulers based on tenure.   …But after that cultural epiphany and revolution, their kids and grandkids will gradually fall asleep again.♣   That’s just how civilizations inevitably decay and die.  If we’re to delay our self-destruction at least a little, we need term limits shorter than human life expectancy…particularly in the context of tenure/corruption-based power structures.

To summarize, I want to cut the cost, intrusiveness, abusiveness and ineffectiveness of our central government by actually cutting powers, programs, agencies…and people, from that government. I mean to establish a truly federal (instead of our increasingly unitary) government as defined by the authorizing compact.  I want to make living life more voluntary, and much less driven by deceit, tribalism, anger, fear, mandates, prohibitions, and an impenetrable thicket of taxation.

♣A good part of my reasoning for term limits is encapsulated in this quote:  “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” ― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

I believe it takes “strong men” (strong-minded, individualist, non-tribal voters) to fire bums and clean up corruption.  But the “weak men” (look around) who follow will let anything go, and continuously reelect bad politicians…or let the whole system collapse.

They Crossed the Rubicon

For Immediate Release, October 31, 2016

Contact: Andrew Horning

They Crossed the Rubicon

Freedom, IN – What is human history but a litany of warnings? How many cassandric founders, US Presidents and activists warned us about the advancement and corruption of political/crony power against individual human rights?

Throughout all the human history we know, the default human state – the human norm, has been oppression, slavery, genocide and war. Liberty and justice have always been rare exceptions.

Throughout most of our history, and still today, most of “the media,” in whatever form reporters have existed, have been the mouthpiece of power and tribe; agents of propaganda rather than honest town criers.

I thank God for the chaotic angel called Wikileaks. But Wikileaks isn’t enough.

We find out about new “civil” police military tools and techniques (like bomb-bots!) only after they’re used. We learn about the effects of usurpation and trespass like the 2012 NDAA only after fully implemented and working against us.

In electoral politics today, being right is no advantage and being wrong is no demerit.

But you may want to look into my history of being right as I tell you that this is the truth: Our nation is in very, very serious trouble – the kind that people will some day look back upon, and shudder.

We could fix all this.  We could live in peace, prosperity, security, liberty and justice…for all.

But that would mean a very revolutionary change of heart, mind, and action.  No, not in the hearts and minds of our politicians…in us.

I pray for that change every day.  You should too; or pray that I’m wrong about what always comes next.

Liberty or Bust!

Andrew Horning

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Website http://andrewhorning.wix.com/horningforcongress

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